Blackvue DR380G-HD installed!

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johny5_uk

Active Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2009
Messages
563
Location
in a house
Car
E class
These cameras seem to be more mainstream now and a recent "incident" I had the other month pushed me into getting one.

As I approached some lights, the road branches out to two lanes although only enough room for 2 vehicles in the right hand lane.
The lights were on red but as there were 3 cars already queing on the left I thought I would pull up in the empty right lane.
When you go through the lights the road branches to the left and continues to be two lanes for maybe 4 cars lengths, so when you have gone through the lights you need to merge (in turn), normally traffic from the left merges to the right due to parked cars.

junction.jpg


So as I was approaching the lights, they were red and then changed so instead of me stopping, I continued through whilst at the same time looking to my left, being courteous and letting the first car that had qued pull in front of me.
There was a volvo estate behind him and he pulled behind me.
At no point did I accelerate hard, in fact I was so casual and slow I was going to let all 3 of the cars (volvo was the 2nd in line) undertake me but mr Volvo left plenty of space and I just thought he was pulling in behind me anyway......that was until he let out a barrage of horn blasts behind me!

I wondered why he did this and looked in the mirror, he was a fairly large jamaican chap throwing his arms around in the air as if maybe I had cut him up!? I certainly hadnt.

As it was two lanes and no one was in the outside lane I made the mistake of pointing out to him that there were in fact TWO lanes by lifting my hand up and showing him two fingers.

At this point I guess some of you are thinking I was "flicking the V's" but seriously, as funny as it sounds I wasnt. The hand gestures was confirming the number "2" as oppose to lowering and raising my 2 fingers. (Oh my the more I write this the more I can see now why he took offence! but seriously I was gesturing "2" and he was actually straddling the second lane now I remember).

A couple of seconds later I hear an engine ROAR (wait, it cant have been? it was a volvo estate after all?), I look again in the mirror and he is overtaking me like a mad man possessed in a built up 30 limit on the opposite side of the road.
I wasnt going to stop him, if he wanted to be in front so bad then be my guest.

Only when he got in front of me, he SLAMMED his anchors on and came to a standstill, very very quickly. Needless to say I slammed my brakes on, not done one of those emergency stops for a long long time!

I was gobsmacked. Wondering what he was going to do next, I see him jump out of the car and start thundering towards me! Oh my he is big, only more fat than muscle I wasnt really bothered about any confrontation after all I didn't do anything wrong. My only worry was he was going to thump or kick my beautiful Mercedes so I quickly pressed the electric window just in case he wanted his fist to have quick access to my face.

He was screaming at me, what a loon but the next thing he did was priceless. He produced a police badge and held his wallet out screaming at me to "slow down"!???? and did I want "uniform" down here!?
I agreed and said I think I do want them down here actually!!
His female accomplice joined in by jumping out the passenger side and flashing her nice silver badge at me just chanting the same rubbish.

It all died down after about 5 minutes and when he got back in his car he screamed away down a side street just as I was thinking about taking his registration and reporting him.
I doubt anything would have happened, the experience shook me a little mainly due to the idiotic move he pulled on me.
I think extremely highly of the police and the roles they have to do, I thought scum like this didnt exist much anymore and was surprised to see it first hand of them flaunting what power they think they had over me when I hadnt done anything wrong at all.

In hindsight I wished I had one of those black box recorders so I could have got the reg and sent the video to their CSI.
I did a bit of reading and purchased one from these guys, I got the 16gb version for £189 with morning delivery.

Blackvue 380G HD Black box digital incident recorder

installation was so simple, it just plugs straight into the cigarette lighter socket and you can tuck the wires in the trim around the edge of the windscreen.

I opted for a bit more of a stealth install that looked more OEM to the car as I didnt want it sticking out or seeing that it was stuck to the inside of the windscreen so I removed the trim from behind the rear view mirror that covers the electronics on the windscreen.
I bolted it to the trim and it sits tucked nicely behind the rear view mirror. The only thing it might affect was the auto dimming sensor on the rear view mirror but I tested this in different locations and it was fine.

You cant see the device from the driver or passenger seats unless you lean right forward and looking at the windscreen from outside the car you are hard pushed to notice the lense sat right in front of the rear view mirror.

I have routed the wire to the glove box and thats where it gets it power from but I have ordered another box for £22 that enables it to be powered on all the time as it also has a "parking" mode to sense people walking around your car and also if you car gets knocked in which case it starts recording.

Also going to get a 32gb micro ssd as these are cheap and will give me over 17hrs of recording and the 16gb allows 8hrs 41mins.
I have also disabled the sound and speed indication from the video (720p HD at 30frames sec, the unit recording GPS location, maps your journey and also displays speed and G's.


Recording from youtube:
[youtube]g3A87cvZ8zg[/youtube]


My install:
 

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Should have called plod , they take a dim view of people impersonating them. Doubt they were real police.
 
