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Dash Cam CCTV

D

davemazo

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Location
Ormskirk, Lancs
Car
Skoda Superb Estate
As first trialed by GeordieDave over on THAOC I thought I`d give one of these a go and decided to install it as he has by fixing it semi permanently to the rear view mirror rather than using the suction cup, so all credit to him for this idea.

This is what`s in the box
P1050209.jpg


The rear view mirror comes out easily enough. One screw and slide it to the rear off its mounting and then disconnect the plug. Drill a 2.5mm hole in the side of the mounting bracket then fix the camera with a 3mm screw. The hardest part here for me was detaching the suction cup from the camera as things can be easily snapped off.

P1050210.jpg


Then just fit everything back into the car. I tried it out by using the supplied cigarette lighter power supply and it works fine, nice and clear pictures.

You might just be able to see it fitted

P1050211.jpg


That was yesterday. Today I decided to have a look at hard wiring it and this is where it all went pear shaped. I started by taking out the lighting/alarm/sunroof panel. This is easy enough, just take off the light covers and the alarm grille to reveal 4 bolts. Remove them with an 8mm socket to leave a nice big hole in your roof.

P1050215.jpg


I was going to splice the camera wires into the dipping rearview mirror wires (as Geordiedave did). So I tried to prise apart the charger just to have a look to see how easy it was going to be. Using a screwdriver I prised it open but used too much pressure, the screwdriver went in and ripped off this little black thing from a small PCB inside and all sort of bits went flying everywhere. I was only expecting 2 wires connected to the socket somehow not all this electronic gubbins. No idea what the black thing is but its round with 10v and 400uf stamped on it.
I managed to put it all back together without the little black thing, the LED lights up but I don`t want to plug it into the camera in case it blows it up.
I think my best bet is to try and get another power supply rather try and fix the original. So thats as far as I can go with my installation. If I get it sorted I`ll carry on with it.

Geordiedave I need you, help.
 
Hi Dave nice to hear from you again. Yes I had to wait about a week for mine as well. If there is an alternative I`ll just go for that, I think the original is knackered. I`ve had a quick look on Ebay and there seems to be plenty about just not sure if they are exactly right.

If you can post details and pictures of how you hard wired it that would be great

While I`m here, any news on the folding mirror gismo, still looking forward to getting that working.
 
Ah right thanks Dave. I thought you meant you knew where I could buy a replacement which I`m happy to do if there`s one out there somewhere. Here`s a photo of the damaged original. It all goes back together ok, it`s just that the black circular thing is totally detached and mangled and should be fixed to the point marked c2. Also the red LED has now come loose.

I didn`t know there was so much electronics involved, I thought there was just 2 wires inside the plug connected to live and earth.

P1050217.jpg
 
I was thinking this would do the job, saves any soldering and messing about:-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PSP-2000-Slim-Car-Charger-Travel-Power-Adapter-5V-DC-/230493196276?pt=UK_VideoGames_VideoGameAccessories_VideoGameAccessories_JN

or this:-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Smartdisk-Flashtrax-in-car-P-supply-5v-DC-DC-Adaptor-/280537182844?pt=UK_ConsumerElectronics_PowerAdaptors_SM
 
Dave, sorry to hear of your troubles. This will most certainly be an interesting mod once you complete it, so keep us posted. I've seen geordiedave's handy work with his mirrors... he's the man for the job.
 
Pepster said:
Very Intresting indeed so will it be used as a recorder ? or stream it live thru the sat nav?
Click to expand...

Think I`ll just use it as its meant to be CJ. Don`t know how to stream it live though the satnav. As I`ve already demonstrated my electronics skills are not that good.

I`ve been in touch with the Ebay seller of the camera and he`s gong to send me out a new power supply from China, so when it gets here I`ll plod on with trying to get this working.
 
Dave all not lost. You've just broken an electrolytic capacitor off. Anyone with a soldering iron could easily replace this. It costs pennies from maplin. Same goes for LED.
If doing it yourself watch the polarity of the new capacitor, it will have a white stripe down the length of the body - it's negative or rather the lead nearest the white stripe is negative, the other being positive.

