Simply Airsoft Guns

So how to make a good camera into a great camera? The answer was to add some modifications, and it wasn’t until I’d bought it that I realised just how customisable it was.

Note: Make sure you read this entire section before making any modifications.

The first step was to improve on the narrow viewing window by adding a wide angle lens, a modification provided by the Utah Trikes crew.

The second was to replace the microphone with a 2.5mm mic jack, to improve the sound and allow the addition of any mic you want.

Modification 1 – adding a wide angle lens

I’d like to start by saying a big thank you to Utah Trikes for providing the mod, without which I would not have even begun to strip this camera down.

Their mod can be found on their website here.

In this mod they use a Sunpak wide angle lens provided with a range of adapter rings. Unfortunately that lens isn’t available in the UK and is difficult to find in the US as the article was written back in 2007. While I did eventually manage to find one, the company did not ship to the UK.

Instead I sourced a 37mm wide angle lens on Ebay.co.uk from a Hong Kong based seller. Any wide angle lens will do and plugging in “37mm wide angle lens” will give you a range of options. But before you buy, remember that you’ll be attaching it to airsoft electric guns, so three things you should consider are:

		-	Don’t pay too much for the lens – remember this lens will be being shot at (we’ll look into lens protection later). Don’t spend £70 on the lens and double your budget – a £5 lens from Hong Kong will do.
		-	Wide angle lenses come in a range of magnifications, from 0.7x to 0.45x. The lower the number the more you will see – whichever you chose is up to you but as we’re working from a small viewing window I would strongly recommend 0.45x magnification.
		-	Don’t buy a wide angle with a giant lens. Remember, the lens will be being added to your camera – you don’t want a massive lens on a small camera that makes the camera unwieldy and negates the reason you bought it.

As noted in the Utah Trikes modification information, the exposed camera end requires a 30.5mm ring, so if you can find one with a 30.5mm step up adapter ring then even better, although after much searching I was unable to.

Some of you may be thinking “can’t I just use a 30.5mm lens without needing an adapter ring?”. Tried and failed I’m afraid – without an adapter ring the thread clearance wasn’t long enough to hold the lens on securely.

The lens I settled for was a “37mm 0.45X Wide-Angle Lens for CANON HF10 HF100 BK” from eBay – a mere £4.99 plus £8 shipping and perfect for my airsoft guns.

So now I needed a step up ring from 30.5mm to 37mm. Some of you may be thinking “don’t you need a step down ring?”. To be honest that really depends on where you source your lens. However, it’s highly likely that your new lens will have a 37mm ‘male’ screw thread, meaning you’ll need a step up ring with a 37mm female thread – i.e. a step up ring. You’ll also need a filter ring (with no filter) to add additional clearance for your lens to fit tightly.

As you can see from the image above, I’ve used a step up ring to convert the 37mm lens to a 30.5mm ring and two filter rings to add even more clearance to the lens fitting.

While you can source these from a few places, the shipping costs are often a lot more than the actual ring. The cheapest and fastest I found was from www.vintagecameras.co.uk. These guys are great, they have a massive range of rings and are UK based. My ring cost £4 plus £1 delivery.

When you’ve received the lens and ring go back to the Utah Trikes mod, put it together, and fit it to your airsoft guns!

Note: If you are planning to perform modification two (below) to improve the sound, do not attach the wide angle lens at this point or replace the guts of the camera – you will need them out to make the modification.

If this is the only modification you will be doing, I recommend adding some superglue under the ring before installing for that extra strong fitting.

As you can see from the videos on the Utah Trikes mod page, the results are great – a much wider field of view that will pick up more of the battle when filming.

Modification 2 – removing the rubber

Note: In this section I will look at two modifications to improve the sound quality of airsoft electric guns and other noises on the camera. The first is a temporary change and is reversible. The second is not, and will permanently remove the waterproofing on your camera and prevent it from being submersible in water. However, the camera will still be water resistant and suitable for airsoft, even in the rain.

As you may have noticed from the Utah Trikes page, thier modification for improving the sound is to unscrew the plate at the bottom of the camera and remove the rubber covering the microphone. See the Utah Trikes article here for more details.

Note: while the camera does not have the rubber in front of the microphone it will not be waterproof. Make sure you replace the rubber before submerging the camera in water.

