Carl Zeiss Cinemizer Ski Goggle Mod

 

This is my run through of the Cinemizer ski goggle modification using the FPVManuals lens and Sugru to hold things in place. The lens is designed to work with Bolle Y6 OTG Goggles, Shiny White, Vermillion Gun Lens Ski Goggles. In all the whole build took around 5 hours in total, over three days to let the Sugru set.

Once you remove the arms of the Cinemizers and disconnect the ribbon cable, you’re left with a decision to make in order to remove the right arm which has the cable running through it and is connected to a PCB. I’ve seen methods that have chopped up the arm with a dremel or wire cutters, but I thought this was a bit too risky in case the wire got damaged. My soldering skills are not terrible so I used a solder sucker to remove the wires from the PCB after noting which wires belonged where. Then I proceeded to solder them back on carefully as they are quite delicate. If you don’t rate yourself at soldering and don’t have a good iron with a small tip, go for the dremel method.

I opted to remove the headphone wires from the source instead of just cutting them off, but either is good. This is why I removed the front moulding of the Cinemizer.

The next stage was to secure the PCB in the goggles with the Sugru. One very important step was to test the Cinemizers continuously during this stage as the wires can easily come off the PCB. To do this I hooked up a source of video/photos in the form of a point and shoot camera to the Cinemizers AV input. Then the PCB can be carefully pushed into the Cinemizers body and sealed using the Sugru. I used about half a 5g pack for this. Make sure to push some into the body as well as supporting the cable fully. I left them overnight to dry at this point.

Now it’s time to put the Cinemizers into the ski goggles. I popped out the old lens and put the Delrin one in. I did find that I had to trim a little of the Delrin lens on the top and bottom where the left and right sides of the Cinemizers slot in. This was done because I found it was warping the lens slightly as the fit was too tight for the position I wanted them to be in.

Fitting the Cinemizers into the goggles I found to be extremely difficult. To help I used a few tacks of hot glue to hold the Cinemizers in place when I have found the best angle and position for them inside the ski goggles. The glue can be picked off once the Sugru has set. To get the angle of the Cinemizers I found that by tacking the top of the Cinemizers first allowed me to hinge them whilst I was wearing them to figure out where to tack the bottom of them. This was done so the Cinemizers were in the centre of my vision. The pencil mark in one of the image showed the amount I hinged the goggles. I used a plastic tie as well to keep the goggles from moving away from the Cinemizers.

After this, the Cinemizers are relatively secure in ski goggles, so I applied a 5g pack to the top and bottom. Make sure you use some degreaser on the Delrin lens first to help the Sugru stick. For me even after doing this, once the Sugru had set, it started to come away from the lens. However as the Sugru is still stuck to the Cinemizers well, and has been moulded to the correct shape, I could always glue it back in. At his point, it is not much of an issue as the Cinemizers are not coming out while you are wearing them.

In all, the modification is well worth it. Just take your time as there is lots of room for error.

More images at TomParker.co

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