I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT THIS: putting a mirror on the outside of a rocket IS another option, but it ends up cutting into the camera's field of view really hard, so I'm not a fan. To get the same FOV as having the sensor outside, you'd need a larger mirror which would add to overall drag more than the sensor itself. Anyway - lots of ways to solve the camera problem!
Thermal paste is designed to be applied very thin to fill in the microscopic surfaces in the materials, it isn't actually that good at conducting heat. Covering things like caps and resistors will just make them hotter as you're containing all the heat around them with all that paste.
Yes thermal paste isn't a very good thermal conductor. Heat transfer is a complicated thing and it's hard to know if it hurt or helped without doing some calculations. If I remember my heat transfer equations correctly, the ideal size for wire insulation for cooling is k/h, but obtaining the value of h is not trivial. Thermal pads are frequently used to cover gaps on the order of maybe 1-2 mm to a heatsink in electronics
I was thinking K5 PRO would be a better fit here, since it's intended as a thermal pad replacement. Obviously, either way, his application worked out just fine for him.
@DaimyoD0 if I was going to all this effort to make a 4k cam I could move between rockets/my future projects I would use a metal housing filled with a dielectric liquid oil to exchange heat to the case and then heat sink the case. I would mount the lense flat on one of the sides of the metal case, mount the case completely internal to the rocket and use an angled mirror like a periscope on the outside to get the angle/shot I want. I do get that weight and size are a factor, but that's what I'd do.
I spent some time trying to come up with a clever way to have a camera on my land speed car that doesn't add much drag. I was considering drilling a lens-sized hole in the side and sticking half of a 360 camera up against the inside. So I'd have a 180° lens just slightly poking out the side, which would give me front, back, and side views with basically no drag penalty.
I liked your solution on the top of the fin. I wonder if you could use the 360 degree cameras in little fins like that in other places. I don't know the convergence point of the two 180 degree lenses, but presumably it's at least a few inches, so you could have a pretty good streamlined fin hidden inside the convergence zone that the camera wouldn't see. It would add a few weird little fins to the car, but probably wouldn't have a terrible drag penalty on something that size.
To me that would be the obvious solution here too. Stick one lens out one side, the other lens out the other and stabilise the image in edit. That would solve the roll issue he was having too.
An ultrasonic knife would make cutting open the case much easier. It doesn't wear out like a wheel, it doesn't spray particles around, and the knife can't cut most of the things inside (while the dremel will cut through anything).
@@T-Ball-o NO, do not fuck with xylene. Are you mad ? Are you hoping that people will follow your advice and you're chuckling about it because you know what Xylene is and the hazards it brings forth ? Or are you dumb ?
Ultrasonic knives are absolutely awesome... and annoyingly expensive. I so want one, but I don't want to spend like $500 to $1,000 for one that isn't crap. Arg.
while you do that im going get these small cams in ur backyard to watch you make that rocket project.. thank u imagine all the other things people can do and place them
Thermal paste like that is not designed for those thicknesses. Part of the reason the stock unit used thermal pads. You're looking for thermal putty like K5 Pro. Also, thermal mass buys you time but little actual dissipation. Remember, a heat sink works to dissipate more heat than the equivalent non-ribbed mass of the same material thanks to not only surface area for airflow but also radiation. Lastly, spreading your thermal paste onto non-heat-generating components might induce a failure by conducting heat to to those SMD components which wouldn't normally be heated (though, probably not a serious concern).
Seeing people slather thermal paste makes me cringe. I bet these people who load their shit up would probably freak out that I don't use enough but yet I never have heating issues and get excellent performance.
I think part of the reason he didn’t use a heatsink is because the options are put it inside the rocket or put it outside the rocket. Inside the rocket doesn’t do much good because it’s a tight, sealed space with no airflow. Outside a rocket would be very difficult to do without impacting aerodynamics. Adding thermal mass might not be the best solution, but it is a good enough solution, and knowing when to call something good enough and walk away is really important in engineering.
"you cannot daisy chain them together, that does not work" I haven't dealt with these specific Flat Flex Cables but I have put a truely frustrating number of hours and dollars into getting longer cables for an Arducam. The key thing I eventually understood was causing a great deal of my frustration is that FFCs have a special property, the chirality of the cable is determined by whether the ends of the cable are on the same side or opposite sides. Critically, the two arducam products I bought expect to have a crossover cable, where the connectors are facing opposite directions, so the pins are reversed between a pair of sockets that have the same Up (nothing can be consistent). This adds a multiplication step. Crossover connectors are times -1, an even number of them daisychained balanced out into a straight-thru cable, while an odd number is the same as a longer crossover cable. Straight-thru cables are times 1, they do not modify the situation no matter how many you have. But you may require the situation to be modified. So you can do extensions with 3 crossovers or 1 crossover and 1 straight-thru, but one straight-thru on it's own or two crossovers will cause a chip on the sensor board to get very hot, potentially destroying it, I got lucky. This is specifically in regards to the SD extender, if you can find a combination of extenders that are built different, you may be able to daisychain them. By all appearances the control board to sensor FFC is straight-thru, the lever arm style sockets have the cable's contacts facing the PCB and the lever pushes the cable down into the socket's contacts; while the sockets with a black U shaped piece you push in have the cable's contacts facing away from the PCB and the U piece is a wedge that shoves the cable up into the socket's contacts. btw, based on how your screwdriver isn't mating well with those two phillips screws, I suspect they're actually JIS #0 or #1, which have a shorter tip and a steeper angle on the flutes. When you put a similar size phillips bit into a JIS, the flutes only barely touch at the inside corners of the cross, making them strip easily. Again with the laptops, HP used JIS for a minute in the early 2010s, and Lenovo does whatever they want, as hard as they want, at all times. This just means Gopro was beating you at the weird use of a cross-head screw game.
honestly, companys should sell naked versions of their products more often. I understand why they don't; certification, import rules, and a long, long list of other problems come to mind. but damm would it be useful and interesting.
@@owensparks5013yes a company called framework sells their laptop this way, you can buy a complete laptop or a bare bone laptop and buy l Displays, motherboard, io battery etc and assemble it yourself... Many people just bought a motherboard and made a compact/mini pc with it.
Thanks! It's so exciting to be able to come along with you on your journey. I can't afford much, but these last two "No effort November" videos have just been so good. I spent 27 minutes listening to your excitement about cameras and epoxy....and i feel like i totally understand the learning journey you took just to ensure we all get to watch what happens (plus data, ya ya). Please continue the style of no effort November. I wish I could afford more but sending a very small token just to say thanks, and you're awesome, and i look forward to your videos as much as a starship launch.
I agree, since metal actually doesn't have very good thermal mass, you would want to use something a lot more "dense" like wax or mineral oil. Another idea would be to use a heat sink and use the thermal mass of the air in the body tube (more weight efficient), however I have no idea how effective that would be in practice.
@@BPSspace If you have the mass budget, you can just hot glue a "floor" to one end of the camera section and pour molten paraffin in to make the camera section solid with a bit less mass imbalance. Sealing the other end is optional, but probably worth it to keep the mass in a predictable place once it starts melting and to keep the liquid available as a thermal conductor. edit: my experience is not with rockets, and the overheating electronics have never been cameras for me. But a plug/bath of paraffin is a useful hack for a lot of projects with sealed electronics packages where you are too lazy to plumb proper cooling.
