I have been wondering if the mount is stable enough to prevent vibrations when the vehicle is driven over corrugations or damaged roads.
With the stiff suspension of my van and the awful state of many roads I travel here, I haven't noticed any issue with my T130, but I have had issues with other cams.
As I see it the main factors involved with cam stability are cam weight, distance to mounting surface, rigidity of the mount, and the dimension of the mounting pad.
1-Weight can't be helped but can be be made worse through unnecessary use of heavy materials such as a metal case where plastic would be sufficient.
2-Distance to the mounting surface is the biggest 'killer' because of the exponential effects of leverage. I have a lightweight cam which is otherwise very solid in every way, but suffers vibration simply due to this effect. Another has a thin post between mount and cam which flexes.
3-I still have a G1W/s for a side-cam, and the mounting design of these was never very solid, again the sole problem.
4-Mount pad dimensions play a large role due to leverage resistance of wider dimensions. In this regard, the much-maligned 'suction' mounts can actually do very well but usually fail at the task due to #2, distance and rigidity.
The T130's mount is large enough in both dimension, short in distance to the cam, and fairly central to the cam body. These points are as ideal as you can get. Where the problem lies is that the connection to the mount is off-center, allowing the cam weight to have leverage against the mount. There's also less rigidity here than I'd like. Given the diameter of the cam which is significant, adding thickness to the 'ring' part of the mount to increase rigidity would be unsightly and lessen stealthiness. Adding width to the 'ring' or centering it better could help if the cam internals could be arranged around that, but a case and mount redesign would be expensive to do so we won't likely see that.
So while the design isn't ideal, it is as good as most cams and I think should be more than sufficient for most users, save perhaps for folks with trucks like mine or off-road drivers, and in that regard we'll have problems with many cams which most drivers won't have regardless. Time will show whether the mount stability is enough of an issue to be concerned about but I do hope Viofo considers my points in future designs.
Phil
