Very intersting thread, and well done on making something which most people couldn't do such a achievement,have you tried making any for other model camera's?
I would purchase one or more for my camera if it was available,i wouldn't mind having a spare or 2, i own a DOD LS 430.
Hopefully the makers will take note of this and make the camera's to allow for camera filters to be used.
Well Done again on this Adaptor!
Hi Dandybound,
No, I have not tried designing an adapter for any other dashcam. The BlackVue was very easy to design for, since it is made of combinations and subtractions of simple and easily measured geometric shapes. This made fitting an adapter to it fairly easy.
Generally, you will need a large diameter filter mounted close to the dashcam lens. This is due to the wide-angle optics of dashcams. For my BlackVue design, I had to have the adapter actually extend
within the metal housing of the filter, to within 1 mm from the surface of the actual filter glass. This was necessary to prevent "vignetting" or shadows of the filter metal housing appearing at the corners of the video.
I looked at your DOD LS 430 on Amazon and noted the listed dimensions - the lens barrel looks like 36 mm in diameter. It looks like the DOD has sort of a sun shade that would prevent mounting a filter close to the lens. My first thoughts were to grind off the sun shade (
) so that a filter could be mounted close to the lens. Then, you might be able to mount a CarrySpeed MagFilter directly on the surface of the lens barrel. I'm almost certain the the 36 mm MagFilter would result in vignetting, but the 42 mm MagFilter might work. The ID and OD of the adhesive backed magnetic ring are 32 mm and 37 mm, so it might form a satisfactory attachment to the 36 mm OD DOD lens barrel (if the sun shade were removed). If vignetting still occurred, then you would have to consider an adapter that allowed the DOD lens barrel to go
inside the filter metal housing (like I did with the BlackVue adapter). The 36 mm OD of the DOD lens barrel (my approximate measurement) is not compatible with the 32 mm ID of the CarrySpeed adhesive backed adapter, however.
All is not lost! Amazon has another CarrySpeed gadget that is a threaded adapter that can attach to a magnetic ring (glued to your dashcam), and the threaded adapter can in turn accept a threaded CPL filter. The CarrySpeed gadget is identified as 52 mm, which is getting nice and big!
It warrants further investigation.
See:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/B00B0OVGPI
An entirely different alternative is to get sheets of polarized material (usually plastic), 3D print a rectangular holder for the material, and design some sort of easy magnetic quick mount/dismount for the filter holder. You would probably want to take the filter off at night, but there would be no need to rotate it. Designing it is easier said than done, but you could probably avoid cutting the DOD sun shade.
An example of polarizing sheet material:
http://www.polarizingsheet.com/circularpolarizingsheet.php
So, no elegant simple solution that I can see. But, it may be possible with careful thought and 3D printer design skills.