EGO actually uses this method on their power tool batteries to extend their runtime. The battery is set to go into thermal shutdown a few degrees higher than the wax melting point, so you get the entire phase change period of the wax for "free".
15:13 - I believe the base in most thermal compounds is a silicone oil. This is per derbauer who works at thermal grizzly, a thermal paste manufacturer for PC components.
I'll 2nd that, it's what I've heard too. I think those little single-use packets of white thermal compound U get with CPUs are sometimes even labelled: "Silicone thermal grease", silicone oil being the base ingredient. Silicone oil is also used as a... Um... "Nosecone" high quality lubricant that doesn't slowly dry out during intended use (unlike more commonly used water-based lubricants). Tho it should NOT be used if your nosecone is also made of silicone rubber, since they will cross-react & slowly degrade the silicone rubber. Just incase anyone wanted to know where to easily get off-the-shelf silicone oil 😁
Honestly you should totally get the goggles for the O3 unit as using those units in the future will be cheaper than continuously buying GoPros. Also, seeing the video feed live through the goggles is an amazing experience.
For increasing runtime, it may be worth investigating phase change materials, which can absorb heat by melting a solid material. I've seen this used in a firefighting thermal camera to protect the insides from external heat. No idea on sources/types I'm afraid!
Yeah this. There's even the potting epoxies meant for potting electronics for enhanced environmental resistance and many of those are thermally conductive.
A thin film of non-electrically-conductive material followed by a conductive epoxy with higher heat conduction would probably be ideal. That said, the thermal paste is a really simple solution. There's a LOT of value in just doing something that works, even if it is a wild abuse of thermal paste.
Agreed an its not even that hard to self make a thermal epoxy, look for the channel Tech Ingredients and his adventure into making a thermal epoxy that outperformed some of the best thermal pastes with Linus Tech Tips
Let's be honest. You don't want a GoPro sponsorship; you want a FoxConn sponsorship. You want all of the GoPro parts in a custom frame that's specific to your needs. That's no what GoPro does, that's what Foxconn does.
have you considered using a normal camera inside the rocket, pointing at a mirror protruding frome the airframe, like some kind of periscope? and if yes, what has motivated your choice?
the pinned comment explains this, but in case you didn't see it: the FOV of the footage will be limited to the size of the mirror, so if you have a 2 inch size mirror (which will be about the same amount sticking outside the airframe with his setup), your fov will be severely limited compared to the wide(r) angle lens the GoPro gives you with the same amount of drag.
u have no idea how much this video helped me, i was trying to build a camera into glasses so i can film stuff on the street incognito and i gave up 2 days ago because i ripped the ribbon cable and i was already at my 2nd gopro hero 12 ruined for this project and i could not afford going further like this, but your video helped me finish this, so i swear, one day, i'll get back to you if this project finally works, thanks again man, you have no idea how much this helped me
11:26 Made me realize just how close "Mic Hole" is to "My Goal". Also the settings in the QR code able to be scanned in the extra barebones model is so cool, I wish it was added to other brands as well, like DJI and Insta360.
Joe, you're quickly becoming my favorite channel. Perfect mix of tech, fab, action, and "humor". I didnt realize until I saw you posted a new vid and it made me really happy.
Dude, these have gotten good, like I’m not watching bc rockets, I’m watching bc of the engineering jokes and that it validates the wacky design decisions we all make. Keep it up!
I love it when I see someone else also bought the absolute cheapest version of the tool I want on amazon. More than once in a video is just the cherry on top
Using the DJI goggles is a great idea Imagine being able to watch the footage live as you shoot the rocket up and record simultaneously on the device itself and the goggles at the same time and if you add more equipment to it you could stream it as well live 💡
I’ve been watching you since the beginning, and you are an inspiration. You’ve come so far as a scientist and an engineer, please never give up. You’ve got this, just keep going!
The first thermal paste application is not really necessary imo. The factory thermal paste should be 'adequate' under most circumstances, even if you consider the extremes as in your case, THAT much thermal paste does more harm than good. Contrary to it's name thermal paste is not really a good conductor of heat, now don't get me wrong, it's certainly better than air, but it isn't very good. It's job is only to fill in the microscopic air bubbles between heatsink surface and processor package. Usually you want as thin layer of it as possible, so that heat can travel most efficiently. If you put a thick layer of thermal paste, it may actually act as insulator. Instead what I'd recommend is that you repaste the processor (if really necessary, probably run some tests to see if there is any difference) and you should be good. On a side note, I have a question.... Can't you use some kind of air diverter to provide some airflow to the camera. I mean if there is a system which has lower drag losses as compared to adding extra mass to the rocket, it will be better. Edit:- Maybe you could machine the aluminium in shape of heat sink and add a small fan inside? (I mean 2 flat surfaces for the cameras, and instead of solid aluminium it will have fin like structure in between). It will also provide some airflow for other components on the board. I had seen a video on Linus Tech Tips regarding a piezoelectric fan which has high static pressure, maybe that could be used. Edit 2:- you should also clean the surface of aluminium with something like IPA or Acetone so that you have a clean surface for thermal paste to adhere to. And one more thing I forgot to mention, the 'spreading' of thermal paste may introduce some bubbles which may not be fully removed, so it would be better to use zig zag lines of paste and apply pressure to the aluminium block. This will squish it together and reduce the possibility of air bubbles and also result in thinner layer of thermal paste.
7:45 we used similar cables to these with Ardupilot/PX4 flight controller. They failed to log about 9/10 times, perhaps they use i2c instead of the full SD bus.
Go pro seriously need to think about it and redesign a modular “pleaceable” configurable camera to fit inside this, submarines, rc’s, helmets or anywhere you need, it would make them provide solutions in to a market never thought yet. Meanwhile it happens you can try the new runcam thumb 4K, it seems have great features and quality and affordable price. Your heat aluminum dissipating block could be upgraded by making a CNC cutting diamond or strip pattern, it can add more dissipate surface to the block
I second the runcam suggestion! Pretty good quality for such a cheap/light/small camera. You can make it even smaller/lighter by stripping the case, and it also has the QR settings system that the GoPro has
what about a aluminium heat shield that also holds the lens in place and is mounted on the outside of the rocket? Like its inside but its flush with the rocket wall and theres a cutout so the aluminium has direct contact with the outside air. this would work as a nice heatsink and allow you to cool your camera for basically free (energy and space wise).
I was thinking the same thing, and since he is already mounting the cameras in a section of tube, making the tube the heat sink might save some weight. Having the heat sink in the air flow would make it more effective. Maybe even add a few fins. He needs to get JLC3DP as a sponsor and 3d print such a metal camera mount.
Just a little heads up: Thermal paste only does it's job properly if it is applied THIN. If you apply too much of it in a too thick manner, it will not do what it is made to do. Which is transfer the heat as good and as quick as possible onto a metal surface.
