Modifying The Actioncam Atc2k

So how can you convert the Oregon Scientific ATC2K Actioncam from a good camera into a great camera? The answer is 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 three things:

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
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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.

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.

simply airsoft guns – actioncam with wide angle

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 and put it together.

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 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, their 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 recorded 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.
Note: In this section I will look at two modifications to improve the sound quality 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
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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 recorded 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.

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
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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.

simply airsoft guns – microphone

Of course, the large phono adapter that comes with the microphone isn’t needed.

Bullet-proofing

After all the modifications it makes sense to add a little bullet proofing to your new lens. 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.

Mounting options for airsoft

The Camera

There are a range of options for mounting the camera. The best option is on your head or preferably a helmet using (of course) the helmet fitting. However it can be a quite heavy and if not wearing a helmet it can squeeze your head uncomfortably. The camera will also bounce as you run although this can be minimised using the supplied pads placed under the helmet fitting.

If you don’t wear the camera on your head you’ll have to make a compromise – either on your non-firing shoulder or on your gun, both of which have positives and negatives. You may be asking yourself ‘did he try mounting it on…’, the answer is yes, I tried the waist, legs, arms, firing shoulder (your face obscures the lens when you go to fire) and anywhere else I could think of.

On the non-firing shoulder: Great for first person shooter style videos and always looks in the direction of play.

On the gun: Great for those ‘I got you!’ shots and of course if the cameras mounted on your gun it’ll always point at your target.

On the non-firing shoulder

After trying a few options I found this to be the best way to shoulder mount the camera. As you can see, the camera sits in the handlebar grip which is attached via it’s screw thread to a hole a made in the shoulder of my tac vest.

The camera angle is then fine tuned with cable ties through the scope cover holes, pulling the lens flat and almost completely removing any bounce while running.

This is a very easy mount, completely hands free, light and gives you a nice ‘Predator’ style cannon on your shoulder. It’s also incredibly stable and the results are impressive even when in a full sprint, as per the clip earlier in this article.

However, if you fire your gun you’ll pull your shoulder across and you’ll only get footage of your own gun, rather than the target. You can counteract this slightly by pointing the camera outwards, but short of having it facing sideways during non-firing moments it’s likely you won’t see who you were shooting at.

On the gun

Simply mount the camera using the provided velcro strap tied around the gun body.

This is great except that the actual time spent shooting at targets is very little and the rest of your footage will be the camera looking at the ground. Also the camera does add to the weight of the gun; not a problem for me but some may find it an issue.

Which mounting you use is up to you. If you were filming throughout the day you could quite easily change it round and have a
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great days worth of different angles to post edit.

The microphone

As mentioned, the microphone is very sensitive so should be mounted as far away from sound sources as possible. Mine is threaded down my tac vest and clipped on at my lower back, with talking and gun sound volumes well balanced.

The Finished Product

Here’s some pictures of the finished product, fully mounted on my non-firing shoulder.

Note: For those eagle-eyed players you’ll notice the camera is on my right shoulder as I’m left handed.

Post editing

I use a program called Canopus Edius for my post editing, an easy to use but highly advanced professional video editing suite, recommended by Utah Trikes. It can be downloaded as a trial or in full via a torrent using an engine such as BitTyrant.

Utah Trikes recommend de-interlacing the footage to reduce video warble, decreasing the contrast, increasing the brightness and adding a small amount of the sharpness filter. Personally none of the videos I have produced have been treated in such a way as I’ve been very happy with them from the outset but it’s up to you.

Sample videos

I have to say that the first time I tried out the camera the footage was fantastic. In fact, the entire Defenders of the Earth video was created from one days worth of footage!

To see the camera in action, visit the Shooting Gallery and watch our Defenders of the Earth videos, all taken with the modified ATC2000 camera.

I hope this article has provided you with all the information you need to go ahead and modify your camera!

By: Joseph Temple

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Find out more at Simply airsoft guns, a blog dedicated providing objective reviews, tutorials and guides on airsoft guns and equipment.

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