Final Power Setup

Tutorial: Powering a GoPro for days with external power and an intervalometer

Final Power Setup
Final Power Setup

Adding additional power to a GoPro is easy – you simply buy the GoPro Extended Battery or you plug an external source into the mini USB hub. Unless that is, you want to do something extreme, then you need to give it a bit more thought.

The Problem

We’re carrying two GoPro Hero3+Black Editions on a 3 day hike, hopefully making a time-lapse movie as we go. Right now, we’re planning on taking a picture on both cameras every 15 seconds. That’s going to require a lot of power and a lot of memory. Given that we have to carry all this along with some inconsequential gear such as a tent and food, the solution also needs to be as light as possible. Oh and we’re going to be in alpine territory so the solution needs to handle low temperatures too. Easy. Or so we thought.

The Sharpie Hint

Too much GoPro
Too much GoPro

When you buy your first GoPro you’ll assume that the $400 you spent is all you’re going to spend. And then roughly 4 hours later you’ve a box of stuff, most of which you can’t quite name that includes head mounts, chest mounts, external chargers, suction mounts, tripod adaptors, gorilla legs, selfie poles, and on and on and on. Buying a GoPro should come with a free Amazon Prime account! Here’s the best advice you’re going to get to juggle all this: if it’s in any way electronic, take a Sharpie and number it. We’ll explain why this is important later.

Capacity Planning

GoPro uses massive compression on the JPEGs it creates, which pisses off those of us that would rather better image quality but we understand their reasoning. With the JPEG format the content dictates the file size. If you take a picture that’s packed full of highly colorful, varying objects the file will be huge. Take one of a blank sheet of paper and it’ll be tiny. That makes capacity planning a bit difficult unless you can get to a similar environment and capture it before hand. On a recent hike we took 421 pictures over 140 minutes. The smallest image was 3.1Mb, the largest was 10.2Mb, giving an average file size of 7.2Mb. Our second camera, capturing the same scene at roughly the same time, captured 423 images ranging from 2.9Mb to 10.4Mb giving an average of 6.2Mb.
We need to capture 30 hours of hiking. Assuming an image every 1 minute, that would create 30h x 60m = 1800 pictures. We’re hoping for every 15 seconds, so that’s 1800 x 4 = 7200. With an average file size of 7Mb, that means we need a card that can hold 7200 x 7mb = 50,400Mb or 50Gb. To fit all that on one card (per camera) we’re going to need 64Gb cards.
Of course, this means putting all our eggs in one basket so we may record days 1 and 2 on one card, and the big hike on day 3 on another.

External Power

Big Power - from Amazon
Big Power – from Amazon

Just about the highest capacity power packs you can buy, without breaking the bank, are these twin USB port beasties.
In our testing, one of these can power two GoPro’s taking 30 second interval pictures for 17 hours. That’s pretty damn impressive but not good enough. Remember, that batteries perform demonstrably worse when cold. We’re assuming a 50% reduction in capacity just because we’re going to be cold and at altitude.
As we just mentioned with the memory cards, we’re also hoping for a little redundancy, so we purchased two of these. They are by far the heaviest non-essential things in our kit bags.

UPDATE: something is going wrong with these batteries. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more. For now. Don’t buy.
UPDATE2: updated below

Caution: Built Like a Delicate Flower

gopropower6Connecting the power to the camera is easy but a word of warning for you. That little USB connector on the side of your GoPro is only held in place using spit and luck. If you Google ‘gopro broken usb’ you’ll get over 300,000 results; 300,002 when we finally confess we broke both of ours too. Unlike most people we were able to rip one of our cameras apart and then the local PC repair shop soldered it back together again. The second camera is a right-off. We now use right-angle USB cables because they’re lower profile, with a very gentle touch, and we hold them in place with duct-tape.

