I really need some help in deciding on the right cameras.

[Lola]

are u the moderator here? why do you question my post to Lola? And did she just purchase?

Wow Dashmellow whats ur problem? If u look at her post she was talking partly to me. And did I misunderstand I think she is in the market to buy a dash cam. So be polite and not mix in
?

Read the whole post then you will know what I'm doing! Dash Mellow has been extremely helpful to me from the very beginning because he knows what I'm doing. The other guys have also joined in to give help on my questions because they know what I'm doing.
You on the other hand don't bother reading, you just jump in and start telling me what I should do.
I was talking to you trying to be polite, not a mistake I'll likely make again !

 

[Dashmellow]

In my mind I actually was trying to help you out. For that you tell me off, I just thought you needed a bit of support. I'm sorry if you felt different. But my intentions were really trying to help you. Actually I did spend time to explain to you on one of my posts to you previous about hooking up the wiring to the cigarette outlet, and I told you in depth my opinion about it. Just to let you know Dashmellow for some reason does not like me since I became a member, so please don't base your opinion about me by what he says.

It is quite clear that @Lola is fully capable of reaching her own conclusions without any influence from anyone else.

And, BTW. I've never said that I don't like you, I've merely taken issue with some of the advice you seem prone to handing out without first bothering to inform yourself on the subject at hand. Of course, the more you keep making these kind of remarks or focusing this thread on yourself the more I feel compelled to reconsider how much I may or may not like you.

 

[Lola]

DashMellow and others, I've read about the stuff called 3M Dual Lock and it sounds like what I would like to use on the rear camera. Never used it but am pretty familiar with Velcro.
The headliner on my truck is some sort of fuzzy stuff that doesn't appear to be very thick at all, maybe a tenth of an inch at most, what is your opinion on using this to hold the camera up, the mount will probably be the helmet fixture like you used on the side of your truck window.
Do they have the dual lock with a strong glue on the back for the headliner and helmet fixture? Do you think this stuff would make a rigid enough hold for the camera to work properly?

If the glue is a little thicker then what's on the back of the regular stuff I think it might negate any squirming.
We talked about this once before but I felt we should come back to this subject

 

[Harsh]

It'll stick to the 'fuzzy stuff' just fine but if/when you remove it, there will be a prominent mark left. Don't know if that'll go away with even APC or other such solvents/cleaners as the adhesive will permanently bond with the fibres over time.

 

[Dashmellow]

DashMellow and others, I've read about the stuff called 3M Dual Lock and it sounds like what I would like to use on the rear camera. Never used it but am pretty familiar with Velcro.
The headliner on my truck is some sort of fuzzy stuff that doesn't appear to be very thick at all, maybe a tenth of an inch at most, what is your opinion on using this to hold the camera up, the mount will probably be the helmet fixture like you used on the side of your truck window.
Do they have the dual lock with a strong glue on the back for the headliner and helmet fixture? Do you think this stuff would make a rigid enough hold for the camera to work properly?

If the glue is a little thicker then what's on the back of the regular stuff I think it might negate any squirming.
We talked about this once before but I felt we should come back to this subject

I agree with @harsh that applying this product to the fibrous surface of your headliner could be problematic and potentially messy. Dual-Lock tape is really meant to be attached to a non-porous surface. It isn't really designed to be attached to fabric.

Unless you intend to regularly remove and reattach your Mobius and its mount I'm not sure why you might want to use this. The helmet mount already has a nice secure tripod mount for attaching (or removing) the camera and it already will have an adhesive backing. The Dual-Lock tape seems redundant and unnecessary.

From my experience with this particular install you really need a very solid mechanical connection between the mount and the headliner such as screws. Also, if you later want to remove the mount you are left only with two small screw holes in the headliner rather than a sticky mess left behind by the 3M VHB tape.

EDIT: One DCT member who also owns a Toyota Tacoma mounted a rear camera on the headliner by mounting a steel bracket up behind the liner and then attached a strong neodymium magnet to the camera's mount. This approach makes for a secure but easy to remove mount that leaves no cosmetic damage if one should later decide to permanently remove the installation.

 

[Lola]

I understand what you and Harsh are saying. I'll have to see if I can get a bracket like you are talking about under the headliner (I seriously doubt it). Like I said my headliner feels very thin like a piece of fabric that's been glued to the roof, it feels about as thick as Levi cloth.
As for a couple of screws, no way, unless I build up the area with some type of putty like epoxy that you squeeze together to mix it up and apply to a surface till it hardens, then I would be right back to ruining the area I put it on.

The helmet fixture did come with a 3M pad that you peel off and stick where you want it, but as you said that will probably ruin the area also as far as staining the applied area and I'm not sure if it would be strong/stable enough to stop "Camera Squirm". I really love my truck and have no plans of EVER selling it, so if I have to end up ruining a small area of the headliner I won't hesitate to do it . After all, I bought this truck to please me, not the other way around.
However, I know you and Harsh are only trying to help, so I will investigate further to see if it is possible to slide a flat piece of steel under the headliner.