The PCB will also be marked with a + or - just match it to the cap and all will be could. Save yourself a few quid....
HTH


EDIT just relooked at your pic. The stripped area of the cap circle on the PCB is the negative
 
With Gavs Instructions I decided to go to Maplins and get the bit I needed. Its now fitted and working. I decided to run the lead along the roof lining, down the drivers side pillar behind the airbag cover and plugged into an extension lead that I already had fitted behind the dash. I use this extension to power a TomTom now and again that I use for speed cams. The extension is plugged into the socket in the glovebox. So if I get one of those double adaptor cigarette lighter jobbies I can use both.
Thanks for looking Dave, looks like I`m sorted, it all works fine.
 
Good goin Dave! :thumbsup:
 
Yep, all working now. The only thing I can`t work out is setting the time and date that displays on the recorded video but I`ll get there eventually.
 
davemazo said:
With Gavs Instructions I decided to go to Maplins and get the bit I needed. Its now fitted and working. I decided to run the lead along the roof lining, down the drivers side pillar behind the airbag cover and plugged into an extension lead that I already had fitted behind the dash. I use this extension to power a TomTom now and again that I use for speed cams. The extension is plugged into the socket in the glovebox. So if I get one of those double adaptor cigarette lighter jobbies I can use both.
Thanks for looking Dave, looks like I`m sorted, it all works fine.
Click to expand...
excellent, saved a few quid there and with the kudos of fixing it yourself B)
 
Absolutely Gav. Everything is installed now and working fine. I`ve even managed to sort out the time and date stamp on the video. I was going to post a video of me going round the block to prove it but the short 2 minute video was 111mb and was taking forever to upload to Photobucket so I cancelled it. Can`t work out how to shorten it with Adobe Premiere so I`ll do a short video to show how it looks.
 
probably better off usin a video compression programme to whittle down the file size for quicker uploading

I might get one just to record future knockhill track action! Que another call to the leccy master dave of the geordie!
 
I wanted to get one of these but didn't know which to go for, so thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I got this a couple of days ago and fitted it straight away. I've got the auto dipping mirror, so took power from the plug, I used a straightened paper clip to make two 'prongs' that I could push down the top of the plug, they make very firm contact with the plug pins. Soldered a couple wires onto these and then I made my own 12v PSU using a L805 and a couple of capacitors, if anyone would more details I can let you have them.

To update the time you just make a new txt file, then write for example:

[date]
2010/08/17
15:00:00
Click to expand...

Then save it as Tag.txt onto the SD card. The next time you turn it on, (at the time you already wrote in the txt file), it will read the time and set it, after that it keeps the right time date.

I like the way it records in 5 min segments, but I've had one journey it missed completely, anyone else had it do this? Could just a minor glitch, I'm sure the green LED was on, but journey of about 7 mins was missed, nothing recorded. Anyway here is a clip to show the quality.

 
Some good info thanks Ed. I finally managed to get the date thing working, the instructions are a poor translation from I suspect Chinese. I think I`ve had a missed recording but I put it down to me taking out the memory card before it had finished writing to the sd card.
I`m happy with the way I`ve wired mine, my electronics and soldering skills are pretty poor.
The video doesn`t work for me.
 
All the credit goes to you!

I don't know why the embedded video doesn't work, but if you double click on it, it will take you to youtube and it plays fine there.
 
Yep, that works. I`ve just found out, watching your video, that the camera has sound as well, I didn`t know that. I`ve only ever been watching the recorded video on my laptop which is usually muted, doh.
 
I'm very interested in this mod myself, after my recent crash :D

I'd have to find a way of muting the audio recorder though, or all you're likely to hear is either me singing, or swearing.
 
Yeah, it's definitely something I think I'll be doing, especially with my luck, lol.
 
I do a fair few miles and currently looking into the various in car cameras and recording equipment available. Does anyone have one or can recommend one? I did a search first and nothing obvious came up. Cheers.
 
I remember watching the video he posted.... It is here somewhere.
 
Yes I've always been interested in this, to a point where I wanted to put pin hole cameras in behind the mirror glass etc run by a pc104 or similar pc. Haven't looked for a while though...
 
Sorry to bump an old thread but does anyone know where the camera in this was purchased from.
 
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