With regards to SD cards, and knowing you've lost a few of them to some harder-than-optimal landings or McYeeting camera's out of the airframe at some point during flight, have you considered adding some sort of "Black Box" type containers for your SD-cards, or by extension, for your flight data? Now that you're going higher and faster with each launch, the possibility of permanently damaging them without recovery options gets higher and higher. And by black box I mean like actual aircraft flight data recorders, with the memory units inside some container with shock absorbtion and a tough case. Since you're using SD extention cables anyway you might as well put the other end of that extender somewhere safe so that footage and flight data stay protected in case your rocket decides it want to come down as fast as it went up.
An aircraft "Black Box" is located in a known high survivability location. They are well insulated against fire, but not as armored as people think. Four of my rockets have survived impacts with the ground without loss of data or connection to the SD card. These impacts ranged from 600G’s to a little over 900G’s. At these high deceleration loads you want the least amount of mass potentially moving. The SD card and socket have very low mass. Placement of armor around them only increases the potential of damage. Placement of electrical tape on the SD card and socket increases the survivability. Fins and nosecones are areas of high survivability.
I think you should try the o3. It’s the same quality video as a GoPro but much less expensive even if you got an entirely new set of goggles for every rocket it’s still cheaper. The o3 is $180 and the cheapest set of goggles from DJI is $230 180x3+230=$770, 770 is less than 900. It’s also smaller, lighter, you would be able to see live video from the rocket, you can move the camera around without needing to take the entire thing apart, and if you do need to it’s just 4 screws.
Sounds good to me too. I'm puzzled why he resists the o3 also. You can pair the goggles to each new set of o3 modules just keep adding them to the goggles. You only have to set it once and you're good. He'll only need 1 set of goggles and you can verify the settings before launch each time. You can even start recording with the same enable function. It's almost like he thinks that the goggles and o3 are an exclusive matched set of something. I don't understand the issue of having to set record settings once for each camera ONCE. Can't you start recording from the flight controller just like the Go Pro?
I know that sharkbyte has a digital camra like the DJI one I dont think its FHD but its super small and im pretty sure as long as you get their decoder you can use it with anything
That could work, but it doesn’t fix the ultimate thermal mass issue. The cameras are sealed inside a tube, there’s no air going in or out. That air will eventually heat up, so the problem remains. That could achieve a better weight:thermal mass ratio though, as the air is already in there.
That thermal paste layer is WAAY too thick to transfer heat to the aluminium block. It's made to brige tiny gaps between heatsinks and chips, not millimeters.
It's amazing to see the camera have increasing current usage as it heats up. I think it shows the concept of how components use more current the hotter they get, which i think is tied to how conductors have more resistance the hotter it get.
QR code for settings changes sounds extremely convenient! ..And an extremely interesting attack vector :) Change the resolution, fps. It looks like you might even be able to "stop" recording but unclear if thats purely a USB trigger.
Joe, silicone thermal conductive glue is made for this. It's thermal paste but hardens like RTV silicone. No goop leakage issues, no epoxy mess, great vibration tolerance, and it's dirt cheap. Other comments have suggested wax thermal mass. Mix melted wax with diatomaceous earth or fumed silica to make paste thicker than peanut butter. A phase change from solid to non-flowing paste is much lighter than metal for equal heat capacity. The wax does expand slightly on melting; reusable pads would need a bag similar to an ice pack. For this application just buttering the board with thickened wax would be sufficient, though I'd still recommend gluing the buttons.
Thermal paste is basically made of silicone oil as a liquid base and various additives like metal oxides as a thermal conducting agent. And for your use there is a stuff called "liquid thermal pads" which would be more suitable for this kind of applications.
You are probably the only person who is interested in the o3 air unit for recording and not the video transmission. That's why it needs goggles by default.
11:30 - thermal paste isn't that good of a heat conductor for filling gaps, it would be more effective to apply paste and squish a chunk of aluminium or copper to the plate that actually fits *inside* the rim or fill the space with a metal shim. EDIT - OK, seems good enough anyway. 15:09 - usually some sort of silicone oil
Really enjoy your videos. Always so impressive to see how much you've learned since the last video and how willingly you share your newfound skill and the problems you experienced along the way. You're a good guy. We are fortunate to have you.
You know, you could have just use a small high quality mirror outside of the rocket so that you wouldn't have to deal with all that. Secure the gopro in the rocket, mount a mirror out of the rocket and with a small opening and you're done. No seriously I'm just curious, have you ever considered that?
Hell, why not 2 fans!? One pushing and one pulling. I know weight matters but lose that brick or aluminum for a fan and a proper heat sync with ptm7950 and I feel that would yield much better results. I ain't no rocket scientist tho.
@@damagecase13 Yeah a heatsink is just something to dump heat into I do believe they go over why a Finstack wouldn't work/why ot wouldn't be practical. In an enclosed rocket there's not much air to go around to cool it.
Have you ever thought about putting the camera completely inside and pointing it towards a hole, and place a 45deg mirror on the outside facing downwards?
Any reason you didn't use small heatsinks (like the ones used for VRAM) on the SOC/CPUs? You might've been able to save a fair bit of weight, if that's relevant.
Heat dissipation wont be good after being smothered in epoxy, a block of aluminium will give more thermal mass for the size. Metal to air thermal transfer efficiency was not the target here 🙂
Never thought of that trick! Joey B: “Yeah, I’ll have one of these as well.” Cashier: “Ooh exciting night ahead, huh?!” Joey B: “Oh yeah, this is going on my meat... Rocket nose cone for a RUclips video.” Cashier: 😮
Some days later to report: yeah, doing the gopro desiccation it the "easiest" most efficient method. I even discovered that space X has a similar approach and in the past also used GoPros (not sure if they still use)
Drill holes into the auminum, fill with water and plug. Water is just OP when it comes to thermals. 4.6 times the specific heat capacity of alumnium. it even beats it in volumetric heat capacity by a factor of 1.7
RunCam now also offers the Thumb 2. It can record 4K60, it has a similar QR Code feature, stabilization is available for e.g. 4K30 and you can trigger a recording via PWM. We plan to fly it on a next launch, because we had a lot of problems with the Split H. The SD Card reader did not secure the card properly and we bricked a lot of them. Will be interesting to see. But we still need to test how quickly the Thumb 2 will overheat with no airflow 😂
It is probably worth buying up a few broken gopros off ebay, if you're already going to be doing what is effectively repair work anyway. Especially if you can find some that work except their screens are broken... Thermal pastes are generally made with something thermally-conductive (and sometimes electrically-conductive) suspended in silicone oil, though the really high end ones can use an incredibly high-grade synthetic oil with thickeners to get the viscosity way up, because vibrations can make the two surfaces act like a pump and push thinner oils out. Thermal paste is for filling in microscopic imperfections in two mated surfaces. It is a lousy heat sink itself and not even great at heat transfer; it's just better than air pockets. If the goal is to optimize heat transfer from chips to a heat sink, more thermal paste is exactly the opposite of what you want. Nothing compares to direct contact between the two; if you need something to bridge a gap, a microns-thick layer of paste on either side of a high-conductivity shim is going to do far better than the equivalent thickness of paste. If the two surfaces can already touch, lap them so they touch more. Speaking of silicone, a flexible potting material is far better for high-vibration environments than a rigid epoxy; yes, a rigid epoxy will keep connectors together, but then the flex is simply transferred further up the cable. Coating the cable ends in aquarium glue, though, will dampen the vibrations instead of just moving them around.
