Anglepoise GoPro

A while ago I was given an anglepoise lamp. I already have one with a magnifying glass and light.

Although there was nothing wrong with it, it was just surplus to requirements, so I decided that it would make a good stand for a GoPro.

I like to create videos where I am working at a bench and a top down view is ideal.

I removed the lamp holder and the wiring and the lamp shade thing.

As luck would have it, I managed to fit a GoPro bracket directly into the pivot point.

The GoPro fitting was about 2mm narrower than the pivot point which I just packed out with a couple of washers.

Attached the GoPro and job done.

It looked a bit weird, but quite a good result really.

About a week later I thought that it might be a good idea to have some kind of lighting for the camera.

Fortunately I hadn't gotten around to throwing the lamp shade away.

I had a strip/roll of LEDs that I had used bits of, so after sticking down a GoPro mount, I placed a strip in the inner rim of the lamp shade.

I found an old 12v transformer that was left over from an old router that got replaced, and wired that into the original switch, plugged it in, and I had light, not that bright because the LEDs are not up to much, but a light nonetheless.

I re-attached the lamp shade and fed the wire back through the arms as it was originally.

Although it worked reasonably well, I found that positioning the camera correctly was a bit trial and error, due to not being able to see the rear screen of the camera any more.

The lamp shade had air vents in it so I removed a few of the fins, glued the wiring out of the way, and now I have a window through which I can now see the rear screen of the camera.

I remember reading about the GoPro App for my phone so I went and did a little research, downloaded the app and started playing.

Following the on screen instructions, I was able to pair my phone to the camera very quickly.

Now I can turn the camera on via my phone and view what it sees without the need to look through the little window that I made.

I can also start and stop recording via the phone so now I don't have to edit out the bits where my hands are in full view pushing buttons on the camera.

I tried to download a video from the camera to the phone and then to my PC.

Yes, it is doable, but takes a lot longer than removing the SD card from the camera and copying the files over manually.

All I have to do now is remember to turn off the wi-fi on the camera to preserve the battery.

This took approximately two weeks to complete, although in reality, it actually took a couple of hours effort.

The video that I created with this setup and have linked to, is for another Instructable that I am in the process of called Arduino Dice