long term recording with power banks.

That's very forward-thinking of Mazda in 2010 to include an aperture for a side-facing camera :)

yeah why would you want the camera tucked up out of the way when you can position it in the middle of the window where Mazda obviously planned for you to put the camera :p
 
On the other side of the car they left the whole window free of those pesky heater wires...:unsure:
That is because the driver can't see out the window the other side, except of course in the UK and Japan where the driver sits on the right of the car... But Mazda's are built in mainly in UK and Japan :unsure:
 
Any recommendations on which battery packs you use?

I can recommend almost any product from RAVpower, Poweradd, and Aukey as they offer excellent quality products backed with long term warranties and good customer service. Anker can also be highly recommended but their products tend to be priced much higher with no apparent benefit.

Despite what anyone tells you, DO NOT daisy chain or otherwise charge a power bank while it is being discharged unless the power bank is specifically designed for what is known as "Pass-Through-Charging". There are very few power banks on the market that include the proper circuitry for pass-through charging and those that do tend to be much more costly than any so far discussed. You will not find a power bank in the 20-25 dollar range that includes this feature, although some Chinese generic brand falsely claim so. If you want a quality charger that is designed to offer pass-through-charging or what is occasionally called "charge-through function" I'd recommend the Zendure A8 QC Portable Charger (26,800 mAh) for your purpose. Other Zendure power banks also offer the proper circuitry for pass-through-charging as they one of the few companies that specializes in this feature.

Some battery banks will automatically cut power to the device you want to charge with it if you connect the power bank itself to a charger but most do not. So even if a battery bank allows you to connect it to a power source while powering your dash cam it is an unwise practice, especially in an automotive environment where you have wide temperature swings, shocks and vibration. Charging a power bank while it is simultaneously discharging will put a great deal of stress on the individual battery cells which will dramatically shorten their lifespan and will eventually damage them to the point of potentially becoming dangerous.
 
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Charging a power bank while it is simultaneously discharging will put a great deal of stress on the individual battery cells which will dramatically shorten their lifespan and will eventually damage them to the point of potentially becoming dangerous.
If you charge a powerbank flat out and simulateously discharge at full power on every output for a long period then it may get a bit stressed, and if it is a poor quality one then it may fail, but if you are just running 1 or 2 low power B1Ws while not actually charging the powerbank they are connected to because it is already full then it will be closer to being underloaded than overloaded, and nothing to worry about! I've got one powerbank that wont run a B1W, it turns off because the B1W uses so little power the powerbank thinks that it has fully charged the "phone" connected to it. I also have one that will turn its outputs off while it is charging, most inconvenient.

The battery cells only get stressed by the heat if you overload the power bank, as long as it is running cool then there is no problem.
 
get something like a Mobius with a couple of 128gb cards and more than one power bank and just swap the cards and power banks out daily

Not a bad idea, but of course you will not have the actual events in a read only folder, but i think you will be able to manually find those my looking at the audio graph of the recordings ( sharp spike in audio )
I cant even remember do the mobius have motion detect ??
And a mobius you can run on a fairly low bitrate to get even more out of your memory card, and you dont need that high bitrate for a static scenario like this.
 
If you charge a powerbank flat out and simulateously discharge at full power on every output for a long period then it may get a bit stressed, and if it is a poor quality one then it may fail, but if you are just running 1 or 2 low power B1Ws while not actually charging the powerbank they are connected to because it is already full then it will be closer to being underloaded than overloaded, and nothing to worry about! I've got one powerbank that wont run a B1W, it turns off because the B1W uses so little power the powerbank thinks that it has fully charged the "phone" connected to it. I also have one that will turn its outputs off while it is charging, most inconvenient.

The battery cells only get stressed by the heat if you overload the power bank, as long as it is running cool then there is no problem.

This is merely wishful thinking as there are numerous reasons not to charge lithium batteries, especially high power battery banks while discharging.

Although most laptop computers, smartphones and tablets have the required battery management intelligence and circuitry to accommodate pass-through-charging this is reflected in the price of these devices along with the fact that they have sophisticated operating systems. Power banks are relatively inexpensive basic devices that are primarily designed for occasional charging of mobile electronics when away from mains power and therefore for the most part, were never intended to be charged while discharging during full time powering of other devices.

