[CoinSlot]

Soooooo I am looking at making a tank mount for my Ninja.

These days I've been riding around with this in my helmet. It records my rides for either nice playback of a fun ride but mostly just incase something goes wrong. I've had a few good clips of crazy drivers putting my life in danger.

The little cam is fine but I want a better solution for when I start doing track days. So I was looking around at mounting solutions and I've decided on something like this:

It's simple, sturdy and will protect the camera from debris in the air. Problem is it's hell expensive, especially from the Aus distributor.

So I want to get one cut up myself. It's looking a little something like this:

Full size: CLICK

I did the measuring yesterday and the CAD work at the office today. Obviously I still need to design the actual mount plate for the camera but I should be able to fab that up at home, maybe.

There's my presentation, now some questions;

Has anyone had any laser/water jet cutting done before? Roughly how much does it cost to have a single item like this done?

If I were to get a bunch cut up would anyone be interested in buying a mount?

Are filler holes on bikes all the same size? I know the bolt pattern may differ but if I got them made "drill-your-own" style would they then fit on other bikes?

That's about all I can think of right now ;D

 

[Felix]

Think it would be a little tricky to make it omni bike, the circumference of the filler would be different as well.

Good design, only one issue is the vibrations, since its steel on steel and then a large weight on the end of a long 'shaft' might equal some wobbles...

Just a thought.

Felix

 

[CoinSlot]

Light camera, strong alloy?

It will be 10mm or so thick 6061. Can't see that being too wobbly.

 

[Felix]

Yeah you either go one way or the other. Cushion the shock or over engineer it out.

My gopro is pretty good with vibration, plus alot of camera's these days have anti vibration settings.

Felix

 

[CoinSlot]

Problem though is anti-vibration plus CMOS sensors with rolling shutter usually equals jello footage.

There doesn't seem to be any budget HD CCD cameras either. I will be trying out my HD cam first (Canon HF200) and then working it out from there.

Do me a favour and measure the inside and outside diameter of your tank filler. Pretty please?

 

[Felix]

ZX6R?

Felix

 

[CoinSlot]

Yes please. Just seeing if it's at all similar to the baby Ninja.

Mine is 76 ID and 100 OD for reference.

If ANY bike is similar that gives me a better chance of offloading some mounts if I get a few made up.

 

[Delta107]

Great Idea!

 

[Felix]

Yes please. Just seeing if it's at all similar to the baby Ninja.

Mine is 76 ID and 100 OD for reference.

If ANY bike is similar that gives me a better chance of offloading some mounts if I get a few made up.

I'll check tonight.

Felix

 

[CoinSlot]

I did a quick bit of research at lunch today

I cut out some paper into a doughnut with the 76mm ID and 100mm OD and went for a walk to the nearest motorbike parking. First bike was a mate's so I didn't feel so weird hanging around other people's bikes...

He has a Triumph Street Triple R and it was a perfect fit. Even the bolt pattern was the same. Checked some other Yamaha thing and the ID was the same but the OD was slightly larger. Different bolt pattern too.

So it looks as though the ID is going to be pretty constant. Which makes sense being that all the nozzles should be the same for ULP drinking vehicles.

Need to get some quotes on the cutting...

 

[BlackBoar]

My friend who built the Honda bobber had to buy a used tear drop tank to replace the Honda's original sport tank. He discovered that everywhere he checked was the same, all the tanks were sold without filler caps. The price was for a tank only and the filler cap was always a seperate item you had to buy. I just put that out there as it makes it seem like filler caps may be somewhat universal afterall. They'll have some differences as you have already found, but they may be more standardized than you thought. Maybe check with a motorcycle salvage place?

 

[CoinSlot]

I have received one quote back today. It works out to be about $30 for each mount.

That's just for the basic pieces. Then I have to think about the actual mounting plate and how to make that adjustable. Bolts etc have cost too.

If I can work out a cheap/easy base plate then it might be worthwhile.

This cutting place wants me to have 10 cut so an initial outlay of $300. That's about the price where I start thinking if I have a bunch of these laying around at the house not being sold...

 

[CoinSlot]

So I gave up trying to get one cut myself due to price.

I have ordered one of THESE to try out.

Looks a little shitty but it's only $30US so not a big deal if it ends up being rubbish.

 

[BlackBoar]

That looks pretty good.

 

[Felix]

Doesn't look that bad... let us know.

Felix

 

[CoinSlot]

Here's what I did today. Mount still hasn't turned up so I taped my camera to the bike.

Footage turned out super shaky and not a good measure of what the footage will look like with the proper mount. I'm tempted to buy a ContourHD 1080P anyway for when I go snowboarding in August.

 

[Felix]

Haha, ghetto!

You done much reading about the contorhd? People having trouble with losing video's and stuff?

I can't remember, did you say why you didn't want to get a gopro hd?

Felix

 

[CoinSlot]

Size and shape mostly.

If I find a picture of it looking good on a helmet, I might sway. As a package it does seem better. Out of the box waterproof, better microphone, a billion mounts.

But look at it!

 

[Felix]

Hahaha, yeah I had it on the side of my helmet the other day, and when you're doing over 160km, you know about the wind resistance!

I had it on the side... doesn't look that dicky. Then I use the suction cup on the tank, and a clamp on the bar end looking back at me.

Felix

 

[CoinSlot]

Do you have any low-light or night time footage? I know that you can't see much at night but I saw some night footage of the ContourHD and it was pretty good.

I'll be riding with it every time I get on the bike. Good insurance in case some nutter runs into me.