External Intervalometer

Another way to get the camera to last longer is to power it off. We know that sounds silly, but it really isn’t. A company called Cam-Do makes a device that does just that. Your GoPro has a setting that will automatically turn it off after a period of time. Plugging the Cam-Do in to the back of the camera will automatically turn it back on after predetermined lapsed time.
Just so you know, if you buy a Cam-Do you then also need to buy the extended housing for your camera.
gopropower7 The problem with this is that the power down function can only be set to 60, 120 and 300 seconds – not particularly handy when you’re taking a shot every 15 seconds.
To get around this problem you need to go off script a bit and mess with your camera (pun intended). Some enterprising chap, either EvilWombat or KonradIT (I can’t work it out),  discovered that there’s a whole GoPro scripting language that‘s undocumented and unsupported. Just like your PC, if you have a special file on your memory card, GoPro will execute the contained commands on startup before it does anything else.
Cam-Do have written a little script that waits 5 seconds, takes a picture and then shuts the camera down. For those following along, that means that thanks to the Cam-Do, our GoPro’s will be powered off for 20 of the 30 hours we need them. Pretty sweet.

Memory Cards: the Horror Story – Trial and Error

GoPropower2Ignoring all the advice on the web, we purchased two 64Gb SanDisk Ultra cards and set about testing our new configuration.
And it didn’t work.

We tried everything we could think of, but the GoPro’s just refused to execute the Cam-Do scripts. Talking with Peter, (whom we think is either the brains or the owner of Cam-Do), gave us quite a few pointers on how to fix the problem, starting with ‘throw your Ultra’s in the bin’. It turns out that the Micro SD card format is not rigidly defined and so all cards are not equal. The GoPro is VERY particular about what cards it likes using. For reference we tested both Hero3+Black cameras running firmware version HD3.11.02.00.
One of the other tips we got from Peter, was that we could possible ‘root’ the camera and change the bootup sequence, forcing GoPro to read our new scripts. This is so far off the ranch that the chance of permanently bricking, and destroying yet more cameras is a very real threat. However, needs must.
The process necessitates being able to run an auto-script and for that a small capacity card is needed. So, we bought one. And it didn’t work. In fact most of the cards we bought didn’t work.
Over $1000 later and thanks to the amazing returns policy of Amazon, we think we’ve tested the majority of the high-capacity cards out there. Worryingly, even the ones recommended by GoPro aren’t actually compatible with the camera!

Card

Capacity

GoPro
Endorsed

Works?

Part
Number

Patriot 2Gb No No unknown
Samsung 4Gb No Yes MB-MS4GA/US
Toshiba 8Gb No Yes PFM008U-1DCK
Delkin SDHC 32Gb Yes Yes* DDMICROSDPRO2-32GB
Lexar SDHC 600x 32Gb Yes No LSDMI32GBSBNA600R
Lexar SDHC 633x 32Gb Yes No LSDMI32GBBNL633R
SanDisk Extreme 32Gb Yes Yes SDSDQXL-032G-AFFPA
Toshiba 32Gb No Yes* PFM032U-1DCK
Transcend 32Gb No No TS32GUSDU1E
Toshiba 64Gb No Yes* PFM064U-1DCK
Delkin SDXC 64Gb Yes No DDMICROSDPRO2-64 GB
Lexar microSDXC 64Gb No No LSDMI64GASBNAC10
Lexar SDXC 600x 64Gb Yes No LSDMI64GBSBNA600R
Lexar SDXC 633x 64Gb Yes No LSDMI64GBBNL633R
SanDisk Extreme Plus 64Gb Yes Yes SDSDQX-064G-U46A
SanDisk Ultra 64Gb No No SDSDQU-064G-AFFP-A

*The Delkin32 and Toshiba32 worked in the GoPro but refused to work with the card reader in our Mac without using the supplied SD adapter. For this reason we rate the card untrustworthy.
*The Toshiba64 worked for 20 minutes then failed. We can’t rule out other variables but we’re voting no anyway. Trust is important.

