Low profile tripod thread windshield mounts

Dashmellow

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 22, 2013
Messages
18,181
Reaction score
18,846
Location
Uncanny Valley (●_●)
Country
United States
Dash Cam
Umpteen
group2a2.jpg

This project was all @Gabacho's fault!

It all started last year on October 1st about four pages into the JooVuu-X Pre-order thread when he innocently inquired about "a description of the type of mounts available".

@JooVuu replied that, "We're still not 100% sure but at the moment we're about 75% sure it will be this one https://www.joovuu.com/gb/mounts/248-mini-quick-release-mount.html"

Another member immediately pointed out that this proposed mount's single axis of adjustment was problematic. I agreed.

Then a whole lengthy discussion ensued along with certain disagreements even including a bout of entirely unnecessary, somewhat ridiculous argumentation and infighting. We were even treated to some of Dan's characteristic bluster and bragging about an alleged "game changer" mount he claims to have developed that I am confident will never see the light of day.

Dan then offered us a variety of other potential mounts to look at, none of which were particularly appealing and later we learned that the decided upon JooVuu-X mount would apparently be a ginormous magnetic mount some 8-10 centimeters tall. (It's still not actually clear to me if the JooVuu-X ended up being shipped with any mount or whether you need to buy one separately, but this post is all about design concerns, so let's stick with that.)

For my part, I advocated for the importance and necessity of a mount that provides for the adjustment of the horizontal axis since that is an important requirement for many of us. Ultimately, we aficionados of small discreet cameras such as the Mobius or the JooVuu-X don't need a "game changer", we need a small, simple, discreet, low profile tripod threaded mount that will do the job.

So, on October 5th and on October 6th I proposed via some self created conceptual Photoshop renderings I posted to the Pre-order thread the following two designs as potential candidates for just what such a low profile, multi axis ball joint mount might look like.

ballmount.jpg minitiltmount4.jpg

Well, after all the Sturm und Drang of the JooVuu-X mount discussions, as the owner of 4 plus Mobius cameras who runs multiple simultaneous cameras in my vehicle, the idea of bringing these concepts to fruition began to simmer and after awhile I set about to see if I could make that happen.

Meanwhile, just recently, I was rather amused to discover....or perhaps I should say, NOT amused to discover that our friend Dan, @JooVuu has quietly introduced an EXACT copy of my design for sale on his web site without any acknowledgement whatsoever regarding where that design actually came from. It turns out that this mini tripod ball and socket mount is also now shipped in the box with the JooVuu-X camera. Shame on him after all this!

JooVuu-design-theft.jpg

One time several years ago, a design idea for an accessory I posted to a different enthusiast forum was picked up by a manufacturer and put into production but the owner of the company thanked me publicly on the forum and later sent me a bunch of samples along with the 175 dollar product that went with it. How cool is that?

But I digress. This is a DIY post after all, and so let me get on with introducing my project. My primary purpose here in going into all this was really to explain the history and inspiration for this project more than any other concerns.

So, my original idea as suggested in the Pre-order thread was to simply cut down and modify a standard widely available adhesive tripod mount like the one on the left below that many of us are familiar with and that's exactly what I did with two of them. For the sake of designation I call the first one "the Mini".

originalmini.jpg

Here are the basic components. As you'll see, some of these parts eventually got swapped around with the other mounts I've made. I added a locking platform I made from a hard rubber bin washer which I drilled to accommodate a glued-in thin 1/4-20 hex nut as seen above. The idea was to make a secure locking platform that is thinner than the ones that came with the mounts I started with. The basic idea with this mount was to eliminate the raised center column of the original to lower the height of the tripod mount.

minicomponents.jpg

One important thing to mention is that all of the mounts I have to shown here required modifying the original ball that inserts into the socket to create a lower profile or taller profile threaded mounting stalk, depending on the requirements.

threaded.jpg

I sawed the ball off this old unused mount and drilled it out to accept a 1/4-20 threaded shaft.
ballstart.jpg

The first mount came out rather well but after it was complete I concluded it was still too tall for how I intend to use it ("ceiling mounted" side facing camera) so I decided to see just how low a profile mount I could get away with building and still have it functional for my needs. It seems that if you cut off the bottom third of the socket ball it will still fit and function just fine. This discovery made me realize I could achieve a MUCH lower profile design. Meanwhile, I realized the first "too tall" mount I made will be a perfect low profile replacement for my current rear facing Mobius camera mount.

