In-board camera installation

[MrMik]

I am about to install a 360fly camera into a surfboard so that it records the action under the board, particularly what the fin/s are doing.

I would like some advice on how to create a suitable hole in the board and then seal and reinforce it again.

The board: TSA McCoy Flax Nugget, 8’0 x 22’’ x3.125  (68L)

http://surfboardagency.com/flax-eps-epoxy/

http://surfboardagency.com/mccoy-all-round-nugget/

I have already added a 12’’ single fin box to the board. 

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The camera: I managed to snatch up a used 360fly 4k at a reasonable price: https://www.goodgearguide.com.au/review/360_fly/4k-camera/618537/

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The board is easily thick enough fore of the single fin box to accommodate the entire camera, so that only the lens will be protruding from the bottom of the board. I plan to find the peak of the ‘Loaded Dome’ and install the camera right at the peak and in the centre line. This will be somewhere just fore of the center 12’’ fin box. The board is stringerless and very light and stiff, I don’t think the performance characteristics will change perceivably due to the camera hole. 

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I am working on a 3D design as camera housing. The housingwill either be installed permanently into the board, or possibly screwed into the hole after threading the hole somehow. A dummy insert (instead of the camera) will be used when I am not using the camera, so that the boards bottom will again be very similar to it’s original shape. The camera will be screwed to a lid, which in turn screws to the top of the (?glassed-in?) camera container. The deck will be flat and strong, but the camera will be easily accessible in the surf to turn it on and off, so no battery capacity and video storage space is wasted. If the housing ends up being permanently installed, then I will probably design it with exchangeable inserts, because I am uncertain exactly how wide the lens hole needs to be. Because the camera records not only 360deg horizontally, but also 240deg vertically, it might matter if it pokes out a a fraction of a mm more or less. I don’t think I can determine exactly how far the lens needs to protrude before I have a suitable hole in the surfboard.

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The camera measures 60mm from the tripod-screw end to the peak of the lens; 48mm to the rim of the lens; and the lens diameter is 40mm.

The camera will therefore add a 12mm high and 40mm wide dome to the boards bottom, I don’t know how much drag that will cause, but I hope it will still surf well.

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At this stage, I think I will use an 86mm hole saw to make the hole in the board , and design the final dimensions for the housing once I know how wide the hole is when it has been sealed and re-inforced.

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The sealing and re-inforcing of the hole is where I need some advice. 

Will it be sufficient to apply epoxy resin to the sides of the hole and epoxy a 3D printed cylinder into it, or should I also add FG cloth layers? And how many?  How can I achieve a reliable and long-lasting waterproof seal between the deck and bottom of the board, and the cylinder wall of the hole, without causing any protruding lumps on the bottom of the board?

I think it might help to scratch out some foam (after drilling the hole) just under the deck flax and bottom glass layers to create a larger bonding/sealing area.

Any hints much appreciated! 

[Surffoils]

Looks like a brilliant idea.

 Do you have to make the ‘bubble’ proud of the hull ?

 Why not recess a 1/4 inch + or - it so you still get 180 but without the bump sticking out as much ?

[MrMik]

@$1

Do you have to make the ‘bubble’ proud of the hull ?

 Why not recess a 1/4 inch + or - it so you still get 180 but without the bump sticking out as much ?

Certainly a good thought, but I’m not sure if that can be done without scratching the lens. A (concave) gap between bottom and lens might be causing more drag than if the lens sticks out a bit more. And a close fitting container touching the the lens will probably dull the lens. 

I reckon that the way I surf, it’s going to make no practical difference if there is a bit of a bump under the board!  

One way to find out would be to stick removable lens dummies to the board of a better surfer. That would be an interesting exercise all in itself. Imagine it turns out that a barnacle on the bottom makes no difference or even improves performance - the smartfin project would become a whole lot easier! 

[Surffoils]

I can’t say how much a concave would affect the board but years ago I did reverse channels by adding tapered foam ribs to the bottom of the board so the ribs stuck out from the flat hull.

 The drag from the ribs was enormous so it’s made me think that anything sticking proud of a hull is going to create drag. But considering the small size of your camera probably not a great difference.

 This will be a cool thread to see the build and footage.

