Roadhawk Ride Bike Cam

[alibx11]

Well treated my self to another Chrissy present... a Roadhawk Ride camera.



I have gotten used to driven with incar cam so miss it when I'm on the bike, I have been looking for a decent one that could be hard wired to the bike and had decent picture and found this one. Had to wait though as they've only just got it back in stock.

If anybody is interested in one, I got mine from http://www.dogcamsport.co.uk/drive-recorders.html priced at £149.95 but if anybodies interested then they can use a discount code "IAM10" for 10% off... don't know how long the codes valid for but certainly working at the minute.

I haven't fitted the cam yet, will do it the same time I go to fit my hotgrips and stebel airhorn but it certainly comes with plenty of fixing options and leads..



As I said this one can be hard wired to ignition so that as soon as the power is turned on the camera will start recording, and again stop when power is turned off.
It can also run off it's own inbuilt battery for around 90 mins, so easily used as a helmet cam independent of the hardwiring.
Loops records so automatically overwrites older files on memory card meaning it's pretty plug in and forget, no need to worry about running out of room on the card.
Takes a micro SD card up to 32GB class 6 and up. Supplied 8GB card records about 2hrs, 32GB card runs for 8hrs.
It's waterproof so no need to worry when it rains.
Also automatically imprints time and date stamp for accident evidence etc..
When you want to view your videos just plug the cam into your PC with the supplied USB lead and it shows up as a removable disk, same as a flash drive, so easy you don't even have to remove the card from the cam.

Pretty small and easy to operate, single button for starting and stopping and led lights at front of lens to show current operation of cam.



Have tried a couple of videos in the house and looks pretty good picture but slight fish eye effect, although this will be more noticeable in the house with all the straight lines of walls and door frames etc., expect it to be a lot less noticeable outside in better lighting.



So haven't had complete road test yet and I am not advertising this for roadhawk or dogcamsprt but thought I'd let anybody know about it while the discount code is still valid as it makes this a cheap HD 720p waterproof motorcycle cam. I know I've been looking for this type of camera for a while and thought I'd post incase some others have the same inkling...

Safe riding folks..
Al.

[Lonewolf]

Looks good, being able to hardwire it is a useful feature, nothing worse than the battery running out. I'm a HD GoPro fan and even they now allow you to hardwire the camera although this would be more practical in a car than a bike.

The fisheye effect is normal, it'll be far less obvious when your'e outside.

[alibx11]

The fisheye effect is normal, it'll be far less obvious when your'e outside.

Cheers Lonewolf, thought that would be the case...

I looked at the GoPro cams and nearly bought one but as  far as I could see when you connected it up to a power source it wasn't waterproof,  as the cable had to come in through the back of the camera housing.

The Roadhawk is sealed with the wiring loom tightened on the rear of the camera and spare seals are supplied so thought it was a better option, weather wise for bikes at least.

I can also remove it from the hard wiring on the GTR and use it free as a helmet cam when I take my son out on the scramblers. so for me that was a pretty handy option.

Look forward to fitting it.

[O.C.]

That looks like a very good camera with loads of features for the money

Like L.W I'm a Go Pro fan and have used one on my bike for a couple of years now

BTW the Go Pro does have a totally waterproof housing   

[Winston Smith]

 

Go Pro fan too.  It has the higher (1080p) definition and is used by most professionals including BBC.

Only down side is inability to plug into bike directly. 

Enjoy your cam though, the tricky bit is editing afterwards!

[Rusty]

That looks really good ... as Mr Wolf says .. the good bit is the "wire it in and forget it" part ... cheaper car insurance perhaps ? I shall Google it and see if there is any footage !

[O.C.]

Go Pro fan too.  It has the higher (1080p) definition and is used by most professionals including BBC.

Only down side is inability to plug into bike directly. 

Enjoy your cam though, the tricky bit is editing afterwards!

Apparently Vimeo is a good site for editing, I'm sure there are others, but I've never tried it so it could be a task for me to learn.

[alibx11]

Well, taxed the bike from 1st march and now able to get the bike on the road again to test my mods and bits....

Fitted the Roadhawk Ride camera on a Ram mount on clutch mounting for time being to see what results were like from it. Was quite pleased to see that it didn't vibrate a lot and picture is actually very good on the pc playback.



I put a small 5.5mm DC power jack on the end of the camera cable and the matching socket on the bike wired into the accessory wires on left side loom so camera starts and stops when I turn ignition on and off automatically.



One good thing about it being behind the windscreen is it's away from any rain or road spray, bad thing is that on sunny days there is a reflection from behind the screen.

Here's a small movie, only 1 minutes worth to keep the size down, to show what the quality is like, it's only 720p so not as clear as a GoPro, but then again it didn't cost the same as a GoPro.

The quality is a lot better played directly on my pc, seems to have lost a lot of resolution in transfer to web.. ah well, I tried...

[Lonewolf]

Thats very good. I like how you have mounted it. The plastic sleeves you have used between the RAM mount and the handle bar mounting I found just started to collapse when I torqued the bolts up on a similiar set up to yours. I know the plastic sleeves come with the RAM mount but I dumped them in the end. The metal bar fits snugly over the handle bar mount and when used with 45mm bolts just works a treat. The bolts need to be torqued up to 10.3nm and you must do the top one first.

Verg good set up though you have there. 

[Rusty]

True praise from Mr Wolf 

[alibx11]

Thanks LW,

I thought the sleeves were metal, but could have been wrong. They seem ok at the minute but will keep my eye on them in case they disintegrate.

[Lonewolf]

Maybe your sleeves are metal, mine which came with my sat nav were made of cheap plastic. 

[O.C.]

I think the quality of that is very good, in fact every bit as good as my  GoPro..well done nice job.

[dinks64]

where did you get the bracket mate i have a dog cam and the fixtures and fittings aint the best ?

[alibx11]

Ordered mine from http://www.ram-mount.co.uk/brakeclutch-handlebar-mount-with-1-ball-p-1284-c-238_286.html

You can choose any type of ram fittings and build up whatever type of mount you need.