 

[SawMaster]

When all else fails, make your own mount. Camera thread is standard "1/4-20" in size, any bolt or screw with that thread fits. Go to your local hardware and look at "repair brackets", they come in many shapes and sizes and can be bent to make them work. I'm using a "T" bracket for mine. I bent it till the aim was right, test-fitted and observed the vids on my PC, then spray painted it before the permanent install. Looks decent and works excellently.

Phil

 

[Dashmellow]

When all else fails, make your own mount. Camera thread is standard "1/4-20" in size, any bolt or screw with that thread fits. Go to your local hardware and look at "repair brackets", they come in many shapes and sizes and can be bent to make them work. I'm using a "T" bracket for mine. I bent it till the aim was right, test-fitted and observed the vids on my PC, then spray painted it before the permanent install. Looks decent and works excellently.

Phil

The challenge with a rear facing "repair bracket" on a Toyota Tacoma (or any mounting scheme for that matter) compared with the mount you used on your van is finding a suitable method and place for attaching it. One either needs to provide a secure surface to screw into as I did or build a 90 degree (or U shaped) bracket that can be attached to the underside of the third brake light after removing the headliner.

 

[Lola]

Thanks to both of you for the information, it gives me more things to consider whether or not I use such a method. After I finish my truck I will be doing my sons Chevy truck, so the more material ideas I have the easier and better the finished result will be.

I looked at and tried to see if I could slide a piece of flat metal under the headliner this morning in the rear where I want to mount the camera, no way, it is glued to the steel roof somehow. I cut a tiny slit in it to see but the razor blade/scalpel just hit metal. My Tacoma is a 2001 so my guess is different years had different methods/types of headliners used and installed.

 

[Lola]

Over on the forum for mounting Mobius cameras, some guy was talking about getting the lens as close to the windshield as possible. Does this have something to do with the reflections one sees in some peoples videos/pictures?

 

[Dashmellow]

I understand what you and Harsh are saying. I'll have to see if I can get a bracket like you are talking about under the headliner (I seriously doubt it). Like I said my headliner feels very thin like a piece of fabric that's been glued to the roof, it feels about as thick as Levi cloth.
As for a couple of screws, no way, unless I build up the area with some type of putty like epoxy that you squeeze together to mix it up and apply to a surface till it hardens, then I would be right back to ruining the area I put it on.

The helmet fixture did come with a 3M pad that you peel off and stick where you want it, but as you said that will probably ruin the area also as far as staining the applied area and I'm not sure if it would be strong/stable enough to stop "Camera Squirm". I really love my truck and have no plans of EVER selling it, so if I have to end up ruining a small area of the headliner I won't hesitate to do it . After all, I bought this truck to please me, not the other way around.
However, I know you and Harsh are only trying to help, so I will investigate further to see if it is possible to slide a flat piece of steel under the headliner.

I understand your concerns about not wanting to put screw holes in your headliner and I went through the same process when I first decided to install the Mobius. Once I decided to commit to mounting a camera in that spot I concluded that I will likely always have a camera in that spot so having some holes there is something I was willing to live with. Previously, I used a suction cup type mount on the rear glass and that worked fine but it was pretty ugly and not very discreet.

If you want to mount a bracket up there over the window you will need to drop the headliner enough to gain access. I don't know what the 2001 Tacoma looks like or how it may differ from later models but if you watch THIS YouTube video about removing the headliner on a 2006 it will give you a good idea of what is involved. You can pretty much ignore most of it since you are not removing the entire headliner. All you want to do is have the ability to pull the rear of the headliner down far enough to allow you to work there. That will likely involved removing the coat hanger brackets which hold the liner in place and perhaps some trim. The 4:00 minute mark in the video will explain how that's done on the 2006, but your 2001 may be somewhat different. (They twist off with a counterclockwise quarter turn after possibly needing a flat screwdriver to press in a release tab.)

I used epoxy putty for expedience and because I happened to have a whole tub of it that a contractor gave me. The two part stuff I used gets kneaded into a ball and looks and feels kind of like silly putty when you are working with it. I masked off the headliner and window area where I was working and simply pulled back the headliner enough so that I could stick it up in there and press it into place. When it was all set up I had a small solid support behind the headliner that I could drill some screw holes in. The type of epoxy I used feels like you are working with wood after it has cured.

I've posted this photo before but here it is again to show how by doing a careful job you would never know there was some epoxy behind the headliner.
(BTW, I put some regular hook & loop Velcro (the hook side, of course) on the back of a plastic wire clip and it works surprisingly well holding to the fuzzy headliner material as a non-destructive means to secure the power cable.)


