Camera waterproofing - prototype

Position

A little testing with position before I change the mount to try and avoid the horizon exactly lining up with the top of the windscreen.

This is with my mount right side up and the camera base level with the bottom of the roll-bar:

...at the same height and in front of the roll-bar; my preferred location at the moment:

...and sitting about 10cm below the bar, roughly driver eye height, good view but will make the mounting more complex:

I think I'm going with level/in front of the bar - temporarily I'm going to simply mount the U clamp upside down and do a little testing.

Waterproofing

I'm not looking for hermetically sealed, waterproof, more a little wind protection and preventing the camera being lost due to a little rain. The first thing to try is a small acrylic display box 10cm x 7cm x 7cm - I have two of them from eBay:

First picture is the control, taken without the box & second through the side of the acrylic; noticeable loss in detail on the grass & bricks close up - might not be noticeable when moving though? The acrylic does scratch like crazy though so may not be practicable other than keeping the rain off:

 Dremel out to make some modifications & the mk1 waterproof box is begun:

Short test video; The box is having an effect - especially reflections; possibly off the top surface which needs masking out:

This version is the prototype to check things out - if the position is good I may re-work the mount so it enters via the bottom of the box and reduce the chance of water ingress. As much weather is pulled in from the back of the car due to its aerodynamics as comes in from the front. I also have some glass UV & polarising filters on order from eBay which may mount directly in front of the lens and reduce the impact to picture quality.

Camera test run video

The weather cheered up today; so excellent opportunity to test out the new camera mount with a quick run around the block:

Takeaways:

• Picture looks fine in terms of quality - 1080p takes an age to edit and upload though so working at 720p for now.
• The simple bracket is rock solid, no camera vibration that I can see.
• Sound is distorting probably due to wind buffeting directly into the mic.
• Camera position means the horizon vanishing point is right along the windscreen - I may change the camera up/down by a couple of inches to correct that.

Seems ok though - does the job.

Camera

Camera stage 1, I'm using a Mini 0801 1080p Dash Camera with GPS. Its not meant for outside use so will have a number of modifications including lens protection and a waterproof box - to come later.

Video spec: 1080p (1920x1080) 10.1Mbit/s mono sound 48Khz, .Mov wrapper

Usually the camera lives in my day to day car, using it in the Zero is an experiment & trying to avoid too much expense; like the idea of the GPS,  G logging, auto start on power up and cycling of the  storage card. A 32Gig card should last for around 6 hours driving before it starts to overwrite older files.

First step is the mounting; I want the typical view including the driver/cockpit and out over the bonnet, so some sort of roll bar mounting. Pictured is the mk2, also considered options of sticking it on the high level brake light.

The mounting is a 54mm exhaust clamp, 1.6mm stainless plate & webbing to protect the roll bar, Trying to keep to the KISS principle:

Once I've settled on the position I may trim the U clamp ends. The right hand picture shows what is left when the camera is removed; just the GPS unit.

The first test shot shows I need a little adjustment to get a level horizon. The camera is very wide angle which shows up on anything close as curved verticals but generally unnoticeable in normal use looking down a road etc:

...and a quick sit in test to check the view when the driver is in place. I think the flicker is the tube lighting in the garage:


Still a little cold/late for a test drive, perhaps at the weekend.

Pinball Gasket cutting and fixing a leak

I've had a small water leak since the car has been built; a drip onto the clutch housing.

After assembling the thermostat housing & mounting it to the engine I did check back on Paul's build, Paul was building roughly at the same time as me, and he took good advice from GBS to clean up the mating surface between the housing and the connecting pipe - I hadn't on mine & thought it would be fine - and turned out (touch wood) that area was fine for me.

However;

The other mating surface between the black right angle pipe and engine head was not flat enough and should have been cleaned back to bare/flat metal. The powder coat on this face was too lumpy for the gasket to seal properly & hence my leak.

Took the whole assembly off & cleaned up this face  to be completely clean of powder coat and smooth to the touch & flat - looks much better now:

Somewhere online, after I cut my other gaskets, I saw the trick to cutting bolt holes - rather than cut them out with scissors or knife a sharp tap with a ball hammer will cut the holes in exactly the right place using the edge of the hole itself.

Of course I don't have an engineer's hammer - but - inspiration - do have a pinball (used to have a Judge Dredd machine for some years - another high maintenance toy which I can recommend if you like playing & tinkering with solenoids & bulbs :) -

Given a tap from a rubber hammer the ball had the right effect - clean chads & holes produced:

Re assembled, gasket in place with a smear of instant gasket paste. I'll let it go off overnight then re-fill and see if it made any difference.

Update - Now my water temp sensor, the dash one, is working properly. Penny just dropped, the dash temp sensor relies on an earthed body, with the powder coat between the thermostat housing, bolts and engine in place the housing (& attached sensor) had a bad earth & thus the sensor was always reading low.

No effect on the ECU temp sensor, cooling, fan etc - the ECU temp sensor has its own ground feed.

Tonneau - revision

The mk1 Tonneau suffered from ballooning when driving. The low pressure behind the windscreen made the whole passenger side lid section balloon upwards - while not going to cause failure, I made some revisions to correct it.

50mm webbing sewn in a cross with a tab in the middle to attach a simple hold down strap inside the car:

Drum tight now on the passenger side & no need to change the drivers side - the car is never moving when that is in place:

Tonneau - complete

The final piece of the tonneau completed this morning - asymmetric top panels to allow more shoulder room when driving and the passenger side only is fitted. As before zips either side as well as lift the dot fasteners hold everything together:

The worst part is sewing in the seat back pockets on a standard sewing machine - the result is passable, a little gathered/bunched stitching in places.

The two front corners & back edge will probably need a little velcro to hold them down and prevent buffeting; I need to take it out for a test run before deciding exactly how/where though.

The fabric is waterproof Cordura, however plainly stitching it will affect that but should still keep the worst of the weather on the outside of the car.

Update - Mk2 revision to stabilise the passenger side lid