This iteration resulted in what I refer to as the "Nano" seen below.

I was mindful of a point brought up by @jokiin in the above mentioned JooVuu-X Pre-order discussion, that, "the challenge I've seen from the shorter ones is they don't have enough adjustment to compensate for the windscreen angle and end up pointing too far down". However, I discovered in the process of doing this project that you can achieve all the angle of tilt you will probably need as long as you provide a long enough threaded stalk. If you need less tilt and still want the lowest profile mount, just swap in a ball with a shorter 14/-20 threaded stalk. With the "Nano" low profile mount I can achieve a maximum tilt of 45 degrees if desired using the long stalk.

I used the balls from several of these mounts I bought on eBay from a small but excellent supplier in China (3 for less than 5 bucks!) and I cannibalized some older ball and joint mounts from now defunct cameras by installing my own 1/4-20 threaded columns.

nano.jpg

Here are the basic parts that went into this one. The base is worthy of some discussion. I drilled countersunk holes in a steel fender washer and then used small torx screws and epoxy glue to put the whole thing together, so it is very strong. The idea behind using a steel washer for the base makes the whole mount attachable with neodymium magnets if so desired, or 3M VHB tape, or Dual-Lock tape. With magnets it has a very strong hold and is one of the basic design features on the two mounts here with a round metal base.

nanoparts.jpg



OK, so due to the ten photo limit per post on XenForo forums I will have to continue below with discussion of the third mount I built which ended up being the most complex and so perhaps it deserves its own slot.
 
Last edited:
[
Meanwhile, just recently, I was rather amused to discover....or perhaps I should say, NOT amused to discover that our friend Dan, @JooVuu has quietly introduced an EXACT copy of my design for sale on his web site without any acknowledgement whatsoever regarding where that design actually came from. Shame on him after all this! :mad:

View attachment 20090

not so sure that he has manufactured this, pretty sure our supplier has this in their catalogue, I suspect he has just bought it from the supplier
 
For obvious reasons this third one is called the “90” as it can mount a camera on a 90 degree angle. This means that with the right camera you could use this mount effectively on a vertical windscreen or side window.

90c.jpg

90b2.jpg

A lot more parts went into this one. Here are some, but not all of them as the project evolved as I worked on it. The brick red disk is one of the steel washers I used that has been painted with metal primer before it got a coat of black Rust-O-Leum camouflage paint.

As with the other mounts I used rubber O rings partly as a cosmetic embellishment but also to cover the seams between the parts.

90parts.jpg

Also as before, this mount has a steel bottom, so it can be mounted magnetically. I used two washers so that I could recess the screw. The screw is epoxy glued into the center column and the second washer is epoxy glued to the first. The idea was to make it very strong so that however it gets mounted, either with a neodymium magnet or with 3M VHB tape or even Dual-Lock Tape it will never come apart.

90bottom-small.jpg

The center column is made from a copper plumbing elbow that I cut down to the desired height and angle. I filled the copper elbow with sandable and drillable epoxy putty which gave me something very strong to screw into, both for mounting the washers to the base of the column and for screwing the ball socket cup to the top. The use of an epoxy filled copper metal elbow gives the DIY mini mount a nice heft and feel in the hand.

copper.jpg

At first I was just going to just paint the copper pipe black but I got the cool idea to sheath it with heat shrink rubber tubing and it came out really nice.

heatshrinkB.jpg

Some DIY projects come out better than others but I was pretty happy with this one.
 
Last edited:
not so sure that he has manufactured this, pretty sure our supplier has this in their catalogue, I suspect he has just bought it from the supplier

So why didn't you or Dan or anyone else mention this during the entire lengthy discussion we had? You even offered photos of other small mounts but never mentioned this design until now. I looked and looked and found nothing like this. It seems highly suspicious to me that Dan would never mention this at all considering my Photoshop rendering and all the rest of it in the thread, especially since many seemed to like this concept. Suddenly it appears for sale in his web site weeks after the fact?
 
