Dashboard Camera

[smudge-1991]

does anyone use dashboard camera at all?

where have you put it ?

which ones have you used and would recommend ?

i ask as i want a gd one but i dont fancy havin a wire just dangling round the middle of the car to have it plugged in the cigar lighter

[Aidsy1]

Why not mount it just below your rear-view mirror and have the cable going behind the mirror and up through the roof?

[smudge-1991]

because what do i tap it into then for a power feed plus i know alot of them come with batteries but i cant see it lasting long i want to put it behind the mirror as its out of site (ish)

[Darksta]

http://www.blackboxmycar.com/pages/dash-camera-101

Should help you out with some answers and what product to go for.

Planning to get one too. One mounted up front and one in the back. People in Peckham can't drive at all, don't know how to give way or use the correct lane.

[smudge-1991]

http://www.blackboxmycar.com/pages/dash-camera-101

Should help you out with some answers and what product to go for.

Planning to get one too. One mounted up front and one in the back. People in Peckham can't drive at all, don't know how to give way or use the correct lane.

cheers.

i work in cornwall but travel to derby every weekend and no one can drive in cornwall and the m5 is full of t**ts travelling to and from cornwall for a holiday that have never driven on the motorway

[Wiz201]

I've used one - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rearview-Mirror-Swivel-recorder-DVR35C2/dp/B008CDT7FQ

my vidoes are here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0hZLsuhFSU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZSnZnh-i5E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjcX2AnI52w

[Wiz201]

only reason I'm not using it at the moment is that the cigarette lighter cable stopped working, and I just can't be bothered having to hide the cabling behind the interior sides.

[smudge-1991]

i have noticed alot of them have a Battery these days so might use it on Battery and charge as needed

[Wiz201]

My Battery never lasted that long for my journeys, unless I was literally popping to somewhere under two miles

[cviclark]

I am looking for a decent pair of dash cams ,one out the front one out the back. Have a look at techmoan.com he does some great reviews of whats available. Currently what I want does not seem to be available, I want two small hidden cameras to go to a central recording,power unit box that can be hidden away and I want to hide the wires. Techmoan has a cheap small wedge camera that looks to do the job but it is cheap and has a Battery (the best ones have a capacitor). He has come to the conclusion that the current two channel setups are too big and over specced. The next problem is hiding the wires. The ideal would be to take the feed off the reversing camera or add another and have an external front camera of the same type and feed them to a box behind the glove box. In case of an incident just remove the chip and insert it into a PC or Wi Fi link. Should be simple, Toyota make source the camera,s and fitting would be easy but "the box" does not appear to exist yet. Its only a matter of time before the insurance companies insist manufacturers fit them. Currently they are seen as toys.

[cmclean]

I am looking for a decent pair of dash cams ,one out the front one out the back. Have a look at techmoan.com he does some great reviews of whats available. Currently what I want does not seem to be available, I want two small hidden cameras to go to a central recording,power unit box that can be hidden away and I want to hide the wires. Techmoan has a cheap small wedge camera that looks to do the job but it is cheap and has a battery (the best ones have a capacitor). He has come to the conclusion that the current two channel setups are too big and over specced. The next problem is hiding the wires. The ideal would be to take the feed off the reversing camera or add another and have an external front camera of the same type and feed them to a box behind the glove box. In case of an incident just remove the chip and insert it into a PC or Wi Fi link. Should be simple, Toyota make source the camera,s and fitting would be easy but "the box" does not appear to exist yet. Its only a matter of time before the insurance companies insist manufacturers fit them. Currently they are seen as toys.

Ian, check out the Blackvue range, they can be expensive but are pretty small and the front one can fit behind the rear view mirror. The rear camera is even smaller and you can hardly notice them. You can also get a power supply which monitors your Battery voltage and shuts down at pre set Battery levels. Also, the cables can easily be tucked in behind the trims to keep it neat and tidy.