As explained by Isidor Buchmann, the man behind Battery University, the founder of battery charger company Cadex and author of Batteries in a Portable World: A Handbook on Rechargeable Batteries for Non-Engineers, "A portable device should be turned off during charge. This allows the battery to reach the set voltage threshold and current saturation point unhindered. A parasitic load confuses the charger by depressing the battery voltage and preventing the current in the saturation stage to drop low enough by drawing a leakage current. A battery may be fully charged, but the prevailing conditions will prompt a continued charge, causing stress."

Most authorities on batteries and many manufacturers advise against pass-through-charging of power banks. Anker, for example, originally claimed that their power banks could be charged at the same time they are being discharged but they now strongly advise against it.

As Buchmann explains on Battery University, pass-through-charge causes "mini cycles" (rapidly powering on and off) where a battery charger's circuitry will become confused and eventually damaged as it constantly hovers just above and below the charge threshold.

Anker agrees. For example, here are some of their responses to the oft asked question about pass-through charging they receive on their web site forum. Using a daisy chained power bank rather than a wall charger makes no particular difference here. In fact, it is worse because it will eventually damage both power banks.

aukey-pass-through_charging.jpg
anker.jpg
powercore.png

Charger Harbor, a review service specializing exclusively in Power Banks suggest you might be able to use pass-through-charging in the short term but they too advise against the practice.

charge_harbour.png

For some peculiar reason a great many people here on DCT engage in a form of "magical thinking" about charging power banks while at the same time discharging using the odd belief and mental image that lithium batteries are somehow like a bucket full of water with a little hole in the bottom that you can simultaneously keep refilling with an equal amount of water from a spigot to keep it topped off, but this is a false metaphor. Charging a lithium battery is a multi-step process depending on varying charge and current factors. It's not a contantly replenished bucket full of electricity with a hole in it.

Aside from the charger related issues with pass-through charging, the reason lithium-ion battery banks should not be charged while power is simultaneously being drawn from them is because it violates the electro-chemisty of how lithium-ion batteries function.

In a lithium-ion rechargeable battery as used in these types of power banks (typically 18650 cells) both the positive electrode (cathode) and the negative electrode (anode) bind lithium ions from lithium oxide in the electrolyte that migrate back and forth between the cathode and anode during the charging and discharging process. When the battery is discharging, the lithium ions moving back towards the cathode release energy (electrons) in the process and this is how the battery powers your device. When the battery is charging, the lithium ions migrate back through the electrolyte in the other direction towards the anode.

So, if you charge the battery while it is simultaneously discharging, then you are forcing the lithium ions to move in opposite directions through the electrolyte at the same time which will cause a lot of stress to the cells and this will eventually lead to a build-up of lithium dendrites and ultimately lithium metal plating which is the dangerous process that can ultimately cause a thermal runaway (chemical combustion), but for the most part will simply shorten the lifespan of the bank's cells and prematurely reduce its charging capacity. Dendrites are basically whiskers of lithium that grow inside batteries and can cause the devices they’re powering to lose power more quickly, eventually short out, and in some instances, catch fire. Lithium metal plating happens when lithium-ions in the electrolyte precipitate out into actual lithium metal which is highly reactive and flammable and burns fast and hot. This lithium metal and dendrite build-up plating can cause a short circuit that will initiate a fire within the cell electrolyte if damage is caused to the extremely thin separators that keep the elements of the battery apart. A damaged battery cell will slowly start to swell and when it finally bursts, hot chemical gases very suddenly come into contact with air (oxygen) and you have a vigorous fire or explosion on your hands, especially if this happens inside an enclosed space like a battery bank housing.

It is bad enough that we subject high powered lithium-ion power banks to temperature extremes, vibration and shocks when using them in our vehicles to run dash cams but stressing them further by charging during discharge is really asking for trouble. These power banks are very energy dense devices that should simply not be abused or use in ways they were never designed for.

There are some alternative, safer lithium battery chemistries that are entering the marketplace that are better suited to our purposes using power banks in an automotive environment such as the TQKA 20,000 mAh lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) that some of us here on DCT have recently been experimenting with but it would still be unwise to attempt to power any lithium type battery during discharge unless it is specifically designed with the proper circuitry. It's simply a BAD idea no matter how one wants to rationalize that it is somehow OK.