I wonder if using prisms can be a solution for cameras. The camera is inside the tube, and only the prism sticks out and redirects the view of a camera. Maybe it can be done even with off-the-shelf prisms, or maybe there is a way to make custom prisms at home.
I worked on cameras for the Artemis missions. The cameras mounted on the solar arrays are GoPro Hero 4 Blacks that have been ruggedized and have new lenses.
Super cool to see you fixing these kinds of issue, cuz a lot of hobbyists are probably in the same boat as far as being dissatisfied with the runtime of the GoPros Because you're going to be exoatmospheric for a little while during the space shot, have you considered trying an evaporative/sublimation cooler? The hardware would be able to dissipate a ridiculous amount of heat pretty quickly - around 2kJ/g if my math is right
Having watched the live stream, it made me giggle when you said at the start you'll get to the heat solution.... loved the stream about this teardown btw, it would be fun to see more of those
Could mirrors work? As in same camera module inside, and a mirror that is sticking out? Maybe it's easier to assemble and it could probably be set up in a way where you can reuse the cameras
On the DJI thing: DJI also makes bog standard 3.5mm jack microphones, sell them separately from their standard kit... And they don't work on non-DJI gear. I'm almost impressed how they managed to do that.
Put a thin aluminum sheet band around the rocket tube. Leaving a square hole in the rocket tube so you can thermal mount camera to the inside of the aluminum band. This would transfer the heat to the outside of the rocket in the air without much resistance at all
By the way, you can get cheap aluminium heatpipes in a flat form factor. 2mm and 3mm thick is common and you can bend/shape them to attach to the CPU or thermal block of the camera. This combined with shaping it to actually snugly mate with the surfaces and not filling giant holes with thermal compound instead should make wonders.
You may want to look into using thermal epoxy and thermal pads, thermal paste isn’t meant to conduct for long distances its just meant to fill in tiny imperfections in the surface of a CPU and a cooler. It could actually be that some of the components get insulated by all that paste.
Thermal paste is really good at filling small voids between two pieces of metal that are pressed together. Thermal putty or really soft thermal pads would probably be better for filling up large voids and uneven surfaces. You could also look into finned copper or aluminum heatsinks that are the same size as the block you put on the back, they're better at dissipating the heat.
You should watch the 360 drone video from corridor crew. they show off a camera that allows you to put a lens on on either side of an object to create a seamless 360 video. this would mean with only two lenses you could choose whatever framing you wanted and stabilize for rotation. It might not be a perfect solution, but I feel like 360 videos would be sick
Those Micro SD extensions have a 15 Pin 1.25mm spacing cable. If you want a "custom" length you can just buy some 15 Pin 1.25mm FPC and connectors and solder the connectors in place of the default wired cable. Plus if the FPC breaks it can just be replaced.
Something that might be worth looking into is phase change materials. Sounds fancy, but NightHawkInLight has some home garage recipes for them made from common stuff you can get. Instead of increasing thermal mass by adding more mass (which isn't great for flying things!) you have the material go through a phase change, think like ice that melts. That requires a lot of energy to push the material past the temperature at which it transitions phases, so in essence you can store cooling potential in something that is solid at room temperature and goes mushy liquid at silicon-getting-warm temperatures.
The "Phillips head" screws are probably JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard). They look like phillips head, but have a slightly different shape in the "cross" and require a JIS driver to fit snugly.
Oh and good thing that right angle cable finally worked because connectors DO wear out. I don't know what the spec is for those ribbon cable connectors but it can't be more than a dozen connect/disconnect cycles or so.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT THIS: putting a mirror on the outside of a rocket IS another option, but it ends up cutting into the camera's field of view really hard, so I'm not a fan. To get the same FOV as having the sensor outside, you'd need a larger mirror which would add to overall drag more than the sensor itself. Anyway - lots of ways to solve the camera problem!
I suppose a curved mirror and some fancy optics could make the mirror option work, but this seems easier!
You could probably tweak with lenses on a periscope.
why dont you toss a cheep heatsync on that plate instead of the aluminum block? I would think with the correct heat sync it would run indefently
Hi
Mirrors.. Trying mirrors. Periscope, microscope, cameras.. They work 🥸🧐
oh THATS why its the meat rocket
He said "best behavior" right? 😂
@@matthewellisor5835 *stretches condom over nose cone*
"Riiiiiight?"
He shows exactly why we need to be on out best behavior!
@@matthewellisor5835 He said "when we watch it". We can behave like troglodytes in *these* comments!
@@jlight7346 and the name...
Thermal paste is designed to be applied very thin to fill in the microscopic surfaces in the materials, it isn't actually that good at conducting heat. Covering things like caps and resistors will just make them hotter as you're containing all the heat around them with all that paste.
Yes thermal paste isn't a very good thermal conductor. Heat transfer is a complicated thing and it's hard to know if it hurt or helped without doing some calculations. If I remember my heat transfer equations correctly, the ideal size for wire insulation for cooling is k/h, but obtaining the value of h is not trivial. Thermal pads are frequently used to cover gaps on the order of maybe 1-2 mm to a heatsink in electronics
It's still better than air lol.
I was thinking K5 PRO would be a better fit here, since it's intended as a thermal pad replacement.
Obviously, either way, his application worked out just fine for him.
@DaimyoD0 if I was going to all this effort to make a 4k cam I could move between rockets/my future projects I would use a metal housing filled with a dielectric liquid oil to exchange heat to the case and then heat sink the case.
I would mount the lense flat on one of the sides of the metal case, mount the case completely internal to the rocket and use an angled mirror like a periscope on the outside to get the angle/shot I want.
I do get that weight and size are a factor, but that's what I'd do.
@@han5vk It's better than air conduction. I'm not an engineer, but I'd guess it's substantially worse than air convection.
I spent some time trying to come up with a clever way to have a camera on my land speed car that doesn't add much drag. I was considering drilling a lens-sized hole in the side and sticking half of a 360 camera up against the inside. So I'd have a 180° lens just slightly poking out the side, which would give me front, back, and side views with basically no drag penalty.
yall should team up and make the land speed car rocket powered
I liked your solution on the top of the fin. I wonder if you could use the 360 degree cameras in little fins like that in other places. I don't know the convergence point of the two 180 degree lenses, but presumably it's at least a few inches, so you could have a pretty good streamlined fin hidden inside the convergence zone that the camera wouldn't see. It would add a few weird little fins to the car, but probably wouldn't have a terrible drag penalty on something that size.
To me that would be the obvious solution here too. Stick one lens out one side, the other lens out the other and stabilise the image in edit. That would solve the roll issue he was having too.
FORESHADOWING
Project Binky and BPS Space ... where will Matt show up next? Great idea, btw.
JoeyB didn't forgor heat shrink, i'm so proud
An ultrasonic knife would make cutting open the case much easier. It doesn't wear out like a wheel, it doesn't spray particles around, and the knife can't cut most of the things inside (while the dremel will cut through anything).
or some xylene, which will make the plastic brittle and fall apart
There are plastics inside you want to keep, like the ribbon cable locks so that will ruin the whole thing @@T-Ball-o
using gopro is overall bad idea
@@T-Ball-o NO, do not fuck with xylene. Are you mad ?
Are you hoping that people will follow your advice and you're chuckling about it because you know what Xylene is and the hazards it brings forth ?
