Keeping Dash Cam Powered When Vehicle's Power is Turned Off

[logan_343]

Hello everyone,

Not sure if this is in the right forum or not (if not could someone please move it to the correct location), but long story short the front my truck got damaged in the Wamart parking lot (my guess a shopping cart hit) and sure enough my dash cam didn't record it because the power to the truck was off. My camera is connected to the USB ports inside the truck and when the truck is turned off, the power to the USB ports gets shut off as well (to prevent the truck's battery from dying obviously). I was thinking that night if I got a battery pack for devices like phones and tablets to power the dash cam, could that work? I would plug the battery pack into the truck's USB port to supply the pack power and when the truck is powered off, the dash cam would start using the battery pack's power to stay recording way after the truck is off.

I know a lot of dash cams have built-in batteries to record after power to the vehicle has been turned off, but I don't feel like getting a new dash cam and already like the camera I have. But I figured I would ask the people who might have attempted to do this before to confirm or deny that it worked.

Thank you for reading and hope to hear back from some of you soon!

- logan_343

 

[kamkar]

Welcomne to the forum Logan.

Often the USB ports that come with new cars don't have enough power to run a dashcam.
Batteries or capacitors in dashcams they are really just there to finalize the last recording correctly in a severe event, some can provide power for a little while but really it is not meant for use that way, and besides lipo batteries are a fire risk so only capacitor based cameras should be considered.

To have the dashcam record while parked you need a camera with parking mode feature ( just recording at normal rate are not recommended ) most dashcams have some form of parking mode.
And then you need a hard wire kit, which most often have BDP build in ( Battery Discharge Prevention ) This will provide power to the camera when parked, and shut down if you reach a cut of value between 11.8 and 12.4 V that you can normally choose on some DIP switches on the devise.

What camera do you have ?

 

[logan_343]

Welcomne to the forum Logan.

Often the USB ports that come with new cars don't have enough power to run a dashcam.
Batteries or capacitors in dashcams they are really just there to finalize the last recording correctly in a severe event, some can provide power for a little while but really it is not meant for use that way, and besides lipo batteries are a fire risk so only capacitor based cameras should be considered.

To have the dashcam record while parked you need a camera with parking mode feature ( just recording at normal rate are not recommended ) most dashcams have some form of parking mode.
And then you need a hard wire kit, which most often have BDP build in ( Battery Discharge Prevention ) This will provide power to the camera when parked, and shut down if you reach a cut of value between 11.8 and 12.4 V that you can normally choose on some DIP switches on the devise.

What camera do you have ?

I have the Nexar Halo Cam.

 

[kamkar]

Not familiar with that camera at all, first time i hear about it.
Googling a little did not make me wiser in regard to if it support a form of parking mode, found some mentions of AI which i assume are only there as anything AI are trendy now.
Maybe some of the other guys with a more adventurous approach to dashcams can enlighten us.

In general parking modes can work in a few ways.
1: Motion detect, not a good mode as any little motion will set off a event recording.
2: G-sensor triggered, this mean your car have to be bumped a little to set off a event recording.
3: Time lapse always recording when parked. ( record between 1 - 5 FPS and have no sound )
4: Regular recording but with a lower bitrate to minimize camera internal heat generation.

Dashcams can have a buffer so you get a few seconds from before the actual trigger event ( a must have ) in the old days some dident have that and so what ever triggered could be out of view in the few seconds it take the camera to wake up and start recording.
Newer cameras or some at least deal in video segments instead of a buffer, so say you record in 3 minute segment size, and you are only 15 seconds into the current recording, well then upon a trigger from something the current 3 minute segment + the previous will be saved in a Read Only folder.
On the other hand if you are like 2.5 minutes in the the current segment and you have a trigger event, then this current 3 minutes will be saved + the following 3 minute segment too, so with this approach no matter what a event will save 2 X 3 minutes of event footage.

Some cameras ( mostly 12 V ones ) can have the BDP build into the camera itself so you set the cut off voltage in the camera and not the hard wire kit.
But most cameras are powered by 5 volts now thru one or the other USB plug.