BTW, there is no indication whatsoever that the Poweradd X7 power bank uses lithium manganese cells. The Amazon sales page for the Poweradd X7 states that this banks uses lithium polymer cells. The Poweradd web page for the X7 itself merely states that the X7 uses "Lithium Ion" cells. I am not currently aware of any currently available standard consumer power bank on the market using lithium manganese cells but these cells are becoming more popular in more and more devices so I guess it is possible. Currently, they seem to be used primarily in medical devices EVs, and a growing number of other professional tools.
 
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That is because the driver can't see out the window the other side, except of course in the UK and Japan where the driver sits on the right of the car... But Mazda's are built in mainly in UK and Japan :unsure:
Yes, I have a heated window that I can't see out of when I'm driving :D
 
The only suggestion I would add to the excellent insight already provided is to use multiple cams (at least three, if it were me).

Two (at least) would be running 24/7 from different angles and one would be solely dedicated to motion detect duty, primarily as an indicator when an event happened so you wouldn’t have to scroll through hours of footage on the other two. In essence, you would use the motion detect cam to determine whether to further investigate on the others. You could even position this cam in a way that captures him/her approaching the car, well before opening the door, not only as a way to add a form of buffering, but also to fully capture the person’s face/body, etc.

I have this kind of setup for my home cams, because I’ve found no single camera that can sufficiently do all the various or dedicated functions I want simultaneously (“sufficiently” being the key word). Plus, I’m a believer in the redundant benefits of multiple cams.

Expensive? Sure. But once you catch the bastard, make him/her pay for everything, in addition to the damages.

You could also add one of these at some point: https://www.amazon.com/gp/B000XEFKEE
 
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As explained by Isidor Buchmann, the man behind Battery University, the founder of battery charger company Cadex and author of Batteries in a Portable World: A Handbook on Rechargeable Batteries for Non-Engineers,"A portable device should be turned off during charge. This allows the battery to reach the set voltage threshold and current saturation point unhindered. A parasitic load confuses the charger by depressing the battery voltage and preventing the current in the saturation stage to drop low enough by drawing a leakage current. A battery may be fully charged, but the prevailing conditions will prompt a continued charge, causing stress."
An accurate statement for NiMH where you can't tell when a cell is full by checking the voltage, but not for a Lithium cell when using a charger designed for Lithium cells since the charger can stop charging when the cell is full simply by checking the voltage. There is no mention of lithium in that statement which was probably written when NiMH batteries were the main source of rechargeable power.

In the latest edition of his handbook he has added a section "How to Charge Li-ion with a Parasitic Load", although it is not actually applicable in this situation since there wont be a parasitic load on the cells, only on the powerbank as a whole.
...the foolish belief that lithium batteries are somehow like a bucket full of water with a little hole in the bottom that you can simultaneously keep refilling with an equal amount of water from a spigot to keep it topped off but this is a false metaphor.
That is not accurate, more like a balloon where you can put air in or you can let it out, or you can do nothing, but it is physically impossible to do any combination of the three.
So, if you charge the battery while it is simultaneously discharging, then you are forcing the lithium ions to move in opposite directions through the electrolyte at the same time which will cause a lot of stress to the cells...
That is simply not scientifically possible, current can flow into a cell or flow out, but there is no way to do both simultaneously.

If you want your lithium based battery pack to have a lifespan of 20 years then even locking it up in the safe and not using it isn't good. Like a car, you might as well use it, and the more you use it the shorter its lifespan. Just keeping it fully charged will reduce its lifespan, but if they were really as dangerous as your post suggests then we would be hearing about thousands of power bank fires every day because I'm sure there are many people who charge their phones from a powerbank while the powerbank is plugged in to a charger.

Lots of powerbanks allow you charge while devices are connected when they would disable it if it was dangerous, and they don't come with huge warning labels saying don't do this because the powerbank will explode! 10 years ago there were a few instances that hit the news of fires caused by powerbanks, but the batteries and charging technology have improved and even the cheapest powerbanks are now at least safe.
 
because I'm sure there are many people who charge their phones from a powerbank while the powerbank is plugged in to a charger.
.
can't think of any logical reason why anyone would do that, let alone many people doing it
 
can't think of any logical reason why anyone would do that, let alone many people doing it
While you were writing that, my phone was sitting on it's charger, which was connected to a powerbank, that was being charged!
 
