You must have a pretty big head if it takes 15" to get from to the back to one eye. But seriously I think that you could make the thing work without lengthening the cable. You don't really need to mount it on the back of your head because you don't need to see ahead all of the time, just once in a while. The real issue is that you need the camera to point up instead of forward like your eyes.
So you could mount the camera on the side of your goggles (at the temple) pointing up with the screen on front of the lens of one eye and a lens on the inside of the goggles to allow you to focus that close. Each time you take a breath the camera will be at the highest point on your head offering the best view forward. You would probably have to swim with your head rotated slightly to avoid the drag that immersing the camera would add. Pot the whole thing up solid with bathtub calk for waterproofing and you're good to go until the battery runs down.
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.
>