Or are you dumb ?
Ultrasonic knives are absolutely awesome... and annoyingly expensive. I so want one, but I don't want to spend like $500 to $1,000 for one that isn't crap. Arg.
The go pro case is amlost certainly ultrasonically welded together into a single piece of plasic.
Was thinking the same
yeah just like these nuts
@@penguiin12Nice.
@@penguiin12 lol
I'm not sure Joe is going to get a GoPro sponsorship after showing how janky the physical construction is.
This video came out LITERALLY as I was researching onboard cameras for my model rocket project. Thank you!!!
while you do that im going get these small cams in ur backyard to watch you make that rocket project.. thank u imagine all the other things people can do and place them
Thermal paste like that is not designed for those thicknesses. Part of the reason the stock unit used thermal pads. You're looking for thermal putty like K5 Pro. Also, thermal mass buys you time but little actual dissipation. Remember, a heat sink works to dissipate more heat than the equivalent non-ribbed mass of the same material thanks to not only surface area for airflow but also radiation. Lastly, spreading your thermal paste onto non-heat-generating components might induce a failure by conducting heat to to those SMD components which wouldn't normally be heated (though, probably not a serious concern).
Seeing people slather thermal paste makes me cringe. I bet these people who load their shit up would probably freak out that I don't use enough but yet I never have heating issues and get excellent performance.
I'd use a thermal pad because they are designed for more thickness
I think part of the reason he didn’t use a heatsink is because the options are put it inside the rocket or put it outside the rocket. Inside the rocket doesn’t do much good because it’s a tight, sealed space with no airflow. Outside a rocket would be very difficult to do without impacting aerodynamics.
Adding thermal mass might not be the best solution, but it is a good enough solution, and knowing when to call something good enough and walk away is really important in engineering.
I was thinking about phase change myself, but I've never used it and don't know how much it migrates when hot and vertical.
@@Grandwigg it stays pretty viscous even when liquid, but it doesn't conform to weird uneven surfaces like the PCBs here
"you cannot daisy chain them together, that does not work" I haven't dealt with these specific Flat Flex Cables but I have put a truely frustrating number of hours and dollars into getting longer cables for an Arducam. The key thing I eventually understood was causing a great deal of my frustration is that FFCs have a special property, the chirality of the cable is determined by whether the ends of the cable are on the same side or opposite sides. Critically, the two arducam products I bought expect to have a crossover cable, where the connectors are facing opposite directions, so the pins are reversed between a pair of sockets that have the same Up (nothing can be consistent). This adds a multiplication step. Crossover connectors are times -1, an even number of them daisychained balanced out into a straight-thru cable, while an odd number is the same as a longer crossover cable. Straight-thru cables are times 1, they do not modify the situation no matter how many you have. But you may require the situation to be modified.
So you can do extensions with 3 crossovers or 1 crossover and 1 straight-thru, but one straight-thru on it's own or two crossovers will cause a chip on the sensor board to get very hot, potentially destroying it, I got lucky. This is specifically in regards to the SD extender, if you can find a combination of extenders that are built different, you may be able to daisychain them.
By all appearances the control board to sensor FFC is straight-thru, the lever arm style sockets have the cable's contacts facing the PCB and the lever pushes the cable down into the socket's contacts; while the sockets with a black U shaped piece you push in have the cable's contacts facing away from the PCB and the U piece is a wedge that shoves the cable up into the socket's contacts.
btw, based on how your screwdriver isn't mating well with those two phillips screws, I suspect they're actually JIS #0 or #1, which have a shorter tip and a steeper angle on the flutes. When you put a similar size phillips bit into a JIS, the flutes only barely touch at the inside corners of the cross, making them strip easily. Again with the laptops, HP used JIS for a minute in the early 2010s, and Lenovo does whatever they want, as hard as they want, at all times. This just means Gopro was beating you at the weird use of a cross-head screw game.
I have wasted hours of time in integration hell chasing exactly this problem, hopefully it his comment save someone else the same frustration
I appreciate reading these details ... even if I never have to use the information.
To me, this is well-written for someone engineers/repairs things.
If this is 'No Effort November' then I can't wait until 'Diligent December'!
honestly, companys should sell naked versions of their products more often. I understand why they don't; certification, import rules, and a long, long list of other problems come to mind. but damm would it be useful and interesting.
I wonder if those rules could be "navigated" by selling "spare parts", preferably in a subassembly form...
@@owensparks5013-- Just selling spare parts in the first place would be fantastic.
@@owensparks5013they'll have to sell spare parts soon enough ;)
@@owensparks5013yes a company called framework sells their laptop this way, you can buy a complete laptop or a bare bone laptop and buy l
Displays, motherboard, io battery etc and assemble it yourself... Many people just bought a motherboard and made a compact/mini pc with it.
I don't think this would be a good idea for certain products 😏
Thanks! It's so exciting to be able to come along with you on your journey. I can't afford much, but these last two "No effort November" videos have just been so good. I spent 27 minutes listening to your excitement about cameras and epoxy....and i feel like i totally understand the learning journey you took just to ensure we all get to watch what happens (plus data, ya ya). Please continue the style of no effort November. I wish I could afford more but sending a very small token just to say thanks, and you're awesome, and i look forward to your videos as much as a starship launch.
you should use wax to absorb heat since it needs a lot of energy to melt. wax was also used on the electronics on the lunar rover.
I agree, since metal actually doesn't have very good thermal mass, you would want to use something a lot more "dense" like wax or mineral oil. Another idea would be to use a heat sink and use the thermal mass of the air in the body tube (more weight efficient), however I have no idea how effective that would be in practice.
A group called HyEnD actually does this! I think it works pretty well for them and their rockets, but the aluminum is a lot simpler imo :)
@@BPSspace If you have the mass budget, you can just hot glue a "floor" to one end of the camera section and pour molten paraffin in to make the camera section solid with a bit less mass imbalance. Sealing the other end is optional, but probably worth it to keep the mass in a predictable place once it starts melting and to keep the liquid available as a thermal conductor.
edit: my experience is not with rockets, and the overheating electronics have never been cameras for me. But a plug/bath of paraffin is a useful hack for a lot of projects with sealed electronics packages where you are too lazy to plumb proper cooling.
Ooh, and it's electrically insulating. Next time I have to pot something that's a real consideration.
EGO actually uses this method on their power tool batteries to extend their runtime. The battery is set to go into thermal shutdown a few degrees higher than the wax melting point, so you get the entire phase change period of the wax for "free".
15:13 - I believe the base in most thermal compounds is a silicone oil. This is per derbauer who works at thermal grizzly, a thermal paste manufacturer for PC components.
I'll 2nd that, it's what I've heard too. I think those little single-use packets of white thermal compound U get with CPUs are sometimes even labelled: "Silicone thermal grease", silicone oil being the base ingredient.
Silicone oil is also used as a... Um... "Nosecone" high quality lubricant that doesn't slowly dry out during intended use (unlike more commonly used water-based lubricants). Tho it should NOT be used if your nosecone is also made of silicone rubber, since they will cross-react & slowly degrade the silicone rubber.