[MrMik]

I did a bit more design work on the housing.

The general plan for now is to drill the hole in the surfboard, seal and reinforce it with glass fibre and epoxy.

Once the hole is sealed and reinforced, I might apply Gorilla PU glue to the walls of the hole and let it foam up to make a soft-ish foam layer.

The housing should then be able to cut a thread into the PU foam without getting anywhere near the sealing and reinforcing epoxy/glass layers, and the housing will be removable in case it gets damaged or needs to be re-designed.

The prototype shown will need some fine tuning after printing, and again once the hole is in the board, to adjust the height perfectly. 

Once the camera fits well into the housing, then I’ll know what size hole to drill. 

[wrcsixeight]

Do you have any broken boards you can practice the install upon?  If not, well,  it is EPS, you can use glass over a few coolie lids and practice installing it.  No sense in experimenting on the real McCoy until you gained some experience on practice material.  Do you have much experience laminating cloth over a larger surface?

 

Any hole in the hull cloth is going to form some degree of a weak spot, causing the board to flex more right at that spot, to some degree, so spreading the load across the existing  surface glass around that hole in the hull should be considered, especially on a stringerless board.  It is kind of like an unrepaired rail ding  right at the front foot on a heavily used board, the whole board flexes right at that spot and sucks in more water deeper each time, with more incurred flexing and weakness as the fiberglass and foam below fatigues more and more faster and faster.  Such rail dings right at the front foot of a HPSB is also quite noticeable to the rider as it flexes right there and feels dull and extra squishy.

 

  Since your Mccoy is a bit bigger and a single fin your back foot will be fairly close to the intended camera location and the board will be trying to flex more right there, even without the camera installed, so I believe that extra cloth on the hull to spread this load around the hole you intend to cut is required.

 

  Perhaps a diamond or oval  shape extra patch or 2 of of cloth should be added around the hole cut for the housing, to spread the load.   Perhaps 2  unequal size layers at 45 degree angles to the centerline, stringer, if it had one. 

 

 Feathering in another layer of cloth onto the hull of an already glassed board will require sanding a much larger portion of the hull than that which the new glass covers, so the new fill coat can be spread smoothly and mechanically  bond properly, and be sure to sand down through the fill coat until you just touch the weave of the original cloth before laying on that additional layer(s).

 

I think if you drill the hole and simply reinforce the inside of that hole, without glass over the hull to spread the load,  it would make the board flex even more right there.

 

The underwater video I have captured shows a lot of bubbles traverse the hull at paddling speeds. I think this is assisted by the nose concave in my traditional longboard trapping some air from chop and funnelling it below and off the tail.   My test vehicle’s hull  has perhaps 2 dozen of minor sealing repairs that I basically taped off, covered with perhaps 1/16" to as much as 1/8" of epoxy and removed the tape, and called it done.  Never bothered to sanded them flat or blended them i just wanted them sealed so the cedar did not turn black, or blacker.  One day I will sand the whole hull and refinish it.  They sit quite proud, and I can see in the video, when paddling or at near  max hull speed of the board riding a wave, no evidence of their presence, and cannot feel their drag either.

  So, I do not believe your camera dome will pose much  if any noticeable drag to the board at all.  Especially since your fins have significantly less drag than standard accepted fin shapes. But I do wonder about the video captured downcurrent of the dome.

 I am very interested in the video you capture with the super wide angle with camera on the hull and especially considering Australia’s usually much better water clarity then California’s.  I can barely see reef passing below 5 feet away and do not think I have captured any video with greater than 10 or 11 feet of clarity.

 

Have you tested the camera yet? If so, How is the underwater  sound quality?  On mine I can yell underwater 24 inches from the camera and barely hear it.  As you know most of the noise captured by my camera is chop tapping the hull of my hollow wood board and resonating, and bubbles moving past the camera body the latter to a much greater extent.

 

I am going to change a few variables and record some more in the next few days on the same board with different fins, and hope for better water clarity.  I expect to see much more fin tip vortex with fins other than the harftubs and gullwhales.  Just how much is unknown as of yet, but seeing a visible tip vortex with the harftub or GW fin is pretty rare, but also pretty neat…

 

Though I really do not want to ride my traditional fin again as the GW fin is so superior in what I wish to do on a longboard, even when it is dragging seaweed. 