[mrpj]

I have a Blackvue 2 channel set up in my Yaris. Main front camera and "slave" at the rear. They are not cheap, as previously mentioned, but very easy to fit and fairly "stealth" because of their small size and matt black colour. The video is very good. 1080p front and 720p rear, However, there can be the odd problem with the bitrate that Blackvue tend to use. Now improved with the newer models, The front camera fits nicely in front of my rearview mirror and cannot be seen when (doesn't have a screen, not required) driving nor is it easily visible from outside the car. The rear camera is very small and is fixed to the top my rear windscreen. As previous poster.

The cables are all easily hidden by tucking behind the headlining and interior trim. The only visible cable is that (2 cables) from the front headlining to the camera and that similarly at the rear (1 cable). It's all hardwired to my under dash fuse box using piggyback fuses. Required the easy removal of two bits of trim.

[cviclark]

Hi

Yes the DR650GW-2CH is the front runner but getting two coax cables up under the head liner, one all the way to the back and into the tail gate (my Auris is an estate) the other down to power is not easy. I would rather have two very small 720 Hd like used for the rear camera fed to a central unit. There is a12v pick up in the back of the Auris. The Battery management makes (on the Auris Hybrid) the makes the power magic redundant as I do not want the units on when the car is switched off.

My son lives in Vancouver and I will be there for June so may pick one up while I am there, but a two channel quality central unit to remote cameras is still the ideal.

They are only to record an incident to tell who is at fault not home movies. I am going to look at taking the rear door capping off and see if the camera could be mounted there and follow the rev camera cable to the front. It is easier to get from the outside into inside through the vents than feed cables under the inside trim. Thanks to the stupid speedo on the Hybrid I have a Hud-e mounted in the ODB port , works well but it does not like getting either too hot or too cold and it was hard to run the cable out under the weather strip. The answer is for Toyota to market an after market accessory, but that's presuming they understand the problem .

[cmclean]

Ian, the coax cable to the rear one is only slightly larger in diameter than the main power supply cable. I managed to tuck mine in very easily and they are completely hidden except for a couple of inches down to the actual cameras. BTW, you might manage to get the DR650-GW at a good price compared to the UK if you can source them from the states.

[cmclean]

Forgot to mention that there is only one power cable which goes to the front camera, and from there it's a small diameter coax to the rear which also supplies it's power.

[cviclark]

Hi

Thanks for that. It looks as if I can get the cable to the rear through the rubber gator Toyota use for the video and lights on the tailgate. The Blackvue could be attached to the plastic moulding that holds the rear Eye level light to avoid the heated screen. How did you route the cable front to back? I may be able to remove the roof light housings to get probe between the front and centre and centre and back. The power one will tuck under. Have a look at techmoan.com and it is very good at showing how to hide cameras and cables. Blackvue HQ is Vancouver its about £100 cheaper on Amazon CDN. Thanks again

Ian

[cmclean]

Ian, I ran my rear cable along the headliner and tucked it in down the roof pillar, from there it was easily hidden down the edge of the door weatherstrip, tucked under the sill plate and all the way along to the front door weatherstrip. From there, upwards to the front roof pillar and along behind the headliner to the front camera. I think it took me about 30 to 40 mins to install and that included playing with it like a new toy. Still got to hard wire the power though as the car only gets used about once a week at the moment.

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

Hi,

Just to let you know that a number of our insurance schemes offer discounts for a number of approved in-car cameras.

Regards,

Dan.

[Speed_Chaser]

I had couple of situations in the past few days which encouraged me to think about the Dashcam. Then I saw this thread and started to investigate. I was looking at the BlackVue range at first, but then I started reading reviews and watching sample clips. I found out that there's cameras with same quality recording capabilities at smaller price. Maybe someone will find my list helpful or suggest something else to look at?

G1W-CB - This has nice option, rear view mirror mount. But no GPS.

DOD LS460W - This has GPS but I'm not sure if the G1W-CB mirror mount will fit this aswell

iTracker mini 0803 A7 - Very small and has GPS

[cmclean]

The 0803 seems to have a good reputation, but as mentioned in previous posts, check out "techmoan" on YouTube for reviews.