Just incase anyone wanted to know where to easily get off-the-shelf silicone oil 😁
Honestly you should totally get the goggles for the O3 unit as using those units in the future will be cheaper than continuously buying GoPros. Also, seeing the video feed live through the goggles is an amazing experience.
And older dji used Goggles are pretty cheap right now
You can get HDMI out to a screen from the googles too, albeit probably delayed. I'd use a smallhd or some other pro camera monitor for it
O3 quality is nowhere near a proper action camera however. The point is to get the best quality video you can in a small package.
For increasing runtime, it may be worth investigating phase change materials, which can absorb heat by melting a solid material. I've seen this used in a firefighting thermal camera to protect the insides from external heat. No idea on sources/types I'm afraid!
you may want to look into thermally conductive epoxy/resin, it is used in potting IC chips
Yeah this. There's even the potting epoxies meant for potting electronics for enhanced environmental resistance and many of those are thermally conductive.
A thin film of non-electrically-conductive material followed by a conductive epoxy with higher heat conduction would probably be ideal. That said, the thermal paste is a really simple solution. There's a LOT of value in just doing something that works, even if it is a wild abuse of thermal paste.
Agreed an its not even that hard to self make a thermal epoxy, look for the channel Tech Ingredients and his adventure into making a thermal epoxy that outperformed some of the best thermal pastes with Linus Tech Tips
Cotronics in Long Island is probably the OG here.
I've been using their products since the early '70's
We use a thermally conductive electrical insultor compound for hardening brushless motors in combat robotics, would definitely be suitable here.
Let's be honest. You don't want a GoPro sponsorship; you want a FoxConn sponsorship. You want all of the GoPro parts in a custom frame that's specific to your needs. That's no what GoPro does, that's what Foxconn does.
have you considered using a normal camera inside the rocket, pointing at a mirror protruding frome the airframe, like some kind of periscope? and if yes, what has motivated your choice?
Just like my phone
the pinned comment explains this, but in case you didn't see it: the FOV of the footage will be limited to the size of the mirror, so if you have a 2 inch size mirror (which will be about the same amount sticking outside the airframe with his setup), your fov will be severely limited compared to the wide(r) angle lens the GoPro gives you with the same amount of drag.
The mirrors will add a good amount of weight and if you want to use plastic versions they are mostly expensive for a good quality.
@@Philly_Willy Could use a curved mirror surface and correct it in post.
@@Philly_Willy convex mirrors have higher FOV. And the curvature effects can be removed in editing.
u have no idea how much this video helped me, i was trying to build a camera into glasses so i can film stuff on the street incognito and i gave up 2 days ago because i ripped the ribbon cable and i was already at my 2nd gopro hero 12 ruined for this project and i could not afford going further like this, but your video helped me finish this, so i swear, one day, i'll get back to you if this project finally works, thanks again man, you have no idea how much this helped me
11:26 Made me realize just how close "Mic Hole" is to "My Goal". Also the settings in the QR code able to be scanned in the extra barebones model is so cool, I wish it was added to other brands as well, like DJI and Insta360.
Joe, you're quickly becoming my favorite channel. Perfect mix of tech, fab, action, and "humor". I didnt realize until I saw you posted a new vid and it made me really happy.
Always good to practice safe nosecone practices. Better for all. Nice explanation on the GoPro deconstruction.
I'd scrolled past this comment before I got to the nosecone bit of the vid. oooh that's what you meant 😂
Dude, these have gotten good, like I’m not watching bc rockets, I’m watching bc of the engineering jokes and that it validates the wacky design decisions we all make. Keep it up!
I have never clicked faster
Same
So true
fr
That is s o f r of you to say
You are not safe, this is restricted airspace bud
I love it when I see someone else also bought the absolute cheapest version of the tool I want on amazon. More than once in a video is just the cherry on top
In an unprecedented event, joe garnered 4 billion likes on X (formerly Twitter) resulting in this masterpiece being made publicly available.
Hi
Seeing the amount of paste applied on the livestream was surprising lol.
Joey B: "This stuff sure is expensive" *Squirts the rest of tube*
Now *this* is rocket surgery.
You beat me to it.
Even as someone who isn’t into cinematography I can immediately how much better then GoPro it’s great to see the extra effort for amazing footage
To cut the edges, you can make a jig to keep the Dremel a certain distance from the internals. A bit like (exactly like) a routing template.
Him holding the dremel in his hands as a vise makes me cry.
Using the DJI goggles is a great idea
Imagine being able to watch the footage live as you shoot the rocket up and record simultaneously on the device itself and the goggles at the same time and if you add more equipment to it you could stream it as well live 💡
new bps video = day can‘t be better
5:20 I believe that tape is more likely to be RF shielding to either block signals exiting the camera, or possibly entering.
BPS Space always inspires me
I’ve been watching you since the beginning, and you are an inspiration. You’ve come so far as a scientist and an engineer, please never give up. You’ve got this, just keep going!
The first thermal paste application is not really necessary imo. The factory thermal paste should be 'adequate' under most circumstances, even if you consider the extremes as in your case, THAT much thermal paste does more harm than good. Contrary to it's name thermal paste is not really a good conductor of heat, now don't get me wrong, it's certainly better than air, but it isn't very good. It's job is only to fill in the microscopic air bubbles between heatsink surface and processor package. Usually you want as thin layer of it as possible, so that heat can travel most efficiently. If you put a thick layer of thermal paste, it may actually act as insulator. Instead what I'd recommend is that you repaste the processor (if really necessary, probably run some tests to see if there is any difference) and you should be good.
On a side note, I have a question.... Can't you use some kind of air diverter to provide some airflow to the camera. I mean if there is a system which has lower drag losses as compared to adding extra mass to the rocket, it will be better.
Edit:- Maybe you could machine the aluminium in shape of heat sink and add a small fan inside? (I mean 2 flat surfaces for the cameras, and instead of solid aluminium it will have fin like structure in between). It will also provide some airflow for other components on the board. I had seen a video on Linus Tech Tips regarding a piezoelectric fan which has high static pressure, maybe that could be used.
Edit 2:- you should also clean the surface of aluminium with something like IPA or Acetone so that you have a clean surface for thermal paste to adhere to. And one more thing I forgot to mention, the 'spreading' of thermal paste may introduce some bubbles which may not be fully removed, so it would be better to use zig zag lines of paste and apply pressure to the aluminium block. This will squish it together and reduce the possibility of air bubbles and also result in thinner layer of thermal paste.
At some point I hope GoPro just contacts you and does a sponsorship where they give you 10 bare chassis to have fun with😂
I was shouting at the screen "DJI video system" until you mentioned it. Had no idea you cannot set it up without goggles, mind boggling!
it's still funny because a set of goggles is way cheaper than what he spends on three gopros
@@Mister_Brown sounds like a matter of principle, which I can understand regarding DJI
Because it's, like, meant to be used with goggles...
@@31pas0 this is called vendor lock-in
18:50 "I'm unwilling to consider that as an option." And all of us applaud you for that!
7:45 we used similar cables to these with Ardupilot/PX4 flight controller. They failed to log about 9/10 times, perhaps they use i2c instead of the full SD bus.
