external vs internal lens.....

petepete

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i used both for 6 years and can conclude...
a steaply raked windscreen certainly diminishes the image quality an internal lens can produce....
its pretty pointless having a parking mode on an internal camera if all you get overnight is a view of misted windows during winter months lol...

reminding ourselves most cars have external rear view external reversing cameras that function perfectly well.....
obviously image quality is as good as you ll get from the camera and you eradicate the problem of steamed windows...
number plate capture is also far more successful..

i ve just removed a rear lens after 6 years of used , which is a removed mobius A lens on an extension cable that simply had a round thin piece of glass bonded directly to the front of the lens and no water ofr misting up has taken place in its entire time of use and i m about to transfer it to the next car.... ( i actually used a gt dashcam with screen as the mobius cable fitted and worked on the camera)

i d suggest an external lens fitted as described will produce much more usefull footage than any dogs danglies 4k high price modern camera and its only drawback is frosty or snowy days which you d expect lol
 
I'd be interested to see the state of a front facing lens after 6 years of use!

How often did you need to clean your rear one?
 
I'd be interested to see the state of a front facing lens after 6 years of use!

How often did you need to clean your rear one?
true it was on the rear, but i d reason modern plastic lheadlights fair well so i think the front would be fine...
i gave it the odd wipe with a finger if i passed it and it had been wet and thats it...
 
My headlight assemblies lasted 8 years or so then the plastic cracked, i put in 2 new ones and plastic cracked in a year, i do not run anything but the H4 / 55 W bulbs that is standard.
I now have 2 headlights full of water
 
My headlight assemblies lasted 8 years or so then the plastic cracked, i put in 2 new ones and plastic cracked in a year, i do not run anything but the H4 / 55 W bulbs that is standard.
I now have 2 headlights full of water
not usual that...
drill a hole in bottom lol
 
well for the most it is just condensation.
I paid good money for those 2 headlight assemblies, and it also took its sweet time to install as i pretty much had to take off the entire front plastics to do the install.

I mentioned it to the Suzuki dealer, and he asked if i ran illegal bulbs, i said of course not only idiot people do that, and he still looked at me thinking "yeah right"
But i have only been running the 55 W H4 bulbs.
 
true it was on the rear, but i d reason modern plastic lheadlights fair well so i think the front would be fine...

I would think the comparison would be valid if the dashcam lens and the vehicle's headlights were both made of the same material, had the same shape (to, for example, be exposed to the same aerodynamics for the prevention and/or repelling of dust, rain water, etc.) and what have you.
 
I would think the comparison would be valid if the dashcam lens and the vehicle's headlights were both made of the same material, had the same shape (to, for example, be exposed to the same aerodynamics for the prevention and/or repelling of dust, rain water, etc.) and what have you.

the lens has a piece of glass over it the size of a small coin and is far more hardwearing than plastic used on headlights that last the lifetime of a car...
i cant help but think offered a good 6 year proven solution on water ingress which was my only concern when attempting it , we re being a little too negative on problems that dont exist ..
 
A Tesla has 5 cameras with lenses outside the car, and 3 behind the windscreen. None of the exterior cameras are forward facing. A forward facing exterior camera would get obscured very quickly with dead bugs, rain, snow and mud. Even the rear camera gets dirty very quickly when it rains. The advantage of being behind the windscreen is that they are kept clean by the windshield wipers.
I expect Teslas self driving system will have issues in inclement weather due to the fact that the exterior cameras have no means to clean themselves.
 
i can go with the bugs if they had a direct hit.....
but not so much anything else as having last washed my car with water only on august 8 my car is shiny clean and feels slippy like glass still despite 4500 miles plus on some of the worst roads in uk .....
of course i d treat the external lens glass with the same product...

at £14 and 2 coats ...... turtle wax ceramic is a simply amazing product and a rainy drive becomes a free car wash.
 
at £14 and 2 coats ...... turtle wax ceramic is a simply amazing product and a rainy drive becomes a free car wash.
How good is it's optical performance?

Sometimes "wax" coatings can cause problems, and we know ceramic causes problems with CPL's, but maybe an external lens is better with a coating rather than having a coating of dust/rain?
 
the coating will be on the thin glass i cut and stuck over the lens to make it watertight....
 
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