Last edited:
I don't have reason to go looking for these type of mounts as I don't have any models that use these, I did send supplier details to Dan but not sure if he used them or someone else, he could have went and made one but I would think it's unlikely as the tooling cost would be prohibitive, I'm not sure he would be in a position to allocate the funds to justify it, the price he's selling it for would suggest he just bought from the supplier, the supplier catalogues have literally hundreds of different types of mounts, quite a few manufacturers do this kind of thing

I'm sure Dan could clarify if he bought it in or not
 
I don't have reason to go looking for these type of mounts as I don't have any models that use these, I did send supplier details to Dan but not sure if he used them or someone else, he could have went and made one but I would think it's unlikely as the tooling cost would be prohibitive, I'm not sure he would be in a position to allocate the funds to justify it, the price he's selling it for would suggest he just bought from the supplier, the supplier catalogues have literally hundreds of different types of mounts, quite a few manufacturers do this kind of thing

I'm sure Dan could clarify if he bought it in or not

Considering the timing I'm sure you can understand my reaction. Posting a self created Photoshop rendering as a suggested design in a discussion of mounts, then bringing it to life over three months later and all of a sudden the identical looking mount appears for sale.

In discussing small mounts in the thread I've been talking about it was you who said, "Yeah I haven't seen a suitable mount from any existing supplier so would need something designed specifically to suit, with the right design it could also be very useful for Mobius owners so probably a bigger market awaits for the right mount, I'm sure it's something Dan will want to look at when the time and funds allow", so what am I to have thought, or believe?

I have indeed seen a very similar mount available to the one on Dan's site but it does not have a tripod ball mount. My guess would be that a supplier could very easily put out such an existing mount with a tripod ball on top instead of the ball and slot mount I've seen with modest extra retooling costs.
 
Last edited:
I have no doubt the discussion helped define what was needed, whether that was an existing product or something that received some sort of improvement though I have no idea, maybe a longer threaded section, would need to be a very minor modification to be able to get it done in small quantities though, mounts generally have a 10k MOQ for new designs
 
Well anyway, I created this DIY project for my own use and enjoyment and so the surprise discovery that an identical looking mount to my rendering posted months ago should suddenly appear recently for sale is basically irrelevant regardless of what happened surrounding that.

Then again, one might be forgiven for thinking that considering the lengthy discussions and desire expressed by many in that thread for a small tripod mount similar to my rendering to complement the JooVuu-X, Dan might have bothered to announce that he had procured a mount exactly like the one people were talking about, regardless of where it came from. Then again, that's Dan.
 
Last edited:
Having another look at the mount Dan is selling the glass side looks like an existing mount and they've swapped the camera bracket to the screw thread, if both halves were from existing models there wouldn't be any tooling cost and probably no MOQ either to put this together, still not as compact as the short one you made but that would only suit certain applications, the copper pipe one would be more useful for a lot of situations
 
Nice professional photos.
Do you use a soft-box ?
 
@Dashmellow

Fantastic piece but that sticky back mount we have been selling for about 1 year. Ask Emma, we have two sticky back mount suppliers...one large sticky back mount (a normal size) and one that does smaller. Customers request different sizes so we just stock different sizes. It's probably about 5ish cm large the small one I think but we've stocked this for well over a year (maybe longer, I'd have to check my records).

I didn't think it was such a big deal, it's a mount, which we have stocked for a long time which you can buy normally as part of one of our many bundles. I'm not sure why you have had this reaction considering we have been selling it for so long before this was anything. In fact if you read the reviews on our website for the car bundle some people mention the small sticky back mount?

This to me a genuine none-issue. We've been selling this for a long time, longer than you have raised this and I'm sure a lot of other people sell this kind of mount like this guy here () so please don't react and accuse me of anything. Maybe you copied them as they have been selling it since 2014? Absurd right but now you know how it feels.

Your mount is smaller and looks very nice, and very discreet. Seriously great job!

Cheers,

Dan
 
Last edited:
@Dashmellow nice job. The idea and original design that you had for this mount was excellent, and at the time I thought it should be considered, but it was not by the majority. Now, you have taken your original design, and using creative thought, sound logic, and a comprehensive approach, produced a mount for the Mobius that is simply outstanding.

All of this using materials that are readily available for any of us to purchase. Great job, and I am confident that you will see this original work of yours in a future "unboxing" review by someone else. That seems to be a trend that is all too common nowadays.
 
Nice professional photos.
Do you use a soft-box ?