25:25 too late, i wont
Gotta keep that nose cone safe from space AIDS
Go pro seriously need to think about it and redesign a modular “pleaceable” configurable camera to fit inside this, submarines, rc’s, helmets or anywhere you need, it would make them provide solutions in to a market never thought yet. Meanwhile it happens you can try the new runcam thumb 4K, it seems have great features and quality and affordable price. Your heat aluminum dissipating block could be upgraded by making a CNC cutting diamond or strip pattern, it can add more dissipate surface to the block
I've had good results with the thumb 4K, but it's only 4K/60, so it can't compete with the 120 fps of the GoPro.
Much less expensive though.
I second the runcam suggestion! Pretty good quality for such a cheap/light/small camera. You can make it even smaller/lighter by stripping the case, and it also has the QR settings system that the GoPro has
No effort november just means that this becomes the rocket nerd’s favourite channel
what about a aluminium heat shield that also holds the lens in place and is mounted on the outside of the rocket? Like its inside but its flush with the rocket wall and theres a cutout so the aluminium has direct contact with the outside air. this would work as a nice heatsink and allow you to cool your camera for basically free (energy and space wise).
I was thinking the same thing, and since he is already mounting the cameras in a section of tube, making the tube the heat sink might save some weight. Having the heat sink in the air flow would make it more effective. Maybe even add a few fins. He needs to get JLC3DP as a sponsor and 3d print such a metal camera mount.
Just a little heads up: Thermal paste only does it's job properly if it is applied THIN. If you apply too much of it in a too thick manner, it will not do what it is made to do. Which is transfer the heat as good and as quick as possible onto a metal surface.
With regards to SD cards, and knowing you've lost a few of them to some harder-than-optimal landings or McYeeting camera's out of the airframe at some point during flight, have you considered adding some sort of "Black Box" type containers for your SD-cards, or by extension, for your flight data? Now that you're going higher and faster with each launch, the possibility of permanently damaging them without recovery options gets higher and higher. And by black box I mean like actual aircraft flight data recorders, with the memory units inside some container with shock absorbtion and a tough case. Since you're using SD extention cables anyway you might as well put the other end of that extender somewhere safe so that footage and flight data stay protected in case your rocket decides it want to come down as fast as it went up.
An aircraft "Black Box" is located in a known high survivability location. They are well insulated against fire, but not as armored as people think. Four of my rockets have survived impacts with the ground without loss of data or connection to the SD card. These impacts ranged from 600G’s to a little over 900G’s. At these high deceleration loads you want the least amount of mass potentially moving. The SD card and socket have very low mass. Placement of armor around them only increases the potential of damage. Placement of electrical tape on the SD card and socket increases the survivability. Fins and nosecones are areas of high survivability.
I think you should try the o3. It’s the same quality video as a GoPro but much less expensive even if you got an entirely new set of goggles for every rocket it’s still cheaper. The o3 is $180 and the cheapest set of goggles from DJI is $230 180x3+230=$770, 770 is less than 900. It’s also smaller, lighter, you would be able to see live video from the rocket, you can move the camera around without needing to take the entire thing apart, and if you do need to it’s just 4 screws.
Sounds good to me too. I'm puzzled why he resists the o3 also. You can pair the goggles to each new set of o3 modules just keep adding them to the goggles. You only have to set it once and you're good. He'll only need 1 set of goggles and you can verify the settings before launch each time. You can even start recording with the same enable function. It's almost like he thinks that the goggles and o3 are an exclusive matched set of something. I don't understand the issue of having to set record settings once for each camera ONCE. Can't you start recording from the flight controller just like the Go Pro?
I know that sharkbyte has a digital camra like the DJI one
I dont think its FHD but its super small and im pretty sure as long as you get their decoder you can use it with anything
Called HDzero nowadays, but definitely not worth the camera quality. Made for low latency HD
You can get some really tiny fans - may be smaller/lighter than a big heatsink
That could work, but it doesn’t fix the ultimate thermal mass issue. The cameras are sealed inside a tube, there’s no air going in or out. That air will eventually heat up, so the problem remains.
That could achieve a better weight:thermal mass ratio though, as the air is already in there.
That thermal paste layer is WAAY too thick to transfer heat to the aluminium block. It's made to brige tiny gaps between heatsinks and chips, not millimeters.
I originally thought the same thing but hey, it seems to work ok so it can't be all bad.
The stock design also has thermal paste
It's amazing to see the camera have increasing current usage as it heats up. I think it shows the concept of how components use more current the hotter they get, which i think is tied to how conductors have more resistance the hotter it get.
QR code for settings changes sounds extremely convenient! ..And an extremely interesting attack vector :) Change the resolution, fps. It looks like you might even be able to "stop" recording but unclear if thats purely a USB trigger.
Joe, silicone thermal conductive glue is made for this. It's thermal paste but hardens like RTV silicone. No goop leakage issues, no epoxy mess, great vibration tolerance, and it's dirt cheap.
Other comments have suggested wax thermal mass. Mix melted wax with diatomaceous earth or fumed silica to make paste thicker than peanut butter. A phase change from solid to non-flowing paste is much lighter than metal for equal heat capacity. The wax does expand slightly on melting; reusable pads would need a bag similar to an ice pack. For this application just buttering the board with thickened wax would be sufficient, though I'd still recommend gluing the buttons.
Count me in on the use of FPV goggles for flying rockets.
Thermal paste is basically made of silicone oil as a liquid base and various additives like metal oxides as a thermal conducting agent.
And for your use there is a stuff called "liquid thermal pads" which would be more suitable for this kind of applications.
You are probably the only person who is interested in the o3 air unit for recording and not the video transmission. That's why it needs goggles by default.
bro has so much experience, he has examples for everything.
11:30 - thermal paste isn't that good of a heat conductor for filling gaps, it would be more effective to apply paste and squish a chunk of aluminium or copper to the plate that actually fits *inside* the rim or fill the space with a metal shim. EDIT - OK, seems good enough anyway.
15:09 - usually some sort of silicone oil
Really enjoy your videos. Always so impressive to see how much you've learned since the last video and how willingly you share your newfound skill and the problems you experienced along the way. You're a good guy. We are fortunate to have you.
You know, you could have just use a small high quality mirror outside of the rocket so that you wouldn't have to deal with all that. Secure the gopro in the rocket, mount a mirror out of the rocket and with a small opening and you're done. No seriously I'm just curious, have you ever considered that?
Because of the FOV
The assembly shots inside of the garage are sooo cool. The lighting and angles are SO slick and professional. Another great video
11:50 why don't you just use a heatsink?
That _is_ the heatsink
A proper heat sink though. With fins cut into it etc.
Pair that with some PTM7950 and I bet he'd see some drastic changes.
Hell, why not 2 fans!? One pushing and one pulling. I know weight matters but lose that brick or aluminum for a fan and a proper heat sync with ptm7950 and I feel that would yield much better results. I ain't no rocket scientist tho.
@@damagecase13 Yeah a heatsink is just something to dump heat into
I do believe they go over why a Finstack wouldn't work/why ot wouldn't be practical. In an enclosed rocket there's not much air to go around to cool it.
@VaalkinTheOnly you're right. I should be more specific. A FINNED ALUMINUM heat sink
Have you ever thought about putting the camera completely inside and pointing it towards a hole, and place a 45deg mirror on the outside facing downwards?
16:36 he looks exactly like Elon musk here
Facts
small elon make small rockets
The narration in this video is super chill. I like it.
