Dashcam with GPS overlay (alternate)

[erkme73 0]

Arg... well, I guess I don't feel so bad. I thought you got this from a dealer who was selling these at that rate.

[cocacola 0]

Product sucks, there are better and cheaper recorders that cann record on SDHC!!!

Use a 70 dollar 16 GB SDHC card and you can record up to a week!

 

 

I must have missed the name of the better and cheaper product you were talking about...

 

Well I know when I see a post with spelling errors, I always take it as gospel

 

 

And I kinda doubt you could get it cheaper than I did. Got the DVR, plus a exview camera and NiMH battery pack for $100. So where is it cheaper?

 

I am not from the states and not from the UK.

My languish Dutch, so i make a view of mistakes so what.

 

3 suggestions:

no link

no link

no link (you can put a 500gb hard disk in here!!! real time recording, not specially for security but usable i think)

 

Alle less than 150,-

 

Can not find the 16 GB SDHC version of it so quick, but i stumbled over it on the net a couple of times.

 

edit: Hmmm to bad i can not post a deeplink...

 

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Thanks!

[mikesus 0]

Simon is quick on the alternate screen displays. See the pic below.

 

I opted against the HDOP and precision info as I was looking more towards accident info if needed.

 

So the display is :

 

>Line 1 Time & Date (in MM/DD/YY format) Prefer Date on Left Time on Right

>Line 2 Lat & Lon (as shown in manual)

>Line 3 Speed (in MPH) & Heading (in degrees)

 

There was no extra charge for these modifications.

[Scruit 0]

Hey erkme73....

 

I just go the same kind of DVR that you have - gonna install it on my motorbike. I usually got for a week between rides so I can't have it hooked up permanently on motion record.

 

 

I've been playing with it for a couple days and I've made some observations (and read the manual)...

 

- "The DVR should not lose power while booting up or it may corrupt the SD card". Bootup takes about 3 seconds. (hooking to an ingition switched source that goes to 0V while the starter is running will create this exact situation - power for less than a second then zero power)

 

- The DVR should not lose power while in record mode or it may not save the file properly. In the event of an accident it's likely that the engine will be turned off within 10 seconds of the collision - so it must be able to shut itself off safely without human intervention.

 

- If the DVR is recording and the camera signal is lost then the DVR will stop recording (making it safe to power off).

 

 

 

Here's what I'm going to do with mine:

 

1) The camera will be hooked up to an ignition-switched source (via a 1am 12v regulator ($1.79 from radio shack)

 

2) The DVR will be hooked up the the battery though a simple power-off timer circuit. The timer circuit will use a resistor/capacitor timer (about $8 in parts from RS) to switch a relay that connectes the DVR to the battery. The timer will connect to an ignition-switched source (the tail-light) to tell the timer when to turn on and off.

 

- The circuit will power up and switch the relay on when ignition-switched source goes to 12V. The power to the DVR goes through a 1A 5V regulator ($1.79 from RS)

 

- When the ignition switched source goes to 0V (bike is turned off) the timer will start counting down. Meanwhile, the camera already turned off immediately making the DVR stop recording gracefully. Then after ~5 seconds the relay will turn off, turning off the DVR.

 

- While the circuit is off the DVR is not drawing any power at all - therefore it can be left hooked up indefinitely without draining the battery.

 

- I chose 5 seconds because that gives the DVR time to boot up fully so there's no chance of the power turning off during bootup if the key is turn on for just a moment (ie forgot to close a window).

 

 

 

I'm prototyping this now and will probably just solder it using a piece of prepunched PCB. My question: Are you happy with the way you have yours hooked up, or would you like a copy of the schematic and parts list for the timer? I figure it's a total of $20 in parts and would make the DVR fully aoutmatic without risking draining the battery.

[erkme73 0]

That relay/capacitor circuit sounds awfully familiar. i built one of those about 15 years ago on my first car for my dome light... so it would stay on for an additional 15 seconds and then fade off after the last door was closed. All new cars do that automatically now, but suppose I was ahead of my time back then.

 

Have you tried running the DVR without all that work? I don't know how much more different the motorbike power setup is, but I'm not using anything other than accessory (ignition-switched) power to run mine, and I do not have any corruption issues.

 

I don't recall if I posted this here (or elsewhere) already, and am too lazy to re-read so I may be duplicating. Because the constant on will drain my battery after about 4 days of not driving - which happens often when i go on week-long business trips and find my truck in the parking garage with a dead battery - I installed a factory-styled toggle switch that switches between constant power and accessory power.

 

If I'm home, and driving every day, I leave it on constant. If I go to the airport and leave the truck sit for a few days, I'll bump the switch to accessory power. There's a bright LED to indicate which position it's on so I don't forget. In either position, it will be on if the truck is running. So worst case, it will still record while driving.

 

No matter the position, I have yet to have any corruption. I don't know if that part of the instruction set is simply a disclaimer because it might happen, but after a year with two of these, neither have had that issue.

 

One thing that I do not like about the recording is that every 5-6 seconds it creates a new file. And while that's probably a good thing in terms of corruption - i.e. if there is corruption it will only affect a very small part of the video - it results in something less than seamless playback. You loose about 3-4 frames as it stops recording the last segment and starts recording the next. You don't notice it in the video, but you do in the audio recording. It's almost like it skips a split second at each seam. It's not enough loss to miss anything important, but it is annoying.