Afaik the 380 is 720p and the 400 is 1080p.
I think for the extra cash the 400 is a little overkill as 720p is more than good enough for this purpose. Don't forget the 1080p will probably require twice as much memory for a similar recording length.
The only benefit of the 400 is to maybe read a number plate that is a fair distance in front of you.
 
Nice one mate thanks for posting this and again sorry to hear about your run in with the "police" - not sure how they can be called so if they have acted like that.

Will probably order a 380 and fit it in a similar fashion, how long is the battery life for parking mode?
 
There aint no battery Dr Nab!

I have the 400 and parking mode only works if you order the separate lead which connects up to a permanent 12V supply rather than the standard ignition supply.

It also has some programmable dip switches so you can alter how long the supply stays energised for after ignition off or you can have it so it switches off if the Battery voltage drops to a user chosen minimum level.
 
Yeah, what sinewave said :)

It does have some kind of capacitor inside though so it does a controlled shutdown when you turn the ignition off.
Ive ordered my box from ebay so will hard wire it in.
I think the unit uses .25 of an amp so will be interesting in seeing how long it will run in parking mode before activating the shut off feature of the power box at a given voltage.
I suspect it will be quite some time.
 
johny5_uk said:
Yeah, what sinewave said :)

It does have some kind of capacitor inside though so it does a controlled shutdown when you turn the ignition off.
Ive ordered my box from ebay so will hard wire it in.
I think the unit uses .25 of an amp so will be interesting in seeing how long it will run in parking mode before activating the shut off feature of the power box at a given voltage.
I suspect it will be quite some time.

I have a 400 - fitted almost same as yours, and want to put the additional power box on. At the moment is simply plugged into the glovebox power supply. When you fit your box, can you post where you decide to connect for the permanent supply. Also, does it automatically shutoff the power at a given voltage, or at a given time? I thought there are 2 options.. 1 with no timer in case your car has a power feed with low voltage cutoff (ie the car does it) and 2 in case the car does not have this kind of feed in which case you set a timer.

Do you get reflection off the screen with yours?
 
After I had installed mine I actually saw your post on here wilsodg, I will let you know when I wire it in.

To be perfectly honest I havent even gone out and tested it in this position yet. I will go out tomorrow and send you some dropbox links if you want. I did notice though when setting the angle it was pretty sensitive to the bright sky so you do have to set the angle so about a quarter of the screen is your bonnet. The wide angle still captures everything that you need to see anyway.

Without the power magic box the unit powers down whether you have auto parking mode on or not so mine is set to on. if you turn the ignition off then the unit auto powers down in seconds.

The power magic box gives you the following:

OPTIONAL Electric power controller . This optional addition should be considered if the BlackVue is going to be operated when a vehicle is turned off and the BlackVue Drive Recorder is still going to operate from the vehicle battery. The Power Magic is a device that automatically cuts the power to the BlackVue Drive Recorder according to the configured voltage – the power is cut if the voltage drops below the configured value, or the configured timer – the power is cut if the configured time has elapsed, to prevent the battery of the vehicle being discharged. This product can be self installed but we would recommend that it is fitted by a professional auto electrician

PRODUCT features

Electric power controller
• preventing car battery drain
• power controller for BlackVue DR350, DR300G and DR400G HD
• 12V and 24V Application
• Low Voltage cut-off mode : 11.1V/11.4V(12V) or 22.2V/22.8V(24V)
• Timer setting : 1hr~72hrs
• Semi-Permanent Fuse Usage
• Cigar Jack Connection socket


I think I will set mine to cut off at 11.4v to start with and see what length of time that gives compared to what it records.
In parking mode it obviously only records when there is movement or the vehicle is knocked.
This is ideal for me as it adds another security camera to my house surveillance :) (unless of course they pinch the motor!)
I sometimes stay away in hotels too and have had (mainly) vans park pretty close to me. That along with shopping car parks, it should serve its purpose.
 
Power Magic box now installed.
Cost £22 from ebay but customs stung me for £3.88 worth of VAT and then royal mail jumped on the bandwagon with an £8 handling fee. Still cheaper than sourcing in the UK though.

Tapped the switched 12v and ground feed from behind the existing cigarette socket in the glovebox and there is a permanent 12v feed under the passenger footwell (big thick red wire).

12v.jpg
 
I've done a bit of research, though honestly I confess mostly via Dash Cam Comparison | Dash Cam Talk. My friend has a dashcam in each of his cars and swears by the DVR027, however it's just too ugly for my beautiful Merc so I'm happy to pay a little extra for the itronics ITB-100HD. Similar specs and features to johny5_uk's unit, though a little more black which is better for me.

My question is, anyone have any recommendations for wiring into a facelift C230K? My cig lighter is not only in use with a bluetrip for music streaming, but also hey, that's not an acceptable long-term install is it?

A few options once deciding to run cable around the windscreen, but knowing there's circuitry in the overhead unit, and quite possibly in the rearview mirror itself, I'm very tempted to attempt to wire in there. johny5_uk's comments about a stealthy install ring true, so the less wire running around the place the better yeah? So anyone know enough about the loom to suggest possibility? It requires 0.12A.

Pev
 

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