Any reason you didn't use small heatsinks (like the ones used for VRAM) on the SOC/CPUs?
You might've been able to save a fair bit of weight, if that's relevant.
Heat dissipation wont be good after being smothered in epoxy, a block of aluminium will give more thermal mass for the size. Metal to air thermal transfer efficiency was not the target here 🙂
Might want to look into a borescope camera.
25:18 ROCKET CONDOM
Never thought of that trick!
Joey B: “Yeah, I’ll have one of these as well.”
Cashier: “Ooh exciting night ahead, huh?!”
Joey B: “Oh yeah, this is going on my meat... Rocket nose cone for a RUclips video.”
Cashier: 😮
Glad its not just me
As an engineer, the title "Smallest 4K 120fps Camera Possible" feels like a challenge.
Some days later to report: yeah, doing the gopro desiccation it the "easiest" most efficient method. I even discovered that space X has a similar approach and in the past also used GoPros (not sure if they still use)
You sure you wanna call it "meat rocket"?
Love all the closeup shots you got over the gopro deconstruction
iPhone 16 pro😊 is 4K 120fps
I was about to say
Drill holes into the auminum, fill with water and plug. Water is just OP when it comes to thermals. 4.6 times the specific heat capacity of alumnium. it even beats it in volumetric heat capacity by a factor of 1.7
RunCam now also offers the Thumb 2. It can record 4K60, it has a similar QR Code feature, stabilization is available for e.g. 4K30 and you can trigger a recording via PWM. We plan to fly it on a next launch, because we had a lot of problems with the Split H. The SD Card reader did not secure the card properly and we bricked a lot of them. Will be interesting to see. But we still need to test how quickly the Thumb 2 will overheat with no airflow 😂
Also Insta360 Go 3S. Although he'd have to forgo the 4K 120 as it maxes out at 2.7K 100, but probably a good alternative for space tight options.
Brother in christ, OP has no plans for having a decent 4k camera. He just wants to disassemble stuff
It is probably worth buying up a few broken gopros off ebay, if you're already going to be doing what is effectively repair work anyway. Especially if you can find some that work except their screens are broken...
Thermal pastes are generally made with something thermally-conductive (and sometimes electrically-conductive) suspended in silicone oil, though the really high end ones can use an incredibly high-grade synthetic oil with thickeners to get the viscosity way up, because vibrations can make the two surfaces act like a pump and push thinner oils out.
Thermal paste is for filling in microscopic imperfections in two mated surfaces. It is a lousy heat sink itself and not even great at heat transfer; it's just better than air pockets. If the goal is to optimize heat transfer from chips to a heat sink, more thermal paste is exactly the opposite of what you want. Nothing compares to direct contact between the two; if you need something to bridge a gap, a microns-thick layer of paste on either side of a high-conductivity shim is going to do far better than the equivalent thickness of paste.
If the two surfaces can already touch, lap them so they touch more.
Speaking of silicone, a flexible potting material is far better for high-vibration environments than a rigid epoxy; yes, a rigid epoxy will keep connectors together, but then the flex is simply transferred further up the cable. Coating the cable ends in aquarium glue, though, will dampen the vibrations instead of just moving them around.
I wonder if using prisms can be a solution for cameras. The camera is inside the tube, and only the prism sticks out and redirects the view of a camera.
Maybe it can be done even with off-the-shelf prisms, or maybe there is a way to make custom prisms at home.
I worked on cameras for the Artemis missions. The cameras mounted on the solar arrays are GoPro Hero 4 Blacks that have been ruggedized and have new lenses.
I really enjoyed watching you modify the cameras on the livestream. it was a great chill hangout.
Super cool to see you fixing these kinds of issue, cuz a lot of hobbyists are probably in the same boat as far as being dissatisfied with the runtime of the GoPros
Because you're going to be exoatmospheric for a little while during the space shot, have you considered trying an evaporative/sublimation cooler? The hardware would be able to dissipate a ridiculous amount of heat pretty quickly - around 2kJ/g if my math is right
Having watched the live stream, it made me giggle when you said at the start you'll get to the heat solution.... loved the stream about this teardown btw, it would be fun to see more of those
Ughhh, that heat shrinking action was so satisfying!
I like the irony of a no effort november video about the recording and telemetry of a mach 3 rocket
Found the shorts as a suggestion and so I decided to come to the main watch the last and sub. Totally worth it.
That is actually insane, great job!
the QR code for camera settings is a super cool detail! one of those things that seems like it just makes your life easier.
Bro I was literally just binging old videos. Thank you
Could mirrors work? As in same camera module inside, and a mirror that is sticking out? Maybe it's easier to assemble and it could probably be set up in a way where you can reuse the cameras
On the DJI thing: DJI also makes bog standard 3.5mm jack microphones, sell them separately from their standard kit...
And they don't work on non-DJI gear.
I'm almost impressed how they managed to do that.
Put a thin aluminum sheet band around the rocket tube. Leaving a square hole in the rocket tube so you can thermal mount camera to the inside of the aluminum band. This would transfer the heat to the outside of the rocket in the air without much resistance at all
By the way, you can get cheap aluminium heatpipes in a flat form factor. 2mm and 3mm thick is common and you can bend/shape them to attach to the CPU or thermal block of the camera.
This combined with shaping it to actually snugly mate with the surfaces and not filling giant holes with thermal compound instead should make wonders.
You may want to look into using thermal epoxy and thermal pads, thermal paste isn’t meant to conduct for long distances its just meant to fill in tiny imperfections in the surface of a CPU and a cooler. It could actually be that some of the components get insulated by all that paste.
Thermal paste is really good at filling small voids between two pieces of metal that are pressed together. Thermal putty or really soft thermal pads would probably be better for filling up large voids and uneven surfaces. You could also look into finned copper or aluminum heatsinks that are the same size as the block you put on the back, they're better at dissipating the heat.
You should watch the 360 drone video from corridor crew. they show off a camera that allows you to put a lens on on either side of an object to create a seamless 360 video. this would mean with only two lenses you could choose whatever framing you wanted and stabilize for rotation.
It might not be a perfect solution, but I feel like 360 videos would be sick
Those Micro SD extensions have a 15 Pin 1.25mm spacing cable. If you want a "custom" length you can just buy some 15 Pin 1.25mm FPC and connectors and solder the connectors in place of the default wired cable. Plus if the FPC breaks it can just be replaced.
Something that might be worth looking into is phase change materials. Sounds fancy, but NightHawkInLight has some home garage recipes for them made from common stuff you can get. Instead of increasing thermal mass by adding more mass (which isn't great for flying things!) you have the material go through a phase change, think like ice that melts. That requires a lot of energy to push the material past the temperature at which it transitions phases, so in essence you can store cooling potential in something that is solid at room temperature and goes mushy liquid at silicon-getting-warm temperatures.
The "Phillips head" screws are probably JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard). They look like phillips head, but have a slightly different shape in the "cross" and require a JIS driver to fit snugly.
Oh and good thing that right angle cable finally worked because connectors DO wear out. I don't know what the spec is for those ribbon cable connectors but it can't be more than a dozen connect/disconnect cycles or so.
QR code configuration is so good. Even better when the codes can be printed to flash cards.