[Wiz201]

Just catching up with the latest news. I ended up getting another dash cam because of too many near misses occuring. I got a transcend dp 200 which only works when plugged in as it doesn't have a Battery but so far I've found it works great. I haven't bothered hiding the cable and I just leave it stuck on the windscreen permanently. I leave it in position at night and touch wood no attempted burglary

[cviclark]

Hi

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. techmoan has this subject nailed but like him I am looking for a more discreet installation. I thought it would be easy as good high quality cameras such as those used for my reversing camera are low cost and well hidden. The obvious answer is another pair outside in the grill and where the reversing camera is now, or on the number plate. Feed these to a dual channel DVR set to record say 20mins of action on a loop that can be interrogated over a computer as and when needed. I do not want screens, LED,s or any other features (Wi fi would be nice but not essential). In an Ideal world this would be linked to the ODB for road speed. I have seen so called Pro boxes, some remarkably cheap on eBay, but none with the spec,s of the Blackvue 650 (the latest). Frame speed and data transfer are more important than the ultimate camera quality. On Toyota Hybrids the Battery management is good enough to shut down none essentials and I want it off with the ignition. Some of these camera,s pull 1.5Amps.

Thanks for all the advice but I will be visiting Vancouver latter in the year and intend to get the Blackvue GR650 dual channel there. Its £100 cheaper there.

[Speed_Chaser]

I've read somewhere that you should get it off with ignition by using settings, not connecting to cigarette lighter or something that shuts off. This is because you want it to be able to start recording if someone crashes into your car while at the parking lot and engine is off. I am not 100% sure about this as I just scrolled through very fast, but maybe someone could confirm this?

Also, I've read that there should be Battery or capacitor inside the camera in order to maintain the camera running after the crash as all the power will be cut off by automatical systems of the car after they detect the crash.

Please bear in mind that video quality is also important. In case someone causes a crash and won't stop to solve the situation it would be real pity if you couldn't read his plate from the recorded video.

I have one question aswell. I'm sure those who own a camera can help. How much material will I be able to record on a memory card, let's say if it's 16GB. Let's assume I am driving 2 hours/day and would like to transfer some curious videos from the camera to my computer. However if I won't have a chance to transfer them right after the thing happened, I wouldn't want to lose the video. So it should remain there 2, max. 3 days. That would require approx. 6 hours of video material to fit on the card. How big would I need?

[cmclean]

I've read somewhere that you should get it off with ignition by using settings, not connecting to cigarette lighter or something that shuts off. This is because you want it to be able to start recording if someone crashes into your car while at the parking lot and engine is off. I am not 100% sure about this as I just scrolled through very fast, but maybe someone could confirm this?

Also, I've read that there should be battery or capacitor inside the camera in order to maintain the camera running after the crash as all the power will be cut off by automatical systems of the car after they detect the crash.

Please bear in mind that video quality is also important. In case someone causes a crash and won't stop to solve the situation it would be real pity if you couldn't read his plate from the recorded video.

I have one question aswell. I'm sure those who own a camera can help. How much material will I be able to record on a memory card, let's say if it's 16GB. Let's assume I am driving 2 hours/day and would like to transfer some curious videos from the camera to my computer. However if I won't have a chance to transfer them right after the thing happened, I wouldn't want to lose the video. So it should remain there 2, max. 3 days. That would require approx. 6 hours of video material to fit on the card. How big would I need?

Depending on what camera you go for, you could basically have three wires, one for earth, one constantly live for recording while parked, and one that is only live when the ignition is on. For the memory, a 32gb or bigger will record for many hours depending on the quality of the picture. Check out the Blackvue site where it will give you a better idea of the card capacities.

[Mike169]

Hi,

The Eprance 830 is a good camera

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=eprance+830&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=ZFTRVOzYGMSy7QapsoD4Dg

and you can power if from the internal light in the headlining with something like this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Supply-Converter-Module-Output-Adapter/dp/B00E5VH1OI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1423004826&sr=8-2&keywords=12v+5v

as i don't know if you know they are actually 5v and if you use the ciggie lighter plug the volt dropper is in the ciggie plug and this way it saves having to run wires all over the place and you just need to make a slight nick in the interior mirror plastic casing sren to hide the wires inside it and the reast of the wires and the volt dropper can be tucked just behind the head lining.

I think i would be tempted to buy the camera first or find out what power source plug socket, mini or micro to make sure you get the correct power source.

Mike.