Creating your own dashcam...

[Master Monki]

Hi all... this is my first post and hopefully it's not too crazy.

Has anyone built their own dashcam from parts? I'm not talking about just switching out the sensor of an existing dashcam or modifying the mount. I'm talking about:

A) Assembling individual components that are already compatible (Novatek NT96650, Aptina AR 0330, capacitor, circuit board, SD Card reader)
B) Getting the firmware to work
C) 3D printing a casing / shell

Excuse my ignorance if this is a silly question... but I'm very curious. Thanks.

 

[jokiin]

You'd do better to buy a Möbius and remote lens kit

 

[Master Monki]

I'm sure I could buy a Mobius, Innov, or G1WC and try to swap out parts... but I'd like to build a prototype camera from scratch first for educational purposes... and secondly for potentially mass producing them if my tweaked conceptual designs works. The challenge is I'm a software engineer as opposed to a hardware guy, so I'm just putting out feelers to see if it's way over my head and what the biggest challenges I'd run into are. Thanks again.

 

[jokiin]

Can't see it happening sorry

 

[spotnz]

I'm sure I could buy a Mobius, Innov, or G1WC and try to swap out parts... but I'd like to build a prototype camera from scratch first for educational purposes... and secondly for potentially mass producing them if my tweaked conceptual designs works. The challenge is I'm a software engineer as opposed to a hardware guy, so I'm just putting out feelers to see if it's way over my head and what the biggest challenges I'd run into are. Thanks again.

This is probably not the best place to seek advice. As there are more electronic/video/DIY electronic hardware forums, for your more technical questions. From what I've seen, this DIY area is mostly, but not always, related to less technical areas.

Finding out what goes into them & in what order, seems like a good start. Perhaps you can find some dead and/or cheap examples to disassemble.

 

[mel]

There's quite a few DIY dashcams on the net using raspberry pi & other small computers, but I've not seen any DIY dashcams built from scratch.
I thought about trying a PI myself, as I'm a former programmer & I was interested in having wifi and usb storage and you can pick up the model A bundled with its camera module for about £31, but the lens would need replacing and the sensor is likely to be too small for low light.

eg http://pidashcam.blogspot.co.uk/

& http://www.stuffaboutcode.com/2013/07/raspberry-pi-car-cam-overlaid-with-obd.html