Overnight in car setup

Joka999

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I'm looking for an overnight in car setup of 3 cameras - front and both sides. I'm not really sure where to start or what options I have available, I've been looking at the Mobius camera with an extended lens but I can only find extensions of 20cm. Or maybe 1 dual channel camera and one normal? I'm assuming I would need some form of power bank as well. I'm just seeking some advice on what options I have that can meet the following requirements
  • 3 views - Front and both sides (Assuming I would need an individual camera for each)
  • 15 hours recording time minimum (storage + battery)
  • As it will be overnight I assume IR?
  • Discreet
Open to suggestions, camera's/CCTV isn't something I know a lot about.
 
The Mobius lens extension isn't intended to be a 'remote cam' and that's the longest cable which will work reliably. As tiny as they are there's usually a way to mount them discretely. They will also work with some 128GB cards to give you ~16 hours recording time. They do only fair in low light conditions but might be good enough if there's some light where you park, and they are ultra-reliable. The SG9663DC dual cam has better Sony sensors for much improved low-light performance but I'm not sure about the maximum usable card size. That would need to be 256GB for ~16 hours recording time.

No dashcams work in total darkness; the built-in IR illuminators of some cams are good enough for interior recording but will simply reflect off the glass so you won't see outside of the car. In most cams those illuminators aren't even IR but visible LED's and are a useless gimmick. And only a very few cams do not have an IR cut filter allowing IR recording. If you want to record outside of the car in total darkness you'll need external IR illumination and a cam specifically made for that.

And yes you'll likely need external power as most car batteries can't handle more than one cam @ 16 hours and many can't even do that. It seems to me that you're looking more for property protection while parked than a dashcam which is made to serve a different purpose. If you can always park in the same place you might be better served with IP security cams which are far more suitable for that purpose. While dashcams can be used for security like this (which I do myself) they are a poor substitute with many drawbacks when used this way. Better than nothing and maybe good enough but far from best.

Phil
 
It's not a good long term solution, but this info may be of some help. In the past I have set up Mobius cameras in discreet locations on job sites where I am leaving my tools overnight or during the day when I'm out buying materials or parts. I use Anker 20,000mAh battery back up packs to power them anywhere I can't get mains power for a USB power supply to them. I caught a tool thief this way on one occasion last year, and deterred another. They run either 64GB or 128GB SD cards, both of which give plenty of recording time. At 1080p the 128GB card yields close to if not more than 24 hours, and the 20,000mAh packs are enough to power the Mobius for that long too.
 
I just performed a long term test using one of my Mobius cameras with a 128GB MicroSD card and a fully charged 20,000mAh Anker battery pack. The battery ran out before the card was full; it still had 1.26GB free.

It recorded 17 hours of 1080p 30fps footage, almost exactly to the minute. Bear in mind that these battery packs are a couple of years old now, so a slightly newer pack would probably last until the card was filled.

A 5 minute clip is ~600MB so another 1.2GB of space will yield approximately 10 more minutes of recording time.

I must have been using the 720p setting when I was using this setup for surveillance purposes and achieving more than 20 hours of recording time.
 
That's good information to know. I was wondering how you got the long recording times when I couldn't :p The difference between 720 and 1080 explains it and it isn't as linear as one might expect (70% more). Plus we get lots of questions about powerbank time capacity ;) One of my customers has some occasional security issues and the 720P/20K powerbank combo might be just what he needs. Getting that one to spend the money is another story entirely :ROFLMAO:

Phil
 
Mobile power banks are getting bigger and bigger too. Anker and some other manufacturers now have 26,800mAh packs, although I haven’t actually purchased any of those yet because of how difficult it is these days; Amazon no longer ship this type of product to my location (Northern Ireland) and I will have to buy it through a third party who can post it to me. I don’t know if the Mobius firmware is capable of handling 200GB cards but if so you could probably combine a 200GB card and one of those large power banks to achieve 24 hours at 1080p.

For the original poster’s requirements, I think the Cellink battery unit would be the best option. I am going to change my setup to the Cellink shortly, because I find running my two cameras in the van in parking mode with the Power Magic Pro only yields about 5 hours of recording time before the battery reaches 12.5V and the power is cut. This is no use for overnight or all-day parking, and even though I do have it in a locked private yard at night 90% of the time, there are occasions when I have to leave it unattended in public parking spaces.
 
motion detect/parking mode is the best for that amount of continuous hours surveillance, since I'm not sure even a 128gb card would be enough for long term recording for just one night

are you not in a position to set up home CCTV pointing at your car? much more practical solution if you are
 
Suggest that you find one dual channel panorama camera.
 
Get your car a high end capacity battery, which would give you the power you need for recording at least 24hrs..

Do the calculations of what the system you wan't to deploy uses of power, then you'll be able to figure out what type of battery (choose AGM due to deep-cycling ability), you'll be having the most use of.

My own 2CH Blackvue DR650S is pulling 4mA/hr and by having an 80Ah battery, i'm able to power the dashcam-setup (and keep the car reeady for coldstarting in the winter) running for at least 30 hrs before my BDP makes sure to cut the power to the cams @12V.

Actually i've managed to pull 48hrs of constant recording (Parking Mode Enabled), from the battery without a BDP still being able to start, although the threshold of my lowest voltage said 11.4V by the time i went back to my car.

Do yourself a favour, don't go for the batterypacks that tells you they are rated for 20Ahrs or so-like, they would properly do the job, but at the end, who would know when it blows up? Those lithium-cells are known to fail, and when they do, they do with a bang. Imagine having that in your glovecompartment, not being able to remove it in time.. Nope. I won't ever recommend going that way..
 
motion detect/parking mode is the best for that amount of continuous hours surveillance, since I'm not sure even a 128gb card would be enough for long term recording for just one night

are you not in a position to set up home CCTV pointing at your car? much more practical solution if you are

My Blackvue DR650S-2CH is running 128GB primary and a 64GB-card for backup purpose.
Both cards are set to the following profile (see below) and this gives me a solid 26hrs of recording-time for the 128GB, non-stop, 24/7/365..

So the answer to the question is, 128GB would be enough for a day of recording. Assuming you visit your car once a day, you'll be fine having to deal with a single 128GB-card.

I'm only using the 64GB when reviewing the footage from the primary-card, and at that time the car would be "out of luck", if not having a secondary card to put into the dashcam, so to speak, in terms of events happening to it in that time.

The 64GB is closing in on approx. 10hrs of recording non-stop 24/7/365 (same profile as the 128GB), and is intended for the time where the 128GB is out of service due to reviewing the footage as noted.

Udklip.JPG
 
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For references Blackvue did put a schematic of the recording times on different profiles and card-sizes
https://www.blackvue.com/video-quality-settings-and-recording-time/

I found that those numbers doesn't add up, i don't know why that is, but my 2 cams are running faaaaaar longer than these listed before overwriting the oldest.

asss.JPG
 
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