We now have cards that work, there was no need to root the cameras and we’re ready to go. We do one final trial in the house and hit the trail for field tests (we’re getting great at these puns).

UPDATE: Just don’t. Don’t ever use 64Gb cards. The SanDisk Extreme Plus’s that we’re using have failed. The first one refused to respond when inserted after just 1 month. Now the second one has failed. We’re going to put the 3rd in the bin and save ourselves future pain. NEVER USE A 64Gb card in a GoPro!!! Listen to us people, it’s not worth it.

Freakin Pernickerty GoPro’s!

gopropower4On the trail we powered everything up and starting hiking. Much to the annoyance of everyone, we set the GoPro’s beep to ‘on’ so we could verify they were working. After 2 minutes one of them stopped. Upon inspection it turned out that Camera1 had crashed and required a hard reboot – remove the battery and count to 20. Restarting it only caused it to crash after another 2 minutes. And so the pain of the day began. We tried to not ruin the hike for everyone but also to keep changing camera configuration at every stop point. This is where numbering all the parts comes in.

We tried swapping memory cards. 2 mins. Crash.
We tried swapping intervelometers. 2 mins. Crash.
We tried swapping cards and intervelomenters. 2 mins. crash.

In fact, we swapped and tried every configuration of components we could think of (external batteries, variable power output, etc). We even swapped the USB cables out for spares. Those number labels are the only way to keep control over all these variables to ensure you’ve fully exhausted all the combinations. Nothing we changed made a difference. One camera always worked, and the other one always crashed. The cameras were ordered within a month of each other, from the same supplier, so in theory were from the same batch (huge assumption!), and were running the same firmware.

After 4 hours of hiking and swearing and listening to just one camera work, we decided to swap the internal GoPro manufactured batteries, knowing it would make no difference.
And suddenly everything worked. And kept working. 5 hours later it was still working. GoPro is the most temperamental hardware we’ve ever purchased. These things are a work of art (not in a good way).

The Nail Varnish Remover Hint

gopropower1When you’ve finally got a combination of cards, batteries, cables, and other stuff that works, use nail varnish remover and a cotton-bud to remove all that Sharpie numbering you did. Then redo it, so that everything that is known to work with camera one has a 1 on it. And everything that is known to work for camera two… etc.

Final Setup

Here’s a picture of everything wired and working. This configuration can take 2 pictures every 15 seconds until all 128Gb of storage is full and the batteries still report over 75% of power remaining. Let’s hope it’s good enough.

  • 2x GoPro Hero3+Black cameras
  • 2x Cam-Do intervalometers
  • 2x 64Gb memory cards
  • 2x 32 Gb memory cards
  • 2x rear extended backdoors
  • 2x Hero3 skeleton housings
  • 2x right angled 6ft USB cables
  • 2x external power packs
Final Power Setup
Final Power Setup

Muti-day Shooting

We learned the next step the hard way. On day one, everything is fully charged and works beautifully. By the end of the day, the cards have plenty of capacity remaining, the external power bricks are still at 100% (they won’t change that reading until they hit 75% – it’s just a limitation of the display), and the GoPro batteries are at near zero percent. Everything is working fine and will continue to work for days to come. We power everything down and get some well-earned rest.

The following morning we encounter a new error. With the internal batteries exhausted, the GoPro doesn’t appear to have enough power to switch to the external supply. That means there’s no shooting for day 2 even though we’re carrying more than enough power. The lesson here is use the external bricks over night to charge the internal batteries. We’re not sure why that doesn’t happen during the day when everything is working but there you go. Just another GoPro quirk.

 UPDATE:

More power woes

Voltaic Systems
Voltaic Systems

This setup is still not working reliably. One day it will work for 4 hours, the next 14. Some days it simply refuses to take a picture. It’s very frustrating. In an attempt to solve the issues we’ve moved from using the EC Tech batteries to Voltaic ones. These have what is called an “always on” mode, basically a way of bypassing all the complex energy saving stuff batteries do and turning them in to dumb old Duracell’s and pushing out a constant stream of elections. The down side is they don’t last as long, the upside is the camera has to do less work to keep its internal battery charged – something that it seems to struggle with.

