mivue hardwire help

[scottbmw320]

Hello,

Iv recently purchased a Mivue 618 dashcam, which i chose as it was a camera which had the parking mode. Iv now purchased the mivue smart box cable to give the camera a constant power supply for when my car is left in parking mode.

Iv done a bit of research on how to install the camera but would appreciate some assurance before i go ahead.

Firstly i have a 2011 BMW 320d and before i start looking at which fuses to use for permanent and switched live, my car has mini fuses so i plan on buying 2 add on fuse adaptors. But which is the best amp mini fuse to spur off? i read some where people were saying 2.5amp but the smallest in my car is a 5amp? also have 10a, 15a and 20a but i am assuming these are to high or does it not really matter?

Does any one who has done a hardwire to a BMW know which fuses are best to use for live and switched power? i dont have a volt meter so it would be a lot easier if any one could advise me? there are also alot of empty sockets in my fuse box, are these worth using? (if so how do i know which one or does it not really matter as long as 1 is permanent and 1 is switched live? i would have to find a volt meter to test these i guess)

Lastly once its all installed my smart box has the option of a cut out at 11.6v,11.8v, 12v or 12.2v, is there any advice for the life of the battery on which voltage to use? my car is driven every day and ideally i dont want it to ever turn itself off

Thanks for your help

 

[SawMaster]

It does no harm to supply from a high-amperage source; the device will use only what it needs. The minimum needs must be met- 2A or more is good Battery voltage cutoff should be as high as possible while giving you the time you need. For longer parking times that may not be optimal for best battery life. Generally it's wise to not go below ~12.2V as that is the point where battery life begins to drastically shorten but 12V is acceptable as long as the car starts reliably and you don't mind replacing the battery many months before it otherwise would have needed that. Climate plays a part of battery life too, so going low in more extreme climates could as much as double needed battery replacement It's a trade-off and there are no solid numbers anyone can give you on this- only you can decide where to draw that line of acceptable battery life. Not being familiar with your car all I can offer is to ask a knowledgeable mechanic or car stereo installer which fuse is best to tap. Usually the cigarette lighter is good for full-time 12V but on some cars it shuts down after a preset time and BMW was one of the first to adopt that power management scheme.

Phil

 

[scottbmw320]

Thanks for your reply Phil, my cigarette lighter is only on when the ignition is on so i plan on using this one for my switched live, just need to find a permanent live. For the fuse tap i am going to order 2x 5amp ones, does it matter if i spur off off a 10amp fuse, so the holder has a 10amp and a 5amp in. Im guessing it probably wouldnt make any difference but thought i would check.

On another note i was disspointed with the mivue 618 parking mode which is not made clear when they advertise. For the parking mode the dashcam only allocated a certain percentage of the card for parking. I got a 32GB card thinking this would be plenty big enough to record a few hours whilst parked, to find it only allows me to allocate 3GB to parking, 3GB to emergency events and the rest for general driving, which is really annoying as to get a good amount of parking records i would need to invest in a 128GB to stop it rewriting over any parking event. Is this a general way all dashcams allocate SD card space? im curious as im looking to upgrade my car in July and would leave this one in my car and buy a new one if others worked in a better way? if so can you recommend any good cams for parking? as this is mainly what i am looking for in a dash cam after my car was hit twice by drivers last year whilst in car parks who never stopped. Mainly motion detection recording not permanent recording

Thanks

 

[arcticfire]

Is yours an F30? If so ive put a post in the past for the fuses to use, one is mini and one is full size. A lot of them stay active for up to 20 mins.

 

[SawMaster]

Your fuse tap plan is OK Not knowing your vehicle I can't be specific- the BMW's I worked on were from 25+ years ago- but I would be surprised if there wasn't a fuse for the horn which should be constantly 'hot'. That would easily handle the current draw, but it might have a voltage drop when the horn is in use. A simple test would be to try that tap with the cam running them press the horn for several seconds and see what the cam does; if it keeps working you'll be good there. If the cam stops look for another fuse to tap.

I'm not sure how cams 'allot' space for this, but 3GB should give you at least 2 hours total recorded time, and if each segment was one minute long that's 120 events or more- I think that would be adequate since you'll discover any damage within a day or two at the most. You should check out the MiVue forum for getting info on your cam https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/forums/mio-mivue.32/ There will be more user-knowledge available there than here

As an aside I've seen a good bit of MiVue clips on YouTube and some models have impressive vid quality, even in low light. I hope you've got one of those and I think you'll be quite happy with it if you do. I believe Garmin are rebranded MiVue cams here in the US as part of a marketing arrangement, so you don't see many MiVue braded ones here but the owner list is growing

Phil

 

[arcticfire]

https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threa...and-bdp-in-my-1-series-bmw.17069/#post-226810

 

[scottbmw320]

I did ring mivue and they said a minute of recording is about 100mb so 3gb of space will give me 30 mins of continuous recording. Which could be enough to park for several hours depending on the movement in front of the car, but I would prefer more than 30 minutes to be honest.

The horn in my car doesn't work when it's off, I plan on having a word with a mechanic I know and hope he has a volt meter , so I can try and test the empty ones

Thanks the link looks helpful for the install I'll have a good read later, hopefully the fuse numbers he has given will tie up with mine which would make it very straight forward