 

Any chance of another fin package arriving anytime soon?  I am down to one trustable GW fin, and I keep having nightmares that it snaps off and I am Gullwhale finless. I got harftubs to spare but the GW is just better. 

Am Also eager to try that AlbatrossWhale fin.

 

 

 

 

[MrMik]

@$1

Do you have any broken boards you can practice the install upon?  If not, well,  it is EPS, you can use glass over a few coolie lids and practice installing it.  No sense in experimenting on the real McCoy until you gained some experience on practice material.  Do you have much experience laminating cloth over a larger surface?

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Well, my other boards are mostly ‘real’ McCoys, i.e. handshaped originals. This one is a TSA popout, but nevertheless a good board I suppose. I have not really caught any good waves on it yet, but that’s not the board’s fault as far as I can tell.

Good points about the weak spot and more flexing being caused right where I don’t want it…if it flexes at all where the hole is, then the seal will likely break and start to soak in water.

One helpful factor is that the McCoy ‘Loaded Dome’ peaks between the foot positions for powerful turns. 

I don’t want to enforce the bottom of the board, that would mess more with the bottom contours, but I could add a large amount of glass to the deck, left and right of the hole. 

Maybe I will glue in the camera housing after some dry tests, so that it becomes a load bearing part totally integrated into the board.  

I have not tested the camera much, just recvorded a bit of video and looked at it on the computer, without even installing the phone app that turns it into 360 surround video. I never really thought about the sound recording. I expect it to be useless, and the microphone (it might have 2, not sure) will be inside the surfboard and record the creaking and cracking of the weak spot in my board… Not useless maybe! 

I have just started a camera dry test, which instantaneously proved to be quite useful, because I noticed that the bottom of the camera has an LED ring that shows the same colour as the single button. So I’ll add a hole to the housing lid, then I will be able to see if the camera is still recording by looking at the deck of the board. This test will show if the camera has enough battery capacity, and if it gets very hot when recording continuously in a closed environment. Don’t want my board to catch fire …

 

 

[MrMik]

The 360fly camera turned itself off after about 45min of recording, surface temperature 55C. It remains to be seen if that was a self-protection mechanism to prevent heat damage, or end of battery.

The camera was very well heat-insulated in a double-shell prototype housing. In real use, it would not get that hot because water would flood the housing while surfing. I might have to add some holes to aid water flow for cooling purposes.

After a couple of minutes cooling, I could turn it back on and it is again recording. Looks like it has over-heating protection built in. Nice!

[wrcsixeight]

Well, if extra cloth on the hull is out, then another method will likely be required to prevent that hull lamination from stretching right there, at the camera hole.  The domed deck helps no doubt , but more glass on the deck is not going to prevent that bottom lamination from stretching  and the board flexing more right at the camera hole, to any significant degree.

 

Will your foot location possibly  be placing any stress on the camera/housing  itself too?

 

The camera hole is going to induce a weak spot right there.  Whether this will be significant enough to actually snap the board is unknown and debateable, but if it does break it might crush then possibly eject the camera.

 

Perhaps if a cylinder is punched through the board then you can dig out some foam on both sides of the hole and add some roving to bridge the hole lengthwise adhering it to the existing lamination’s underside, outside the cylinder.  Use gravity, one side at a time.

 

Perhaps any additional strengthening of the existing lamination around the  proposed camera hole is unnecessary.  I D K.

 

 

 

Have you seen how they keep some types of wood from splitting using a butterfly from a different piece of wood?

 

Perhaps something like this could be adapted and sunk into the board, but with no flat edges running perpendicular to the stringer/centerline  The Bond strength to both foam and the glass would be pretty important

 

https://www.popularwoodworking.com/projects/butterfly-inlay

 

My camera is definitly warm,  to near hot when approaching  the end of its battery life running continuous for ~85 to 90 minutes, well shy of its claimed battery life, but some of that is what I wrap the camera in hiking back to my vehicle, and I am not sure if the battery has died until I unthread the cap.  The video usually records much or all of the hike back.  I do not want to open it up to turn it off on the beach with wet sandy salty fingers.

