Linus tech tips on dashcams.

[TonyM]

I would have been able to fix it sooner if there were useful error messages telling me that the input voltage was low and unstable.

I'm not sure whether any dashcam has input voltage monitoring that could alert you to this problem. Perhaps the repeated startup sound is the best we can hope for in this situation.

 

[Dashmellow]

I'm not sure whether any dashcam has input voltage monitoring that could alert you to this problem. Perhaps the repeated startup sound is the best we can hope for in this situation.

I don't think that would be too hard to do. Recall that Mobius cameras have over-voltage protection that shuts the camera down immediately if it receives too high a voltage, thus preventing it from getting fried. It is conceivable that a circuit like that could trigger an alert above or below a certain voltage.


"External USB power exceeds ~5.25V. Overload voltage protection was added to
the V3 hardware (main board stamped with 2014-08-19 or greater) and will protect
the camera against up to max 24V."

 

[kamkar]

Over-voltage in a camera made to tinker with like RC freaks cant help themself doing,,,, probably a good idea.

Many old RC servos run 6 volts, newer finger snapping servos can take 7.4 and 12 volts,,,,, come to think of it i think even older servos might be 4.7 volts, but thats really old then.
I run a programmable 10 A BEC in my RC car as the servo are 7.4 volts, but my receiver are just 6 volts it get from the ESC and it can not pass on more than that.

 

[Lothar]

The last problem I had with the A129 pro cameras was random rebooting. I would have been quiet happy with an error message printed on the screen, but all I got was the startup sound over and over again every couple of minutes.
The cause of this problem was too much resistance in the USB cable causing voltage dropouts. I fixed this by using a much larger gauge of wire. I would have been able to fix it sooner if there were useful error messages telling me that the input voltage was low and unstable.

Random rebooting is likely a cabling issue like I mentioned.
Just request new cables from your supplier/dashcam manufacturer. Problem solved.

Something similar happened to me.

• I installed my Street Guardian 9667DC2K in December 2021 with the included 6M rear cable through my Mazda CX-5 lift gate.
• At the end of May 2022, all of a sudden I started getting random reboots every few minutes.
• I double checked the cable connections and everything was connected fine.
• I then disconnected the rear camera from the front camera and ran front only and the rebooting issue stopped which indicated to me that it was either a rear camera or rear cable issue.
• I tried the other shorter 3.5M rear cable that was included in the original box and the rebooting issue did not re-appear which confirmed my above suspicion that it was a rear cable issue.

I emailed Street Guardian to report this issue. Within 29 minutes of me sending that email, Jon from Street Guardian responded by shipping a new 6M rear cable, no questions asked. I received the replacement 6M cable within 1 business day from the email that I sent at no charge and everything has been working fine again since then.

I'm guessing that the integrity of my original 6M rear cable may have been damaged(although I did not see any visual evidence of this) during my installation (this is my first dashcam install after all so maybe my installation technique or user error may have played a role here) of shoving the rear cable into the lift gate of my car?

Do I know whether mine was a USB wire gauge or resistance issue and not my newbie installation technique of shoving it through the lift gate of my car? I have no idea and I will likely never know.
What I do know is that this was not an issue of the dashcam hardware itself and I did not spend days troubleshooting this issue.

I'm not so sure that there is any "useful" error message that can work here besides beeps. How will such a message even determine and isolate that this is a problem with the rear cable and not the front cable or rear camera itself and therefore correctly inform the user?
Does such a thing even exist on any dashcam???

 

[ron999]

So I've been driving around with the Camsonic UltraDash Z3 for the past week or so, collecting footage with its ultrawide and telephoto lenses and I'm thinking now about the practical benefits of that added lens. Quick question for those of you who've been running telephotos for a while like @Dashmellow and @TonyM. What are the biggest benefits you've noticed with the added cam? What situations do you find the second lens helping in that the wide angle isn't sufficient with?

I saw mention in another thread about capturing if people are distracted and on a phone for example. Capturing plates farther away can be helpful, but that's more of a backup in case the wide angle can't get it. In case of something like a hit and run, they're gonna be close to you at some point and so it's very possible that the wide angle can get their plate before they speed off. Not guarantees, but probable.

All the stuff like capturing plates of oncoming cars that drive by, does that matter? We're not cops trying to capture plates of every single car on the road. We just need them in certain specific instances and so I'm curious what other situations the telephoto would be helpful in.

Do you think the the Camsonc Z3 would be semi decent for using the telephoto to record the rear view for someone who doesn't want to run the wire to the back?

Can't be as good as regular rear camera but might be decent for example if you were being tailgated you could swing it around to record it.

Thoughts?

Thanks Ron

 

[Vortex Radar]

Do you think the the Camsonc Z3 would be semi decent for using the telephoto to record the rear view for someone who doesn't want to run the wire to the back?

