#suction mount

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GoPros at the track

People are complaining about the use of suction-mounted GoPros at the moment.  I'm going to venture an unpopular opinion.

If you use a decent-sized, decent-quality suction mount this cannot happen.

GoPros aren't big. It's physically not possible for a properly mounted, appropriately sized suction mount put on an appropriate surface to come off. It's just physics, the wind resistance just simply doesn't have enough force to rip it off. I've tested this so many times, including tying a rope to the GP and pulling on it as hard as I can, which produces much more force than a GP ever could.

Let's assume the worst drag co-efficient - 1.05 for a square object. Air density, 1.29kg/m^3. Speed of 160mph so 71.5m/s.

GP Hero3+ is 41x59mm so let's make it worst and account for mount, make it 60mm x 60mm. So area is 0.0036m^2.

FAir = A/2 × Cd × D × v2 FAir = 0.0036/2 * 1.05 * 1.29 * 71.5^2 FAir = 0.0018 * 1.05 * 1.29 * 5112.25 FAir = 12.46N

.. which is a whopping 1.2kg.

If you use a shitty suction mount and/or mount it to a stupid place on the car or bike without a good attach surface, and/or don't wet the base before doing it, this is absolutely going to happen. If your mount can't take 1.2kg then you have done something horribly wrong.

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