24/7 parking surveillance, battery life and motion sensor

[Kevster123]

I recently bought and HP f200 dash cam and I love how well it works on the road but I have a couple of questions about using it while my car is parked.

I'm going to college and I was planning turning it around to videotape the rear of my car while I have it parked on campus, assuming I leave the car there for up to 1 week without starting it, will it drain my battery to death? Some more details - my cigarette lighter auto turns off so I bought a female connector to directly wire it to the battery, It will be on motion detection and collision detection modes while it is parked so it will only record 15 seconds when another car passes by.

Anyone have any experience and can vouch that their car battery won't die?

 

[BlackBoxed.ca]

This really depends on your car battery's condition. If this is going to be something you are looking to do consistently, it would be best to get something that can monitor your car's battery so that it cuts power to the dash cam when your battery falls to a predetermined level. If your dash cam has parking mode, it is always best to use a hardwiring kit that can monitor your battery with it. A dead car is very inconvenient.

Something like the Lukas LK-350 will work perfectly for this.

Kelvin

 

[jokiin]

If you left your interior light on for a week would your car still start? Similar power draw

 

[albertson]

Another alternative is to install a second battery that is isolated. The battery capacity will determine how long it will work between charges. The isolator device allows the battery to recharged every time the car is driven. Connect your socket to this second battery. Your main battery is protected and available to start the car when you get back. Install it yourself, or take it to a good sound system installer and they can do it for you. Just be sure the secondary battery is anchored strongly and the power wires are protected with fuse and routed safely. May not be an option if this violates your warranty.
Something like: http://www.waytekwire.com/item/80046/SURE-POWER-702-MULTI-BATTERY/

 

[Lielap]

You can make simple calculation -- e.g., panorama DVR consumes ~0.2A (200 mA) when recording. You probably have maximum "100 Ah" battery. If powering only the DVR then in one week you will lose 24*7*0.2=34 Ah from your 100 Ah. That is, after a week your fully charged battery will have only 65% of capacity. Having battery capacity less than 50% is harmful for your car battery.

The other problem with this setup is that DVR usually has only one SD slot, i.e., max 256GB of storage which will be enough to keep only last 2 days of captured video.

 

[BuyThisDashcam]

Hello,

Do I understand well ? When installing a second battery it will be charged as the main battery when using the car ?

Do you think that a small battery, motorbike size would be enough or do we really neeed a big car battery ?

Thanks for all.

 

[jokiin]

Hello,

Do I understand well ? When installing a second battery it will be charged as the main battery when using the car ?

Do you think that a small battery, motorbike size would be enough or do we really neeed a big car battery ?

Thanks for all.

it's not as simple as just installing another battery, you need to modify the charging circuit to correctly maintain the batteries

 

[BuyThisDashcam]

it's not as simple as just installing another battery, you need to modify the charging circuit to correctly maintain the batteries

Thank you, so I need to visit a shop to do it, but if the car is new do you think it's a problem from the warranty ?

 

[jokiin]

if the car is new there's possibly no room for a second battery

it requires a switching solenoid to correctly maintain the charge in both batteries, it would likely be a problem for warranty if anything related to charging were to fail

cameras don't draw that much power, unless you don't drive the vehicle for extended periods you'd do better to look at just installing a low battery cutout device, connect to your fuse box using fuse taps and you should have no issue with warranty anyway

 

[BuyThisDashcam]

if the car is new there's possibly no room for a second battery

it requires a switching solenoid to correctly maintain the charge in both batteries, it would likely be a problem for warranty if anything related to charging were to fail

cameras don't draw that much power, unless you don't drive the vehicle for extended periods you'd do better to look at just installing a low battery cutout device, connect to your fuse box using fuse taps and you should have no issue with warranty anyway

Low battery cutout is the box that stop my camera before the battery dies ? And this is easy to install anywhere for cheap without voiding the warranty ?

 

[Street Guardian USA]

Low battery cutout is the box that stop my camera before the battery dies ? And this is easy to install anywhere for cheap without voiding the warranty ?

http://dashcamtalk.com/forum/thread...charge-prevention-device-ms-multi-safer.4603/
http://dashcamtalk.com/battery-discharge-prevention/

 

[albertson]

Joklin and RoadCam are both giving you good advice. It is much simpler to use a battery cut-off device. It has the least risk to a new car warranty. Be sure to use one that cuts off at acceptable voltage level. There is good advice in this forum regarding which device is preferred in protecting the battery. Your original question suggested you would be running in park monitoring mode for a week between starting the car. Worst case is the cut off device stops the recording before the week is finished. You could have a similar problem filling the memory card with protected video segments. For your use, I would suggest trying the cut off device first and learn if you are getting acceptable recording quality, memory space, and battery endurance. There may be more important issues to fix than extending battery endurance.

 

[Hillbilly]

Also from other threads there is no guarantee that the camera will only record for the times you want it to.

Some will detect a leaf blowing past as motion and record, or a tree branch blowing, or a pedestrian walking 50m away across the car park.

Get the idea.

Methinks if you are leaving your car in a car park for a week you are looking for trouble.

Also a front camera turned around wont have a great rearward field of vision anyway