Dashcam Wiring

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et0609

Active Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2006
Messages
324
Location
Highlands
Car
E350d
Im considering getting a dashcam. The one Ive seen replaces the cover of the rain sensor and has a OEM look to it.

The wiring is easy enough, however, it requires a constant live connection as it records with the ignition off. My query is, as my car is not used for sometimes 2-3 weeks at a time, is a dashcam likely to drain the battery if it is constantly recording?

I dont know if ths function can be switched off the model Im looking at, but if not, anyone know if this could be an issue?

Thanks.
 
If you can find out the current drawn by your chosen camera when it’s recording in ignition-off mode, it’s easy to calculate how many “ampere hours per day” it will use. It’s just :

Current draw in mA / 1000 x 24.

Then you can work out what fraction of your battery capacity (in ampere hours, say 120 ish?) might be consumed by the camera over whatever number of days you plan to leave it. If it comes to more than 25% of the total capacity I’d guess you might have a problem.

I hard-wired my dashcam to be always on, did this calculation, and reckoned I’d be ok for the few days I planned to leave the car. But I wasn’t. It kept draining the battery enough to upset the auto-off on the engine, and enough to cause warning messages to be displayed (and sent to my phone). This with about a 100mA draw I think.

In the end I gave up and rewired the camera to go off with the ignition. I lost the “watch the car whilst it’s parked” feature, but that’s not what I bought it for.
 
You can get a device called a Power Magic pro which will sit in-line with the power for the camera and shut it off when the battery voltage drop so it doesnt flatten the battery.
 
You can get a device called a Power Magic pro which will sit in-line with the power for the camera and shut it off when the battery voltage drop so it doesnt flatten the battery.

This ^^ seems an excellent idea, but my solution would be to put a small switch in the wiring, and switch it off if I knew the car wasn’t going to be used for a protracted period (or, as I have done on both cars, use an ignition controlled fuse), but then I don’t like spending money........

If the car is not used for a long period, and the camera was on all the time, wouldn’t it over-record once the card is full, possibly deleting any occurrence early on, defeating the object a bit anyway?

Just a thought.
 
You can get a device called a Power Magic pro which will sit in-line with the power for the camera and shut it off when the battery voltage drop so it doesnt flatten the battery.

Alfie,

I was under the impression that Power Magic pro was for Blackvue Cams only! (Willing to be corrected)
 
Power magic pro is a Blackvue product that we have used on other devices.

Blackvue also offer a battery backup system which gives a lot more time of stationary recording before power down.

with regard to the question about leaving the camera on and it over writing earlier events, most cameras can be set to come on when either motion is detected or there is a small jolt or shock to the car. Thus, the camera will only record an 'event' rather than every second of every day.
 
Power magic pro is a Blackvue product that we have used on other devices.
with regard to the question about leaving the camera on and it over writing earlier events, most cameras can be set to come on when either motion is detected or there is a small jolt or shock to the car. Thus, the camera will only record an 'event' rather than every second of every day.

That's true, and in fact the camera I had trouble with (flattening my battery) had this feature. The trouble for me was that the camera still has to draw a current when it is "quiescent", and even that current proved to be enough to upset my car after anything more than 2-3 days of sitting (not moving it over a weekend, for example).

I was also under the impression that the devices that cut off the camera when the battery goes below a certain voltage only operate at a point well below that where the car is already throwing wobblies, texting its owner, posting on Facebook about battery-abuse, and so on. Hence, not really a solution...
 
That's true, and in fact the camera I had trouble with (flattening my battery) had this feature. The trouble for me was that the camera still has to draw a current when it is "quiescent", and even that current proved to be enough to upset my car after anything more than 2-3 days of sitting (not moving it over a weekend, for example).

I was also under the impression that the devices that cut off the camera when the battery goes below a certain voltage only operate at a point well below that where the car is already throwing wobblies, texting its owner, posting on Facebook about battery-abuse, and so on. Hence, not really a solution...

Thats not our experience and we have installed probably 200-300 of these. The Magic Pro turns the camera off completely (it cuts the power!) when the battery voltage drops below 12V. There is no residual drain at all.
 
Just had a look at the specs for the BlackVue Magic Pro. Current draw is a measly 200uA thats 0.2mA so unlikely to drain a battery if left on for a year.
I recently added a Dashcam to my sons Golf, bought a cheapo ebay power switch via ebay. It offered 4 voltages in the 12v range which came in useful as we took the power from his OCP which didn't have any switched power. Using the voltage selection we chose one below the normal resting voltage so power is applied to the Dashcam only with the engine running. Engine stops > voltage drops > Dashcam powers off.
 

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