The internal GoPro batteries also seem to be misbehaving. Swapping them as outlined above, sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. We’ve now added Smartree internal batteries to the mix and they seem to be a tad more reliable.

Having made all the changes above, one camera seems to be reliable. It always starts and seems to keep shooting forever, though looking at the image numbers it appears it might occasionally stop working for an hour or so. Hmmm, that’s a strange definition of reliable we’re using there! The second camera is way more hit and miss. It still only works when the moon is in Uranus, or the pigeons are flying south, or some other event that we can’t work out.

UPDATE 2:

More Card Issues

Ok, we’re done with 64Gb cards; they’re terrible. Having spent a fortune on them we’ve now concluded that the technology is not ready for market. If you’ve made it this far down this thread you’ll know that we purchased 4 SanDisk Extreme Plus cards and that they worked like a charm. Except that it’s now 12 weeks later and two have them have totally failed. Neither the camera nor any of our computers recognize them as valid media. And yes, we know that card failure is just one of those things you have to live with, but a failure rate of 50% is unacceptable. From now on, we’re sticking with 32Gb cards.

UPDATE 3:

A Working Solution

Image from Cam-Do.com
Image from Cam-Do.com

It’s been months since we last updated this post, mostly because we had such terrible experiences with GoPro’s that we gave up and played with other toys. However, needs must and we recently dusted them off and gave them another try. This time, rather than pump power through the USB (which keeps breaking) we opted to try the new Cam-Do Battery Eliminator. And it works. It works well. There’s no heat build up. We’ve had 2 cameras running for 19 hours each without flaw.

There are of course issues with this solution. Because the new power cable connects at the rear of the camera, you can no longer use the waterproof enclosures. For us, this isn’t the greatest of issues. However, the one that does hurt, is that the power plugs in to the same hole that the Intervalometer uses. So that’s the choice, power or timer. We opted for power and use the camera’s inbuilt, limited timer.

The results are positive.

We hope this helps you avoid some of the angst we experienced.

Thank you.


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Comments

39 responses to “Tutorial: Powering a GoPro for days with external power and an intervalometer”

  1. Sarah Avatar
    Sarah

    Do you have the time lapse video that you captured on this hike? Would love to see it!

  2. Dave Avatar
    Dave

    I have the Lexar SDHC 633x and have used it for thousands of photos and 1080P video with no problem. I have the hero 3 black though, not the 3+.

  3. Ian Avatar
    Ian

    the power issue is not a battery but a glitch in the camera charging system. Use the Battery Eliminator from Cam-Do. Better for everything and uses less power anyway. And works with your Voltaic batteries.

    1. Dave Simon Avatar
      Dave Simon

      Have you had any overheat issues using the Cam-Do Battery Eliminator. I am using it and taking pictures every 10 minutes, but the camera stops after about 30 hours.

      1. Mozzer502 Avatar

        I’ve only just started using the Eliminator and so far it’s been great. But I’ve not yet used it over 30 hours, sorry. The most I’ve done is 6.

  4. TimeLapseNovice Avatar
    TimeLapseNovice

    Thank you. We have used GoPro’s (hero 3) for engineering purposes in an industrial setting. We found them “temperamentful” for many of the reasons you indicate. I’m sitting with a 4 Silver on my desk, intended for some time lapse photography. You have managed our expectations of what lies ahead. Great article.

  5. Ferdi Avatar
    Ferdi

    I use a gopro hero black and extreme ultra sandisk 64gb, the camera turns off after about 30 hours. so you think that you just use a SD card 32 to prevent it going out

    1. PhotoshopScaresMe Avatar

      yeah I do. Give it a go

  6. Betterlare111 Avatar
    Betterlare111

    This is one of the best and comprehensive “real life” evaluations I have read. Great job! Keep this post up forever.