Thanks! Yes, I use soft boxes and also an umbrella reflector in some of the photos. (like the first one with a blue backdrop...you'll notice a harsher shadow)
 
@Dashmellow nice job. The idea and original design that you had for this mount was excellent, and at the time I thought it should be considered, but it was not by the majority. Now, you have taken your original design, and using creative thought, sound logic, and a comprehensive approach, produced a mount for the Mobius that is simply outstanding.

All of this using materials that are readily available for any of us to purchase. Great job, and I am confident that you will see this original work of yours in a future "unboxing" review by someone else. That seems to be a trend that is all too common nowadays.

Thanks @Gabacho!
 
@Dashmellow

Fantastic piece but that sticky back mount we have been selling for about 1 year. Ask Emma, we have two sticky back mount suppliers...one large sticky back mount (a normal size) and one that does smaller. Customers request different sizes so we just stock different sizes. It's probably about 5ish cm large the small one I think but we've stocked this for well over a year (maybe longer, I'd have to check my records).

I didn't think it was such a big deal, it's a mount, which we have stocked for a long time which you can buy normally as part of one of our many bundles. I'm not sure why you have had this reaction considering we have been selling it for so long before this was anything. In fact if you read the reviews on our website for the car bundle some people mention the small sticky back mount?

This to me a genuine none-issue. We've been selling this for a long time, longer than you have raised this and I'm sure a lot of other people sell this kind of mount like this guy here () so please don't react and accuse me of anything. Maybe you copied them as they have been selling it since 2014? Absurd right but now you know how it feels.

Your mount is smaller and looks very nice, and very discreet. Seriously great job!

Cheers,

Dan

I've always enjoyed my interactions with you on the forums Dan and so I'm sorry to sound adversarial, but your reply here is the kind of disingenuous, mildly insulting response that I've seen so often from you that was among the things that eventually convinced me not to become one of your customers.

The notion that you would present a link to a widely available generic Chinese mount on Aliexpress and say, "Maybe you copied them" and "now you know how it feels" is pretty laughable as this happens to be the exact same widely available generic mount I used as a starting point and source of parts to create the DIY mounts I've presented here and which I've described and previously shown photos of twice already in this very thread.

This is the same kind of cheap accusatory shot I've seen you take at others, especially in some of the customer complaint threads about JooVuu that in typical fashion sound convincing enough to anyone not paying attention but completely miss the target.

Of course, what I created here hardly resembles the generic mount in these photos which in any case is not a "low profile" mount to begin with, "low profile" being the operative phrase here which was the whole point of this exercise, a point you seem to be missing here as well as with the marketing of your camera, at least as far as mounts are concerned.

Either way, I never set out to reinvent the wheel with my DIY mounts but merely tried to create something that didn't appear after searches and public query to be otherwise available, as well as to improve on what is available.

aliexpress.png originals.jpg

You know Dan, the discussion, requests and commentary about what people desire or require in a mount for the JooVuu X went on for over three weeks. During that time you admitted to indecision, you presented 12 other not terribly appealing options for us to consider, boasted about a "game changer" mount that I believe we are unlikely to ever see and that might not even actually exist and then you settled on a huge 8-plus centimeter tall magnetic mount that defeats the whole stealthy nature of the original design goals for your camera and that most of us who wanted a stealthy install don't really like. What this shows us is that the whole exercise was perfunctory with little authentic concern for responding to what many were asking for, and so why even ask in the first place? It was all apparently just a dog & pony show.

In any event, at one point in the ongoing dialogue about mounts in the Pre-Order thread I made some encouraging remarks about your "game changer" mount design, saying, "Hopefully, we'll see it come to fruition sometime soon", but I continued by saying to you, "In the meantime, many of us would welcome a small discreet adhesive mount with a ball joint".

Ya think that might have been a good time to mention that you already had exactly such a mount for sale on your website"?

Ya think, what with all the weeks of ongoing discussion and requests and posting of photos by various DCT members along with my posting of Photoshop renderings of almost precisely the same thing you might have bothered to inform anyone who participated in those lengthy discussions that you decided to include this same small ball & socket mount in the box with the JooVuu X when you shipped it?

But NO, now months later we get to hear you say in this thread , "This to me a genuine none-issue." (sic)

So, while I concede that you really have been selling a very similar looking small mount for some time now, I do not apologize for my reaction in light of the explanation I've just provided. For me, your response here only serves to reinforce my impression that you often display a certain arrogance, conceit, condescension and disingenuousness towards your customers and potential customers in a way that stands in stark contrast with certain other developers and retailers who frequent this forum who make a greater effort to be of real service and are all about their products rather than presenting their products as being all about them.
 