 

A few times I ran it on land with a fan aimed at it, from full charge, with tailcap off, and still got well less than the claimed battery life.

 

 

Keep in mind Lithium batteries prefer to rest at 50% charged, rather than 100% or 10% state of charge.  If it spends its resting shelf life closer to 100% SOC, or 10% then it loses its capacity faster that it would if it was allowed to sit at 50% SOC.  Lithium batteries do not have much self discharge, likely less than 1% per month at 25C, so its storage method before your purchase of it could have affected its capacity and longevity.  There is no way to restore that lost battery capacity, and likely no way to replace it.  Best thing one can do is to insure that when unused it is in the 40 to 60% charged range, and that can be a pretty big guess.

 

 

 

 

[jrandy]

Sounds like a fun project Mik.

Short term I would make another threaded piece to be glued (or siliconed to isolate it from board related stress?) into the boand versus attemping to wet mold threads with PU.

Have you done any testing of the camera in the water?  It would be awful to do a whole board to find out the camera is not in the right spot or right depth to record the action.

Long term you could have a purpose-driven board with double stringers around the camera and/or maybe some unidirectional glass or carbon on the bottom.

[MrMik]

I got a total of 95min recording before the battery was empty. I’m not sure if it was completely full before the test.

I’ll charge it fully and try again.

The storage appears half empty, so it may be possible to record 2 sessions (charging between them) before downloading the video data from the camera.

Need to install the app and see what the settings are. The time seems off and needs to be set properly, too.

One big question is if I will be able to sync this camera with the Trace device. That would be neat. But even if it does not automatically sync, I should be able to manually correlate the speed and turn angle to the video footage of a ride. 

[MrMik]

Another camera test after a full charge resulted in one video file of 58:18 duration, then the camera turned itself off for some reason. It was in the printer enclosure, probably around 25degC temp. I did not monitor it’s temperature.

A further 38:47 video recorded after I turned it back on and left it out of the printer enclosure, in about 20C air temp.

So a total of 1h 37min recording time, or 97minutes.

A hole needs to be added to the lid, so I can see if the LED is still on while surfing.

I did not try to turn it on a third time, a bit stupid. Maybe there was more in there, I don’t know.

Storage space again a bit more than half-full.

The housing has been printed and works very well.

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I like jrandy’s idea to use silicone. I’m now thinking about using some sort of highly flexible expansion joint sealantas the final layer to seal the hole. That way, even if the board flexes at that weak line, at least it will not start to take in water.

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I have a half-baked idea to reinforce the area by pushing carbon -strips under the glass and under the flax. Carbon fiber strip & bar

I already have some of the 6mm x 4mm x1000mm and the 6mm x 1mm x 1000mm strips.

I imagine I’ll cut about 100mm long pieces (6mmx4mmx100mm) and shape the ends like a chisel, so it gets pushed close to the inner surface of the glass when pushed into the foam from inside the camera hole. Push in a bit further toward fore, then push in toward the tail. Remove, inject epoxy, then put the carbon strip back in and let it set.

The question is if that introduces additional weakness or not. I’ll have to scrape out a fair fit of extra foam lateral to the hole so I can insert the strips. It would be best if they were parallel to the (non-existing) stringer, but maybe a slight angle will allow minimal damage while adding one strip on each side of the camera hole.

 

[wrcsixeight]

A potential issue with the use of silicone caulk, is that if it needs to be removed, it is quite difficult to do so, and once removed, it is extremely difficult to get anything to ever stick there again.   Even  Scrubbing with a solvent and steel wool or green scrubbie might not allow the adhesion of anything to that surface ever again.

[Surffoils]

My eldest son came back from 12months in Canada looking exactly like your avatar.

windswept, exhilarated and very hairy.

[MrMik]

@$1

A potential issue with the use of silicone caulk, is that if it needs to be removed, it is quite difficult to do so, and once removed, it is extremely difficult to get anything to ever stick there again.   Even  Scrubbing with a solvent and steel wool or green scrubbie might not allow the adhesion of anything to that surface ever again.

Good point, it’s a one-way process.

