A118C: they hard wired it so it is always on...24/7.....

Tareva

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Last month I bought 2 new A118C dash cams for my new truck, 1 for the windshield and one for the rear window. I had them installed yesterday by an auto stereo shop in town. I told them I wanted them hard wired so that they would come on automatically when the truck is started. However, I realized this morning that they are always on. So I just came back from the store and they said I shouldn't worry about it, that they won't drain my battery down, that they are designed to be on all the time.

Are they right?

I really only want them in case of an accident. I live on a very busy street and the traffic would be constantly making them record cars going by. Is there any advantage to just leaving them on all the time? Or should I insist that they wire them the way I wanted in the first place?
 
Don't think dash cam consumes too much power, but I don't see the benefit of it always on unless you want to use them with parking mode.
 
If you drive on a regular basis and your generator and battery is allright there is no problem, but it is a waste of good memorycard space and cycles to record all the time not least if your car in in a garage at night or parked where there is little light.

I dont use parking guard myself as my car is parked in a dark back yard, and i have a cctv camera on it where its parked.
I prefer to only record while driving, and if i get paranoid one day about parking in a place i would just power 1 or 2 of my cameras off a USB power bank.

If that shop tapped into a fuse in the box i would ask them to move it to a fuse thats not allways on, and they seemingly is hard to find, when i made a 12V extension a little while ago i had to try 5 - 6 fuses before i found one that was only on with a turn of the key.
 
Last month I bought 2 new A118C dash cams for my new truck, 1 for the windshield and one for the rear window. I had them installed yesterday by an auto stereo shop in town. I told them I wanted them hard wired so that they would come on automatically when the truck is started. However, I realized this morning that they are always on. So I just came back from the store and they said I shouldn't worry about it, that they won't drain my battery down, that they are designed to be on all the time.

Are they right?

I really only want them in case of an accident. I live on a very busy street and the traffic would be constantly making them record cars going by. Is there any advantage to just leaving them on all the time? Or should I insist that they wire them the way I wanted in the first place?

The purpose of the hardwire kit is to power the camera but shut it off before it drains the battery. As long as you have it so it will cut it off when the battery gets lower then whatever voltage you set it at
 
I think it's just a straightforward hardwire kit he has and not a battery protect kit?
 
Is there any advantage to just leaving them on all the time?

not really, most of what it records overnight would be gone by morning anyway

Or should I insist that they wire them the way I wanted in the first place?

it would be better for the truck, better for the cameras and better for the memory cards if you do
 
they said I shouldn't worry about it, that they won't drain my battery down, that they are designed to be on all the time.

Are they right?
Right in the sense the camera is designed to be "on". Very wrong about not draining the battery. Just like leaving a dome light on.. all the time. A good battery can handle the drain for a while.. but in a day or so you will be needing a boost to start your vehicle.
Many use a device to cut the power to the camera after a period of time.. or when the battery gets down to a predetermined voltage. http://www.blackvue.com/power-magic-pro/ is one such gadget but there are many other similar solutions
 
...Or should I insist that they wire them the way I wanted in the first place?
That's what I would do if for no other reason than that's what I paid them to do.

It's a simple matter that they screwed up and don't want to take the time to make it right. Insist they correct their mistake and next time use a different shop. Every business will make a mistake at some point - a good business will not hesitate to make it right.
 
Thanks, everybody, for your replies. I will be going back to them to change the wiring to what I wanted.
 
a good business will not hesitate to make it right

A good shop will trow down what they have in ther hands and fix it right avay, thats at least how it would be if i had a shop of some kind.
The customer is not allways right, but mistakes made must be rectified at once.
This matter of ppl full knowing they have made mistakes but refuse to correct them is just one of the reasons as to why i give my home country so much flack.
If you cant fix your own mistakes and learn from them, well then you are going no where.
 
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Once I forgot my camera was still on as my cig lighter was always powered on and I had to manually unplug it. Came back to it 5 days later, pffft no start. Had to have my car jumped.

This was just before I hard wired it out of fuse panel where it's on only when the car's on and not always on. Also right before I put in a new car battery, the old one was 9 years old factory original and past due to be replaced.
 
...Also right before I put in a new car battery, the old one was 9 years old factory original and past due to be replaced.
That's really good for any battery. The best I've gone was about 7 1/2 years, it was still working fine but I figured I was on borrowed time.
 
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Mine probably didn't get much use. According to history, it did about 110k miles in the first 2 years as a rental or leased car out of Howell, MI, then spent 3 years around Detroit I guess to various sales and auction until it was finally sold to someone in Flushing (near Flint). That owner added only about 15k miles before it ended up at used car dealer in Clio (other side of Flint from Flushing) where I bought it a few months later. The battery went bad a few months after that so about 125k miles but it probably spent most of those time disconnected to stop power leeching for car's clock, security, and wireless remote controls. The date on the old battery was early 2004 and died in November 2013
 
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