While this was an incredibly simple fix, I found it too effective. The microphone on the camera is so sensitive that any sound from automatic airsoft guns was either too loud to the extent that it topped out or was completely muffled by wind movement over the now exposed microphone. Unfortunately this would not be suitable for airsofting as all you would hear would be topped out gun sounds.

Modification 3 – Adding a 2.5mm microphone jack

This is a little fiddly but can be done. As noted earlier, this modification will permanently remove the waterproofing on your camera and prevent it from being submersible in water. However, the camera will still be water resistant and suitable for airsoft, even in the rain.

First find yourself a mono 2.5mm headphone socket (note a 3.5mm will not fit) with a nut and thread for mounting. These can be found for under £1 from Maplins. Most will come with two contacts at the bottom and a wire holding hoop – remove this hoop leaving just the two contacts.

Remove the guts of the camera as per the Utah Trikes page here. If you’re having trouble, try pulling on the battery cover rather than the casing, it’s deceptive which part actually pulls out.

Remove the mic plate and you’ll see the clear plastic housing that sits in front of the microphone, with a square space containing a piece of rubber covering the mic. If you have not already removed this, remove it now.

Ensure the guts of the camera have been removed, get a drill and drill the hole that holds the rubber to the diameter of your mic jack. This is where your mic jack will sit and the microphone will plug in.

The mic plate will have left a square space which will now become the space for your mic jack mounting plate. Cut a piece of hard plastic/metal to the length and width of the original mic plate and drill out a mic jack hole plus two screw holes lining up with the screwholes used for the original mic cover. Note: if you want the plate to be black, now’s the time to spray it.

Now use the nut/thread on the headphone jack to fix it to the new plate; you’ll probably need two sets of pliers to get the nut tight.

Now here’s the harder part. You have two options – work with the mic wire provided or extend it.

If your good at soldering, remove the built in mic from its wires, put the camera guts back in and thread the wires through your new drill hole in the casing. Then solder the wires to the jack contacts – to my knowledge it doesn’t matter which way round they are.

Of course, these wires are not much to work with, so you’ll probably need some pliers to stop the wires from scrunching up when you put the guts back in and will need to be careful when soldering to ensure you don’t burn through them.

If you’re not so good at soldering, extend the mic wires then do step one. I got my wire off a small buzzer for circuits – 69p at Maplins. Unfortunately as the wires are now longer it’ll be even harder to stop the wires from scrunching. I recommend tweezers, pliers, or even string to guide the wires.

Note: When you’re putting the guts back in they should go in smoothly. If they’re not you’re just off the correct orientation. Remove and try again, it may take a few attempts to get the alignment right.

Now stuff the jack into the hole and screw the plate down. Presto, now you have a mic jack on a tidy plate.

As you’ve used a 2.5mm jack you’ll probably need a patch cable to convert it to a 3.5mm socket or fix a 2.5mm end to your mic. I recommend a right angle jack fixing on the camera end to prevent an big adapter sticking out the camera.

Finding a microphone

The choice of microphone is up to you, but it makes sense to use one as small as possible. My recommendation is a tie-clip microphone, found for £9.99 at Maplins here.

The sound’s fantastic, no more wind muffling the sound, voices are actually understandable and the guns sound great.

However, it’s still very sensitive so don’t get close to the mic – and by that I mean if you were talking into it you should have it no closer than your waist line.

Bear in mind the camera isn’t re-sampling or treating the sound in any way. It’ll only be so good but now at least you’ll avoid the original set up where any wind makes the sound useless or the rubber removed set up where the mic is far too sensitive.

Bullet-proofing

After all the modifications it makes sense to add a little bullet proofing to your new lens to stop it getting wrecked. The first thing I tried was cutting a lens-sized circle out of a pair of safety goggles from B&Q and supergluing it to the front of the camera. Unfortunately after a couple of attempts the superglue kept misting up the lens and the safety glass was not clear enough to use.

The solution came on a visit to Newavon arms. I was looking for a scope cover and they presented me with a huge box of spares that could be bought for only £2 each. I found one suitable for the wide angle lens and went home to fit it. While it was a little big, I used ultra-adhesive ‘No more nails’ pads from B&Q to pad out the difference and it’s worked great since.

For more information on the Orgeon ATC2K Actioncam, click airsoft guns. To return to the homepage, click Simply airsoft guns.