How to keep gopro alive?

[johnsmith]

For those of you that use a gopro when you go fishing, how do you keep it alive for a days worth of fishing? I just got mine yesterday and it died in an hour and ten minutes. Do you bring a bunch of spare battery or have it charging while hooked up on a powerbank? Any tip is appreciated.

[MN Fisher]

I don't have a Go-Pro, I use Dragon Touch - but the basic battery life is the same.

 

For my deck-cam - I have it plugged into a USB port that draws it's source from my deep-cycle battery through the 5amp port on the Minn-Kota Power Center.

 

For the shoulder-head cam, I have a 10,000 mah external battery I keep in the pocket of my PFD with a cord running to the camera.

[johnsmith]

Does your camera not overheat when your charging it to your external battery?

[Dirtyeggroll]

8 minutes ago, johnsmith said:

Does your camera not overheat when your charging it to your external battery?

Shouldn’t overheat. This is a common practice.

[MN Fisher]

8 minutes ago, johnsmith said:

Does your camera not overheat when your charging it to your external battery?

Never had an issue yet - and that holds true even when I have it plugged into a wall-socket at home over my work-bench. Days of being plugged in and no overheating at all.

[schplurg]

I have extra batteries, that's how I do it.

 

GoPros overheat when using external power supplies, but usually only when shooting high resolution or high framerates.

 

My GoPro dies after 15 minutes or so plugged into a battery. Gets over 120 degrees near the lens. It is hot. It's because it is waterproof. It isn't as easy for heat to escape the camera. I've read many discussions about this on GoPros forums. All the techs say the same thing - the camera dying is a safety feature when it gets too hot.

 

I have experimented and can use external batteries at 1080p, but I prefer to shoot higher resolutions. So I swap batteries, and I don't leave it on all the time. I only record when I'm fishing, most of the time.

 

If I use a second camera, say on a tripod I will plug that one in and shoot at 1080 or so.

 

 

[pdxfisher]

I bought a housing with a waterproof connector from 3BRpowersports. It replaces the battery with a thing that plugs into the USB terminal of the gopro. A plate screws down over the the part that plugs into the gopro and makes it watertight (if you go to their website you will see). The thing also has a long (you can buy different lengths) cable with a standard USB connector on the end. I plug that into a small (10AH) LiON battery pack that folks buy to charge cell phones and put the battery in a dry bag.

 

This gives me all day battery life and a weatherproof (waterproof enough) connection to a battery that lasts all day long. This works well in my kayak. I have not had any overheating issues (yet).

[Boomstick]

You're supposed to get about 100 minutes of recording at 1080p at 60fps and 70 minutes at 4k at 60fps and going to 30fps gets another 10 minutes. I got my oldest kid one for his birthday and bought 4 batteries with it which should cover a day on the water. Then I have a few external power cells that should get a few more charges we will try on camping trips.

 

I've seen a number of complaints about GoPros overheating, but some of them were defective units. Another common reason for overheating is a slow old memory card that essentially makes the GoPro work harder, sort of like running something on your computer with high CPU usage for an extended period of time. Likewise, recording in 4k, 5k or at high framerates have the same effect. Also direct exposure to sunlight on a hot day can cause problems.

[Darth-Baiter]

I’m running a vest pocket of batteries. I have however purchased the water resistant battery door that will alllw me to run supplemental juice from a portable power cell.  I have gotten that into filming just yet. 
 

I keep mouth breathing into my videos.  And apparently I mumble incoherently under my breath.

[E-rude dude]

Don’t have a GoPro, mostly because I wouldn’t want to force others to watch my horrible fishing techniques ?

 

I have this with a light though and it will power GoPro through USB.

They have a model that you can drive with too.

 

https://yolotek.com/

[A-Jay]

 

I use several batteries (8 to be exact) to power the GoPro camera mounted at the stern.  

I prefer to need to attend to it every 45 minutes or so.

This ensures that I "check it" for proper operation & focus rather than setting it in the morning, fishing for 6-8 hours only to realize that somehow I missed the video of a life time because the unit went bonkers 10 minutes into the day and I never knew it. 

I do utilize my rigs accessories option to plug in and power the front unit mounted on my windscreen.

Works out well 

More info below   

 

https://www.youtube.com/c/AjLynn45thParallelFishing/featured

 

A-Jay