  7. stijncoene Avatar
    stijncoene

    any updates on the power issue? we are shooting a tv show about firefighters and want the trucks rigged with go pro’s for 12 hour shifts. we have tried everything, now it seems that all the usb ports are broken from having constant power running trough, we’ve tried the back connection with custom cables but after few weeks, same thing, external battery packs that stop giving power even though they’re almost fully charged. very frustrating little things, the gopro’s

    1. PhotoshopScaresMe Avatar

      Thanks for your comment. I’ve just updated this post with our latest thoughts. Go with the battery eliminator. It seems to work well

  8. Michael Robertson Avatar
    Michael Robertson

    I am thinking of making a go pro security camera setup to look across a bay at an oyster farm. I want it to run for a week, taking 1 picture every minute and record to an external HDD, and I will just use a deep cycle battery and a converter for power. Any thoughts?

    1. PhotoshopScaresMe Avatar

      Hi Michael.
      I don’t think I’ve ever seen a GoPro record to an external HD. Is it really necessary – a 32GB card can store more than a week’s photos at 1 per minute? As for how you’d do this, I’d suggest you take a look at http://cam-do.com. They have lots of great tools for this type of thing. (I’m not endorsed, sponsored, or have any financial interest in Cam-Do)
      Let us know how you get on. We’d love to see your final rig.

      1. Dean Avatar
        Dean

        I’m not aware of any external HDD recording (at least not without deploying a PC and running some download scripts). Cam-do have a time lapse calculator http://tools.cam-do.com/TimeLapseCalculator.html and you can buy very large SD cards for reasonable money these days. A 4MB photo every 1 min for 9 hours a day will last 51 days using a 128GB card. You might also want to consider using a time lapse controller like the CamDo Blink http://cam-do.com/products/blink-gopro-time-lapse-controller to make sure you are cycling the camera on/off – it keeps it happier and much more reliable even though the 1min setting is natively supported. Plus it lets you turn the timelapse off at night if you want.

  9. Kyle Avatar
    Kyle

    Hey quick question on the battery eliminators and battery packs you are using. Do you think it matters what pack you use with the eliminator? Would you recommend the voltaic ones for the constant current? Thanks

    1. PhotoshopScaresMe Avatar

      Hey
      I can only tell you that I’ve had more success with the Voltaic ones than with any other kind I’ve tried. Your mileage may vary of course but I’m now a Voltaic fan.

  10. DasMoose88 Avatar
    DasMoose88

    This tutorial is pretty good. You mentioned using a Hero 3, and the 64gb SD cards fried. Have you used the Hero 4 at all? I’ve been using my Hero 4 Silver with a San Disk Extreme Plus 64gb card (Model: SDSQXNE-064G-AN6MA) for almost 8 months now (Mostly night lapse, photography, and underwater use) without issue.

    1. PhotoshopScaresMe Avatar

      That is great to hear!! It was only a matter of time before GoPro addressed the issue and started playing nice with bigger cards. Thanks for the info.

  11. Nebojsa Nebi Brajovic Avatar

    Ok,my question is maybe stupid but I looking for answer anyway..If I use power bank with gopro camera,batery must be inside camera and full or I use power bank without batery..?

    1. PhotoshopScaresMe Avatar

      That’s a great question! I’ve tried it both ways and they both seem to work. However, I don’t trust GoPro to get anything right, so I always use a fully charged internal battery when I can.

  12. Frédéric Caron Avatar

    If it might help someone, I use a Sandisk Ultra 128 GB micro SDXC with my Hero 3. No problem.

  13. Mr Pond Avatar
    Mr Pond

    Thanks for the great tutorial. I have a similar issue, only I want to record under water for as long as possible. I use a GoPro Hero 5 with 64 GB SanDisc, no problems so far, only the limited battery life. Any experiences how to fix external battery packs etc. in an under water setting? A cable connection (approx 3 m) to “land” would be possible, it is supposed to be a stationary set up in a pond. Cheers.