But some flexible sealers can be sanded and painted, they must be based on something other than silicone.

[wrcsixeight]

When that photo was taken she was still afraid of the ocean.  But That ball in her mouth took an oceanward bounce off of a cobblestone shortly after, and she redirected without pause in after it.   I then threw it in deeper water and she charged after it taking lines of whitewater on the chest, and once she realized she could swim, it was on.

She has since done many underwater cartwheels in the shorebreak, and comes up snorting with the same glee she shows after having  successfully chased off a murder of crows. It is quite comical.

I expect one day she will ride a wave with me.  I have seen her stop chasing the ball and watch a surfer cruise by just outside the shorebreak, then look back at me, tail wagging. She has also run upto the lost wavestorm or two and got atop them. 

Pretty sure she gets it, but she needs to learn not to swallow so much Pacific.

She is a Polish Lowland Sheepdog.  Seems to be a goofy and smart breed.

 

When it it time to go I have to put her collar and leash back on in the water and drag her out.

 

Takes no less than 4 hours for her fur to dry, and then a seeming pound of sand can fall out.

 

Worth it.

[MrMik]

I think I’ll place the camera in the midlinejust in front of the fin box, see photo where it is pemcilled in.

Because it needs a bit of space between the camera and the fin box for the reinforcement layers, I’ll place the camera so that the ‘Loaded Dome’ logo stays intact. 

Hopefully that margin will be enough to prevent bending and cracking at the camera hole later on.

I intend to lightly sand the area between the tape edges with about 80grit paper, but not in the center, so that the marker remains visible for drilling later on.

Then wet the taped off area with Zerovoc UV curing resin, place about 4 layers of round-ish FG cloth, slightly smaller ones on top, soak them well and then place a plastic film on top, most likely from some zip-lock bag. The thicker, the better it seems, experiments are ongoing. 

When I have worked out all the bubbles and the FG cloth is invisible and flat, put it in the sun to cure in a few minutes. If it does not work out, I can wipe it off without exposing it to UV and re-consider.

Wrcsixeight has given me a lot of tips, thank you very much! 

[MrMik]

I found it very tricky to determine how much/long/deep to sand the bottom of the board.

I used a tiny piece of 80 grit wet and dry paper and my hands. At first, dry sanding with vacuum hose close to control the dust, but that clogged up the sand paper too much. So I got a small pot of water instead and wet-sanded it.

I can not see any fibres becoming visible, but I think I must have reached the FG layer, particularly in the middle, where the camera-hole will be. I sanded deeper in the middle to find out if I eventually see some change that tells me when it’s enough, but no such luck.

Wiping with ethanol or acetone makes it shiny again, and I suppose that’s counter productive because the scratches are smoothed over. 

4 layers of FG cloth are ready for the next sunny day when I have time have a go at it with the UV epoxy resin.

[MrMik]

I decided to add a 5th layer of cloth.

3hrs from start to putting the board in the sun, not a quick process, but a decent result, judging by the amount of resin I was able to squeeze out of the lamination.

It remains to be seen what occurs when I try to take the plastic film off later on…

I cut holes in the cloth to make space in the middle - this allows to move resin out of the cloth in both directions.

Painting the prepared area with Zerovoc resin, then placing the first layer of cloth, concentrating on the correct placement at the outside, because the inner part will be cut anyway.

[MrMik]

I confused the third layer with the paper towel and wiped my gloved hands on it, but it still lay flat very nicely without noticeable difference to the other layers.

A wall plastering plastic spatula and a rounded metal scraper, both sanded blunt carefully, were most useful to move air bubbles and excess resin toward the outside or toward a hole cut in the plastic film in the centre.

Squeeze the bubble in the middle to get the resin out. At first, I only poked a small hole in the middle, but later I cut a larger hole. My fear that air might somehow re-enter through the central hole was unfounded.

It takes many passes with the spatulas, first the red one, then the smaller metal one, and of slowly deminishing returns to remove most of the excess resin. It would be stressful with catalysed resin, but is a pleasure with UV resin, listening to interesting podcasts while slowly working toward a result that has little more excess resin than vacuum bagging. 

The cloth does not turn entirely clear with the Zerovoc resin.