Last edited:
View attachment 20471
So, my original idea as suggested in the Pre-order thread was to simply cut down and modify a standard widely available adhesive tripod mount like the one on the left below that many of us are familiar with and that's exactly what I did with two of them. For the sake of designation I call the first one "the Mini".

View attachment 20730

Here are the basic components. As you'll see, some of these parts eventually got swapped around with the other mounts I've made. I added a locking platform I made from a hard rubber bin washer which I drilled to accommodate a glued-in thin 1/4-20 hex nut as seen above. The idea was to make a secure locking platform that is thinner than the ones that came with the mounts I started with. The basic idea with this mount was to eliminate the raised center column of the original to lower the height of the tripod mount.

View attachment 20092

Hey! I came over here from my F150 rear cam thread. Can you tell me how you cut the base of this mount down? I found what appears to be the original mount that you used, but I don't want to start hacking it apart without an idea of how you did it.
 
Hey! I came over here from my F150 rear cam thread. Can you tell me how you cut the base of this mount down? I found what appears to be the original mount that you used, but I don't want to start hacking it apart without an idea of how you did it.

I used a hack saw and a bench mounted belt sander. Final sanding touch-ups and leveling adjustments were done by hand.

Edit: Be sure to dismantle the mount to its component parts before you do any cutting or hack sawing. Unscrew the ball joint cup from the base before you cut into it.

I bought the original mounts for $1.62 each on eBay from China with free shipping. At that price I ordered several extra ones for this project in case I screwed one up. (turned out I didn't need them for that but it's been useful to have a couple of these on hand.) The seller was very prompt and reliable all three times I've ordered from them.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/291409381544?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
 
Last edited:
I used a hack saw and a bench mounted belt sander. Final sanding touch-ups and leveling adjustments were done by hand.

Edit: Be sure to dismantle the mount to its component parts before you do any cutting or hack sawing. Unscrew the ball joint cup from the base before you cut into it.

I bought the original mounts for $1.62 each on eBay from China with free shipping. At that price I ordered several extra ones for this project in case I screwed one up. (turned out I didn't need them for that but it's been useful to have a couple of these on hand.) The seller was very prompt and reliable all three times I've ordered from them.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/291409381544?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Thanks for the advice and the link! This sounds like a fun project.
 
While I did not find the exact mount Jovuu offers I found this one on ali express for $1.29 shipped. (for 2 more days)

It would be easy to swap out the center from a different mount with the same size ball or to cut off the current dash cam adapter and drill and tap this ball for a 1/4" rod.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/T-T...2679-413d-b714-efd5f7e4b06d&priceBeautifyAB=0



HTB11SYbaHSYBuNjSspfq6AZCpXaA.jpg
 
Last edited:
I ordered a few of those right angle mounts. In 1-3 months I can see how they work out with minor modifications.

Although it will probably have to wait for spring (due to winter weather) I have an idea of welding the 1/4" rod to a second rod with an added section for rigidity to make it more rigid and to get the precise angle necessary as determined by the final mounting position. By welding on an extension at a required angle or distance I should gain extreme flexibility in both angle and distance to fit in exactly the spot required no matter what the mounting circumstances might require.

I also bought 3 rear view mirror clamp hangers for $3.56 shipped with the wrong mounting tab. This way I can get a much shorter mounting solution. The ones with the bolt from the factory are to long and the one I got for my maxi is not easily modified as the ball assembly is all metal and no doubt hard to file down thinner or to tap for longer threads. I may cut the head off the clamp assembly and make it shorter as Dashmallow did with his nano. I will not know if that modification is needed or not until I see how the maxi hangs with a very short rod.

HTB1DVAjoiCYBuNkSnaVq6AMsVXaV.jpg



I am debating about buying the big nuts to lock the cam in place the cheap way. I can get 2 nuts for $1 and a threaded rod that might possibly work. If the rod being aluminum is to short or weak a 1/4" grade 5 4" long bolt costs around a quarter. I do not yet know what a 1/4 rod would cost locally.

HTB1enlGa4sIL1JjSZFqq6AeCpXa0.jpg
 
Last edited:
Back
Top