    1. PhotoshopScaresMe Avatar

      We don’t but on the Cam-Do website I recall watching a video they made about doing just this.

  14. Anil Kuzhikala Avatar

    for extended time lapse Shoot,we use our existing V Lock Batteries 5V USB Out,it can power up the GoPro smoothly for 2 Days,and its work well.
    Anil Kuzhikala
    http://www.medialive.me

  15. Alex Bankovic Avatar
    Alex Bankovic

    Hi. Great tuto. Cou are mentionning “Cam-Do Battery Eliminator”. Can I plug it in an iphone or tablet charger with no fear ? Thank you.

    1. PhotoshopScaresMe Avatar

      No idea what you’re asking. Sorry

  16. Paul Gustav Avatar
    Paul Gustav

    Thanks for writing. I grabbed some good info from this! I’ve also had lots of issues from my one 64gb sd card – smh.

  17. Gavin Avatar
    Gavin

    I connected my go pro hero 6 through an external battery, and left it to record at 2.7 4:3 resolution 30fps. However, the camera always turns off after 45 to 50 mins of recording. The external battery has 12000mAh and it was fully charged, still has a lot of battery too after the camera turned off. My plan is to record for around 4 hours with the settings above, any idea how I can fix this problem? Oh the sd card is a 256gb samsung evo card, so I don’t think it would be a storage issue.

    1. PhotoshopScaresMe Avatar

      my guess is that the power management in the battery has decided to conserve energy. Any way to turn it off? This is the reason I changed my power packs from the EO Techs to Voltaics

  18. Jonathan Avatar
    Jonathan

    Thanks for that very thorough real life Gopro adventure (pun intended), it was a very informative read!
    I got a Hero3 Black that I want to use for streaming (feeding the microHDMI into a HDMI capture card) and at the same time record footage to SD card.
    That combination resulted in some serious overheat issues where the cam simply turn itself off (limit is 51 celcius).
    I just bought a ‘battery eliminator’ after reading your article and hope that might help with the overheating.

    Btw, I am happily using a Verbatim 32GB SDcard.

    Thanks and happy trails! (another pun, yes!) 😉

  19. JMR Avatar
    JMR

    I can relate to many of the problems you described, that is why I switched to a Y1 4K. Works great, no glitching.

  20. Eggman Avatar
    Eggman

    I give-up on Go-Pro altogether, because of unreliable power supply. Internal batteries sometimes lasted 8 minutes and I never got any system of external battery to work reliably either. In the end I decided that it was an enormously over priced and poorly engineered product and I’m amazed it has such a good reputation internationally.

  21. Charles Tudor Avatar
    Charles Tudor

    In 2010 I used one of the first gopros that came out out powered by a cell phone charger plugged into the contractor’s on-site power pole and it ran for 2.5 years doing a time laps of my home construction. Used a 32 GB Transend card downloading every so often when it filled up. Worked like a charm. Have I edited it all together yet?……….No. Cant find it to do another construction time laps and got a Hero6. Headaches! Not as easy as the original basic model.

    1. PhotoshopScaresMe Avatar

      Check out CamDo, they make a construction site kit now.

  22. Alfredo Brock Avatar

    Hey quick question on the battery eliminators and battery packs you are using. Do you think it matters what pack you use with the eliminator? Would you recommend the voltaic ones for the constant current? Thanks

    1. PhotoshopScaresMe Avatar

      The Voltaic ones work ok, but I’ve been burned so many times with this, that I now rely on constant current to remove all the variables from the process.

  23. Roger Ramirez Avatar
    Roger Ramirez

    Which right angled 6ft USB cables brand worked best? Thanks

    1. PhotoshopScaresMe Avatar

      hi Roger. We have no preference. We just went with whatever came top of the amazon search. Good luck

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