GoPro H3 poor battery life - solved

[MrDieselTwitch]

So I don't know who else has this problem but it bugged the hell out of me. I would be riding along. do some thing awesome, crash or any thing else worth getting on camera. I look down at my go pro and the battery had died long ago....

These batteries are sadly underpowered. at most they last 1.5 hours. in the cold its even less and at 20$ a pop you have to spend 100$ or more to be able to recored an entire days ride. On top of that who wants to be changing out batteries every hour....

So here is what I came up with.

I found a Dummy battery. drilled a hole in the back of the go pro cover and fed the wire threw a grommet. This keeps it snow tight (not water tight) I then made a barrel plug connection from a 15Ah (Equal to roughly 15x standard gopro batteries) battery. Im guessing battery life will be between 13-15 hours. Enough for two days worth of riding. Ill run out of storage long before I run out of battery power!

 

The Dummy Battery came from Cam-do.com
and the 3.7V Battery came from Batteryspace.com

 

Edited February 9, 2014 by MrDieselTwitch

[CaptainKnobby]

Thats pretty slick.  What is the wire plugging into on the backside of the Gopro battery?

[MrDieselTwitch]

Thats pretty slick.  What is the wire plugging into on the backside of the Gopro battery?

 

the wire is built into the dummy battery. its a fake battery that just makes the connection to the camera, where a normal go pro battery would go

[CaptainKnobby]

Oh!  I see now.        That's pretty neat!............Now you can ride all day an film.

[Trailryder42]

Where did you find the dummy battery, or is it a regular battery that someone has taken apart and removed the cells out of?

[womble9]

Neat fix. One of the things that's put me off getting a go pro for a long time has been that the battery will dead well before the end of my ride / race. I guess you could use a bit of silicone to seal the hole making it waterproof too eh ?.

[Bernie9]

That is awesome, and very well thought out. Now someone needs to solve if you are recording or not....

[Harvo]

I also would like to know where the dummy battery came from.  To me... that is the crux of this whole modification and a detail that you sort of just skimmed over. 

 

Great Idea though.

Edited February 8, 2014 by Harvo

[MrDieselTwitch]

I also would like to know where the dummy battery came from.  To me... that is the crux of this whole modification and a detail that you sort of just skimmed over. 

 

Great Idea though.

 

 

Hahah sorry I wrote my post late in the evening

 

 

The Dummy Battery came from Cam-do.com

and the 3.7V Battery came from Batteryspace.com

Edited February 9, 2014 by MrDieselTwitch

[MrDieselTwitch]

Neat fix. One of the things that's put me off getting a go pro for a long time has been that the battery will dead well before the end of my ride / race. I guess you could use a bit of silicone to seal the hole making it waterproof too eh ?.

 

Its defiantly water tight for racing, puddles, ponds, rivers and rain. Now if you scuba diving in the ocean.... no

[SS109]

Which dummy battery are you using, the one with the voltage regulator or without? I'm assuming with VR since your battery pack is a multi-cell setup, yes?