In-helmet firewire extension cable/port?

[brettski74 0]

I have a Rawa helmet with an HC40 in it. One mildly annoying point about this setup is that in order to plug in a firewire cable to download footage after each jump, I need to unscrew the bolt that holds the box closed and turn the camera around since the firewire port and other ports face inwards. I do this after each jump to download the footage onto a DVD recorder with an inbuilt HDD. The DVD recorder can control the camcorder over the firewire cable, so there's no real need to open the camera box except to get at the firewire port. It would be much more convenient if I only needed to do this at the end of the day to replace a tape or battery. I was thinking that if I could find a short firewire extension cable with a right-angled male firewire plug on one end and a female plug on the other end, I could build that into my helmet so I wouldn't need to do this all day after each jump. I could just plug into my helmet, without any need to remove the camera.

Has anyone else set up a camera helmet like this? If so, what cable did you use, where did you get it and how much did it cost?

I have found a few places on the internet that can customer build me a cable like this. At one place, the information they had suggested that they could build a single cable like this for about $60. Per unit prices come down once you are ordering more than 10 units, which raises another question. Does anyone think that these kind of cables might be popular enough amongst skydiving videographers to warrant doing a larger run?

[bomb420 1]

Can you drill a hole from the inside of the helmet through the box at the location the firewire is at? Then just pull up the lining to access the hole and stick in your cable. Add velcro to the inside shell to keep the lining seated since I believe Rawa glues in their liners.

Firewire is quickly going away, I would not invest too much money into it. I'm surprised someone can do tooling for a 90 degree firewire connector for 60 bucks. That is hella cheap if its the case.

-Trunk

HYPOXIC

[brettski74 0]

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Can you drill a hole from the inside of the helmet through the box at the location the firewire is at? Then just pull up the lining to access the hole and stick in your cable. Add velcro to the inside shell to keep the lining seated since I believe Rawa glues in their liners.

Actually, that's not a bad point. I could almost do that now. I'd just need to elongate the hole I drilled for my Hypeye cable. I guess I got a little carried away by "cool gadget" thinking to see the obvious simpler solution.

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I'm surprised someone can do tooling for a 90 degree firewire connector for 60 bucks. That is hella cheap if its the case.

Actually - just looked again. It's probably more like $75, but still pretty cheap for a custom cable. The right angle connectors are standard cable ends. I imagine a custom end would cost a lot more. Check it out.

[brettski74 0]

Got the quote for the custom cable - $75 including international shipping. $60 for the cable alone. They also pointed me to one of their stock parts which is almost exactly what I asked for. Only problem if that the right-angled firewire plug turns the wrong way - towards the LANC port. Not sure how much clearance I need beside the firewire plug but I suspect that the 0.5 inches from the edge of the firewire port to the edge of the Hypeye plug may not be sufficient. Based on the image, it looks like I'd need about twice that space. For those with different port positioning, however, it could be a useful part for $25.