While you were writing that, my phone was sitting on it's charger, which was connected to a powerbank, that was being charged!

just because you do it doesn't mean many would, still don't even see your logic in doing that in the first place
 
just because you do it doesn't mean many would, still don't even see your logic in doing that in the first place
There doesn't need to be a logical reason for doing it! You can do it so why wouldn't people do it?

Here is one possible reason: your power bank is charged from solar power so is always plugged in to the solar panel, you wouldn't ever unplug the solar panel just so that you can charge your phone, in fact many powerbanks are available with built in solar panels that can not be unplugged.
 
QUOTE="Nigel, post: 401342, member: 7825"]An accurate statement for NiMH where you can't tell when a cell is full by checking the voltage, but not for a Lithium cell when using a charger designed for Lithium cells since the charger can stop charging when the cell is full simply by checking the voltage. There is no mention of lithium in that statement which was probably written when NiMH batteries were the main source of rechargeable power.

In the latest edition of his handbook he has added a section "How to Charge Li-ion with a Parasitic Load", although it is not actually applicable in this situation since there wont be a parasitic load on the cells, only on the powerbank as a whole.

That is not accurate, more like a balloon where you can put air in or you can let it out, or you can do nothing, but it is physically impossible to do any combination of the three.

That is simply not scientifically possible, current can flow into a cell or flow out, but there is no way to do both simultaneously.

If you want your lithium based battery pack to have a lifespan of 20 years then even locking it up in the safe and not using it isn't good. Like a car, you might as well use it, and the more you use it the shorter its lifespan. Just keeping it fully charged will reduce its lifespan, but if they were really as dangerous as your post suggests then we would be hearing about thousands of power bank fires every day because I'm sure there are many people who charge their phones from a powerbank while the powerbank is plugged in to a charger.

Lots of powerbanks allow you charge while devices are connected when they would disable it if it was dangerous, and they don't come with huge warning labels saying don't do this because the powerbank will explode! 10 years ago there were a few instances that hit the news of fires caused by powerbanks, but the batteries and charging technology have improved and even the cheapest powerbanks are now at least safe.[/QUOTE]

Most amusing @Nigel how you went to the trouble of removing my hyperlinks to the Battery University web site in your quote of me where you would have found the source of my quote from Mr. Buchmann and then go on to make the false assertion that he must have been talking about NiMH when in fact the quote from Mr. Buchmann cautioning that devices should be turned off during charging was directly from his article, "Charging lithium ion".

And then you go on to offer the explanation that since a Lithium battery charger can stop charging when the cell is full simply by checking the voltage which completely ignores the entire issue at hand where Mr. Buchmann describes the problem of "mini cycles" caused by parasitic loads where the charging circuitry is forced into a constant state of rapidly switching on and off as the cell voltage hovers at the full charge saturation point and this will damage both the charger, the battery bank and potentially the device you are powering as well. A most remarkable piece of twisted fact and logic indeed!

As for Mr. Buchmann's most recent remarks regarding "How to Charge Li-ion with a Parasitic Load" he reasserts his caution in the article that improper charging with a parasitic load has the potential to 'cause a breakdown of cell components, shorten battery life and compromise safety.' He goes on to offer some potential solutions to the problem of charging lithium batteries operating with a parasitic load but offers no definitive conclusions other than to recommend that manufacturers find a way to better solve the problem since demand for this functionality is increasing.

And likening a lithium battery to a balloon full of air as you do completely oversimplifies the complex process going on inside a lithium cell and such a metaphor appears to imply a float charge or trickle charge, something that lithium cells are unable to handle properly. This also ignores the electrochemistry within the electrolyte as ions travel back and forth between the anode and the cathode during charging and discharging. It also ignores what "pass-through-charging" actually does. I maintain that the metaphor of a constantly replenished, slowly leaking bucket of water is more reflective of the mental image many people seem to imagine as to how "pass-through-charging" works as it allows for the simultaneous entry and exit of energy but I guess you are entitled to your very own misconceptions. One way or another engaging in a cavalier practice of intentionally abusing multiple power banks by asking them to behave in a manner they were never designed for is surely not a wise idea.

Even more-so, advising people here on DCT to daisy chain lithium-ion power banks inside an automobile for very lengthy periods of time, a practice I guarantee every manufacturer would vehemently argue against and that would surely void any warranty if nothing else, is simply a foolhardy and entirely irresponsible recommendation to make on a public forum.

Powerbank fire in center console, courtesy @Harsh
powerbankfire.png
 
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