Can't be as good as regular rear camera but might be decent for example if you were being tailgated you could swing it around to record it.

Thoughts?

Thanks Ron

I suppose. Similar to the Nextbase options with the rear view cam addons.

 

[pinoyplaya4life]

Why isn’t anyone talking about the CAMSONIC Z3 that already has a built in telephoto lens in addition to a wide angle lens? Wouldn’t that solve everyone’s problem in terms of resolving license plates? or is 1080p not good enough anymore and everything must be 4k?

 

[Dashmellow]

Why isn’t anyone talking about the CAMSONIC Z3 that already has a built in telephoto lens in addition to a wide angle lens? Wouldn’t that solve everyone’s problem in terms of resolving license plates? or is 1080p not good enough anymore and everything must be 4k?

Well, it was talked about!

@Vortex Radar evaluated the CAMSONIC Z3 camera in this thread back on October 6th. I can tell you that those of us who have a lot of experience with telephoto dash cam builds would find the CAMSONIC Z3's performance to be inadequate as it is not a well designed or well executed camera nor is it well priced for what you get. It is also enormous, ugly and attracts a lot of attention to itself. Resolution is only one factor of the equation when considering a camera.

 

[pinoyplaya4life]

Gotcha. I definitely think the Z3 design and specs are outdated and could use a revamp. But the idea of having the built in telephoto lens feature in addition to the wide angle lens is a very good idea. Just needs everything else to be right. Or perhaps VIOFO or other big brand manufacturers to incorporate the telephoto camera feature instead of the cabin camera.

 

[Dashmellow]

the idea of having the built in telephoto lens feature in addition to the wide angle lens is a very good idea

Yes, some of us have been doing DIY versions of this for some years now.

 

[DT MI]

there seem to be a huge number of people that think their phone will do a better job than the proper dashcams,

There are a huge number of people that think their phone will do a better job at anything/everything versus using the proper tool.

 

[kamkar]

I have tried a range of action cameras in my car windscreen, topping out with my dji Osmo action recording 4K/60 at 100 mbit.
But i cant say that i have felt it have blown my dashcams out of the water.

It is true there are a lot of dashcam APPs for phone users, but i feel this have some drawbacks.
1: you have to mount the phone so it get a good field of view, to me this is on the middle of the windscreen, and up high at least to some degree, but that would make the install illegal in Denmark.
Also you can not have the screen going i assume as it is displaying a video, even if it is realtime what you see looking out the window, so probably also a issue there.
2: you also need a phone with a good amount of storage, i always buy the small internal storage phones as really i do not use my phone for photo or video, so the 128 GB or what the hell my phone are will soon fill up.

Not sure about heat generation in a phone as it record video, i assume if you are recording 4K at high quality / bitrate it will generate heat to a degree.

 

[Dashmellow]

There's a very old thread here on the forum about using a phone as a dash cam. Not surprisingly the thread kind of faded into oblivion.

Cell Phones as Dash Cams

Dashcamman, thanks for your info. Until now I used my LG P990 mobile phone, but while in movement, its difficult to get readable license plates at daylight time, even in 1080P mode, quality in the dark is to be called poor, at best..... I use DailyRoads, and also came across AutoGuard for...

dashcamtalk.com

 

[TonyM]

Phone manufacturers have responded to consumer interest in imaging (photo and video) by offering models with wide-angle and telephoto cameras.

 

[Dashmellow]

Phone manufacturers have responded to consumer interest in imaging (photo and video) by offering models with wide-angle and telephoto cameras.

I would say that phone manufacturers single highhandedly obliterated the point and shoot camera and cam-corder markets. At this point, they are giving the higher end and even the DSLR market a run for their money.

 

[kamkar]

Indeed, my main camera are 64 mpix, the #2 camera is the wide angle one, but only 12 mpix.

 

[viofo]

Gotcha. I definitely think the Z3 design and specs are outdated and could use a revamp. But the idea of having the built in telephoto lens feature in addition to the wide angle lens is a very good idea. Just needs everything else to be right. Or perhaps VIOFO or other big brand manufacturers to incorporate the telephoto camera feature instead of the cabin camera.

I do have a good idea for this solution, wish it will have good results, let's wait.

 

[pinoyplaya4life]

I do have a good idea for this solution, wish it will have good results, let's wait.

I hope it’s an additional camera with integrated telephoto lens we can just buy from VIOFO and plug and play directly into the A139. So it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Maybe same cost as the current internal camera.

 

[Nigel]

The GoPro Hero 11 Black didn't do too badly, but it lost:

 

[Vortex Radar]

The GoPro Hero 11 Black didn't do too badly, but it lost:

That was an excellent comparison video!