[Scruit 0]

Have you tried running the DVR without all that work? I don't know how much more different the motorbike power setup is, but I'm not using anything other than accessory (ignition-switched) power to run mine, and I do not have any corruption issues.

...

 

 

I've been running it with AA batteries so far in my testing. WEll, until I realized today that the batteries failed 5 mins from the house so the whole trip was not recorded (although the main DVR was running so I didn't care). Definitely not gonna trust batteries.

 

 

So, you're saying that you've not had any corruption issues when it's run on accessory power (and therefore will lose power unexpectedly when you turn the truck off)?

 

 

Well, what I have so far is the old timer circuit from my prior DVR - it's a simple power-off timer that runs about 45 seconds. I need to pull out the 1000uF capacitor and replace it with something smaller. The closest I have is a 220uF which should give me something liek 9 seconds, good enough. It also provides me a place to put the 5v regulator. So for me it's not a whole bunch of work to do this. I see what you mean, though - If I didn't have this already built then I'd probably just give it a shot as you describe.

 

I'll be doing all my testing in the car because I drive it a couple times a day whereas I only ride the bike a couple times a week. I should be able to put together the adjusted timer with voltage regulator in aabout an hour. Then I can run the wires on the bike and hook it up for a test ride. I need to make the wiring modular so I can pull the DVR from the bike and put it in the car for testing.

 

 

Edit: Oh, you've run two of these (you car and your wife's car?) for ever and not gotten any corruption issues? Heck, I think I'll just hook up the voltage regulator alone then. I'm sure I can weed out any corruption issues in my car. The timer circuit is just another component that can fail, so if I don't need it then I don't want it.

Edited March 22, 2008 by Guest

[erkme73 0]

So, you're saying that you've not had any corruption issues when it's run on accessory power (and therefore will lose power unexpectedly when you turn the truck off)?

\

 

Yup... give it a go, without batteries, just on acc power. It works 100% for me.

[Scruit 0]

So, you're saying that you've not had any corruption issues when it's run on accessory power (and therefore will lose power unexpectedly when you turn the truck off)?

\

 

Yup... give it a go, without batteries, just on acc power. It works 100% for me.

 

I'll hook up the simplified version tomorrow on the bike and see what I get. The only weird thing I have to do is put the 5v regulator inline with the DVR power, but that's easy. The regulator is so small I can solder it inline with the power wire and heatshrink right over it.

[Scruit 0]

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly...

 

 

The Good:

- The DVR is hooked up to the bike and I went on a ride this morning - looks like an acceptable image for my purposes.

 

 

The Bad:

- The DC/Batt switch was knocked by something as I was riding down the road, and that resulted in the loss of about 20 seconds of video as it killed the current file then rebooted and started recording again. I'll have to mount it in a way that nothing hits that switch.

 

The Ugly:

- My observation is that turning off the power without stopping the DVR first results in the loss of the current file (10 seconds per file in 704x240 mode). This isn't a problem for normal driving, but any impact that kills the power would likely result in losing video of the event that caused the power loss. (Although on a motorbike, any impact that would kill the power so suddenly would probably kill *me* too, and then I won't care about the video )

[erkme73 0]

interesting... So loss of the last 5-6 second clip happens when power is lost... I suppose that makes sense. Even in your set up with the delayed power down circuit, you'll have the same issue.

 

Short of having a battery backup, I suppose that's the risk you take. i wonder if any other DVR would be immune to this, though. Does your HD based system not loose the file it's writing if the power gets yanked?

[Scruit 0]

interesting... So loss of the last 5-6 second clip happens when power is lost... I suppose that makes sense. Even in your set up with the delayed power down circuit, you'll have the same issue.

 

I should not have the same issue with the power-off timer because the camera will turn off immediately, making the DVR stop recording. Then 5 seconds later the DVR would have it's power yanked. If the DVR is not recording at the moment the power is lost then no damage is done becuase the prior file was already save to the SD card.

 

I'm not as concerned about losing the last ~5 seconds as I was concerned about my old car DVR... If THAT lost power while recording then there was a 1/50 chance it would corrupt the hard drive. Thinking back to the car accidents I've been in in the past (and the ones I've witnessed) - the car would still have been able to power a DVR until the driver turned off the ignition. The worst accident I've been in (drive driver went left of center and hit me head-on at a combined speed of over 80mph) the car was still 'on' and I still had to turn the ignition off.

 

Short of having a battery backup, I suppose that's the risk you take. i wonder if any other DVR would be immune to this, though. Does your HD based system not loose the file it's writing if the power gets yanked?

 

The DVR in the car is a specific mobile DVR and it does not lose video when the power is yanked. It's specifically designed for that. I still have a power-off timer on it because it's wired to start recording int he event someone opens the door or hits the car when it's in a parking lot. in those cases the even that triggers the DVR will be very brief and I need the shutdown timer to make sure the DVR records *something*.

 

 

 

Stand by: I went out on the bike and made 4 distinct journeys without touching the DVR. I'm gonna play it back and see if it recorded everything.