Scared your camera mount is going to fail you in the midst of a photoshoot, sending it into a fatal introduction with the ground? Concerned about a fox relocating your GoPro to an undisclosed location? This quick and easy hack can give you an added level of assurance. You can make a nice tether for your GoPro (or any piece of gear) that you can use to quickly tie the camera down with, giving you an added level of assurance, by following the simple steps of this hack.
Of course, this type of tether isn’t new or groundbreaking by any means. In fact, you can buy them already made for about $8. The benefit of making your own, however, is that you can make many tethers of varying lengths to make sure you’ll always have a tether that’s right for the job. Plus, it’ll only cost a few more bucks to make a collection of different lengths than it will to buy a single pre-made version.
Here’s What You’ll Need
- 1/16-inch Vinyl coated wire
- Wire crimping sleeves
- Crimping tool
- Shrink tubing (and hair dryer) or Plasti-Dip
Making The Tether
Follow along with the video, below:
It’s pretty simple, measure out a length of the wire that is close to the length of tether you want make. Allow yourself a few extra inches, which you will use to create the loops on each end of the tether.
Put a crimping sleeve around one end of the wire and fold back a loop that’s long enough to fit around the mount of your camera, but not so large that it could slip beyond the thumb screw of your mount–about 2 1/2-inches for a standard GoPro mount. Tuck it back into the end of the crimping sleeve, like this:
Use a crimping tool, or blunt object, crimp the sleeve and secure the wire loop.
If you’re going to be using the tether on an object that you are concerned about being scratched (such as a car), you’ll want to coat the crimping sleeve in plastic. There are two ways you can do this: heat shrinking plastic tubing or Plasti-Dip.
If you are going to use the heat shrink tube, put a piece of it onto the open end of the tether and slide it down over the crimping sleeve. Apply heat until it shrinks down and stays firmly in place. Put a second piece of tubing on the wire, then add another crimping sleeve and fold the wire back into the sleeve, creating a second loop identical to the first one you made. Pull the heat shrink tubing over the crimp and warm it up to finish.
If you’re using Plasti-Dip, just create a loop on each end of the wire, then dip the loops and crimping sleeves into the plastic and hang to dry.
That’s all there is to it. You can use the tether to leash your GoPro, but there’s nothing stopping you from using it on other gear, too.
[ via DIY Tripods ]
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