Gurus,
>
> I need your help...
>
> I am an amateur triathlete and I'm getting ready for the start of the
> triathlon season and I had this problem last year that I'm trying to
> solve.
>
> The problem is that during an open-water triathlon swim I need to skip
> a stroke every so often to lift my head out of the water and site the
> next turn buoy. I usually find myself off course by a few yards and
> need to make corrections. This costs me time from being off course
> and from skipping a stroke. So, I had this idea to take apart an old
> digital camera or picture phone and mount the camera part to the back
> of my head and attach the LCD part in front of my goggles.
>
> Sound crazy? I did a Google search and found that someone has
> patented the same idea...
>
>
formatting link
> The thing is, as far as I can tell it's never been built, and I need
> your help to build it.
>
> I took apart a digital camera and was able to power it up and get an
> image on the LCD, but the LCD is connected to the camera by what looks
> like a proprietary 24 wire ribbon cable and connector that I would
> need to build an extension to. Any ideas if that is possible? It
> would need to be about 15"-20" long to go from the back of my head to
> the front of my goggles. The ribbon is about 1" now. Do you think
> the picture quality would get much worse at 15"?
>
> Another issue is that the camera has a lot of extra stuff on it that I
> don't need. Do you think there is a way to trim it down to just the
> ccd, lcd, a battery and a switch? Do you think a phone would be a
> better starting point? I took apart a broken camera phone and I was
> able to separate the pieces - but it has the same issue - a very thin
> proprietary ribbon cable.
>
> Any other ideas? Am I crazy?
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated!
>
> Thanks!
>
> jerry
>
> p.s. please respond to my e-mail and the group.
>
have you considered one of those wrist watch TVs with an NTSC input, and one of those super-mini security cams ??
might be easier to waterproof integrated units like that compared to a custom setup like you described, and completely eliminates custom connectors from the problem !!