The two part putty I used looks like this after it cures.
Home Depot sells a similar product in a small 6 oz quantity for about 14 bucks.

 

[russ331]

Over on the forum for mounting Mobius cameras, some guy was talking about getting the lens as close to the windshield as possible. Does this have something to do with the reflections one sees in some peoples videos/pictures?

It's a commonly held view that the closer the lens to the windscreen, the lesser the screen reflection problem.

This doesn't correspond with my experience. My SGZC12RC lens is just a few mm from the windscreen, yet suffers more reflections than my Mobius B did when mounted to the rooflining, with the lens a cm or more from the windscreen.

 

[Dashmellow]

Over on the forum for mounting Mobius cameras, some guy was talking about getting the lens as close to the windshield as possible. Does this have something to do with the reflections one sees in some peoples videos/pictures?

For a long time there was a kind of myth circulating here on DCT that the closer a camera is to the windshield, the fewer problems one will have with reflections. That turns out not to be quite true and it depends a lot on the particular vehicle as well as the rake of the windscreen. From my experience with a steeply angled front windscreen it is best to have the camera farther away from the glass to minimize reflections and closer to the glass if it is flat and vertical such as the rear window of a pick-up truck. There will always be some reflections on the rear glass but I find that with my rear Mobius mounted as in the photo above I don't generally have any serious problems even if I do see a reflection from time to time depending on the angle of the sun.

 

[kamkar]

Over on the forum for mounting Mobius cameras, some guy was talking about getting the lens as close to the windshield as possible. Does this have something to do with the reflections one sees in some peoples videos/pictures?

Doing that i don't see reflections in my case, not so much "dashbord" or anything else in the daytime, but at nighttime i get reflections of other cars headlight that's oncoming.
And my mobius lens is like 1 mm from the glass in the window in the vertical rear hatch of my car.

The fact that my rear window is pretty flat and vertical might be the issue for me.

I think with a sloped window no matter how close you have lens to glass you will always see heater elements in footage, but on my vertical window i don't have that problem.
And as a huge bonus i have my camera covered by rear wiper, which is good as the flat rear tend to accumulate a lot of dirt.

There seem to be 2 sides to the case, some argue lens close to glass is worse in regard to reflections, and some don't.

 

[Dashmellow]

@kamkar1, I suspect that some of the reflections you are seeing in your rear window might be partly due to the fact that it is curved if that photo is any indication. A completely flat and vertical glass in the rear of a truck may have a different result.

 

[kamkar]

Yeas it is a little curved, something like 1 - 1.5 inch or so.

But its nothing that bother me at all, when i use footage from that camera its always daytime.
And nighttime highway is worthless anyway and in town i don't expect much from it either, at least not when its night.

I am contemplating swapping the lens on the x camera in the rear out with the 90 degree one that's on the C3 covering my right, the side cameras really should be wide angle lenses where the rear don't matter if its a little narrow.
I have tried that 90 deg lens back there on my mobius, so i know it will work just fine.

 

[Dashmellow]

Yeas it is a little curved, something like 1 - 1.5 inch or so.

But its nothing that bother me at all, when i use footage from that camera its always daytime.
And nighttime highway is worthless anyway and in town i don't expect much from it either, at least not when its night.

I am contemplating swapping the lens on the x camera in the rear out with the 90 degree one that's on the C3 covering my right, the side cameras really should be wide angle lenses where the rear don't matter if its a little narrow.
I have tried that 90 deg lens back there on my mobius, so i know it will work just fine.

I agree about using wider lenses for the side cameras. I've found the Mobius C2 FOV to be ideal for my side cameras and the narrower B lens is perfect for the rear.

 

[Lola]

Thanks Dashmellow & KamKar1, it sounds like the closer the better things are on average (Flat window), so I'll keep that in mind when mounting the rear camera.

 

[Lola]

It's a commonly held view that the closer the lens to the windscreen, the lesser the screen reflection problem.

This doesn't correspond with my experience. My SGZC12RC lens is just a few mm from the windscreen, yet suffers more reflections than my Mobius B did when mounted to the roof lining, with the lens a cm or more from the windscreen.

Just seen your response rus331, sorta opposite the other responses, I wonder if it could be different angles of the sun while driving or maybe even the different lenses from two different cameras, very interesting. Thanks for responding to my post.

 

[kamkar]

if you have some heater elements in the footage that's only a matter of astechics, you would have to be damn unlucky if one of those was in the way for you to miss something important.

I just feel lucky i don't have that "issue" in my little car.

Having a rear camera is cool i think, there is a lot going on back there, some times you see it in the mirror, some times you just stumble over it looking thru footage for some other event you want to save or put on youtube.

O BTW and thx for the trip down memory lane by way of your username