Dashmellow
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2013
- Messages
- 18,279
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- Location
- Uncanny Valley (●_●)
- Country
- United States
- Dash Cam
- Umpteen
About a year ago when the G1W-H went on sale for around 40 dollars USD I just couldn't resist and went ahead and bought one to "play" with. It's not like I really needed to go out and buy myself a cheap dash cam but I figured it would make a good back-up cam and I had some plans to experiment with it but up until now I hadn't quite gotten around to that. In the meantime, having this spare cheap cam around is one of the things that got me into the whole concept of using side facing dash cams and now I'm a total 4 direction full coverage dash camera addict.
So the G1W-H became part of a rotation of cameras I've been experimenting with as lateral cameras including my super-cap modded GT680W, an old DR32 and a Mobius with B and C lenses. The G1W-H has really proved to be a very reliable camera but has been by far the worst performer of the group in terms of video quality and it also has the "classic" right hand side out-of-focus issue this model is notorious for. Still, all in all, it's worked pretty well for a side camera.
Unfortunately, during a recent heat spell all of a sudden the camera started going seriously out of focus, (as you'll see) so I took it out of service.
Since I happen to have a small collection of M12 threaded lenses lying around I decided to see what a different lens might do for the G1W-H. I tried three different focal length lenses in the camera and with each of them I ran into an issue where I could not screw the lenses into the module base threads far enough to achieve focus. This was partly because of the barrel length and thread depth on the lenses and partly because of the thread depth on the module. In other words, on some dash cam lenses the threads do not go all the way up the full length of the barrel, the barrel lengths themselves are relatively short and the module tube itself on the G1WH is fairly deep.
Finally, I decided to try the new Mobius C lens I happen to have from the defective module sent to me by Banggood and it fit and focused perfectly. (still waiting for the replacement from Bangood BTW!) The only problem now was that the hole for the standard lens bezel on the G1WH is much too small to accommodate the 17.4 millimeter diameter bezel of the Mobius C lens. It needed to be drilled out.
Since I'm not yet sure I want to permanently commit the Mobius C lens to the G1W-H for this experiment I was reluctant to alter the case of the original camera but I just happen to have the front shell of my old (now defunct) GT300W. For those of you who don't know, the G1W-H is basically a low priced, lower quality clone of the GT300W, which itself was a clone of the original DOD LS300 and the cases are all interchangeable. So I drilled out the GT300W front shell to accommodate the Mobius lens. The only problem I ran into was that the closest drill bit size I had was EXACTLY the same diameter as the Mobius lens (17.4 mm) and so it wouldn't quite fit the hole I drilled. At first, my plan was to simply file the hole bigger to get the lens bezel to fit but I was feeling really lazy about spending the time to do that and so I got the brilliant idea to drill a much bigger hole using the next bigger bit size I have for my drill press --- 20.5mm! Yes friends, this is one of those rare examples of when being lazy actually leads to a better design and improved performance! The bigger bezel hole for the lens provides for excellent ventilation and airflow around the lens, thereby keeping it cooler to avoid focus shifts with the fringe benefit of allowing the use of the original lens cap! How cool is that?
BTW, after focusing the new lens in the camera I used a small piece of 3M VHB tape to secure the threads in place. This works as securely as glue but since unlike glue, the tape is easily removable so it allows for easy refocusing or replacement of the lens.
Anyway, since installing the Mobius C lens in the G1W-H chassis I've been testing it out for a few days and I'm pretty amazed at the improved performance. My G1W-H is now a “real” dash cam! The only issue is that the Mobius C lens used with this particular sensor and module housing yields a very slight amount of vignetting in the upper corners of the image but this has been negligible enough to ignore.
Here are quite a few screen shots that tell the story:
All images are with the camera mounted in the rear right passenger side (dark factory tinted) window of a Toyota Tacoma access-cab pick-up truck.
Here's the finished project showing the G1W-H with the GT300W front shell and a "stealth" flat black paint job. You can see the ventilating air gap around the Mobius C lens bezel.
The Mobius lens cap still fits!
On the drill press.
Original G1W-H shell with flat black camouflage paint. Notice the difference in the size of the lens opening.
Curiously the Mobius C lens is supposed to provide 131 degrees of horizontal coverage but mounted in the G1W-H lens module chassis the apparent FOV is FAR wider than that.
Here is an example of the focus problems with the original stock lens on the G1W-H (and poor color rendering of the sky)
Edit: Anybody happen to notice that there are 8 pick-up trucks (including mine) in this screen shot?....... It's because I'm in the parking lot of a building supply and tool outlet.
So the G1W-H became part of a rotation of cameras I've been experimenting with as lateral cameras including my super-cap modded GT680W, an old DR32 and a Mobius with B and C lenses. The G1W-H has really proved to be a very reliable camera but has been by far the worst performer of the group in terms of video quality and it also has the "classic" right hand side out-of-focus issue this model is notorious for. Still, all in all, it's worked pretty well for a side camera.
Unfortunately, during a recent heat spell all of a sudden the camera started going seriously out of focus, (as you'll see) so I took it out of service.
Since I happen to have a small collection of M12 threaded lenses lying around I decided to see what a different lens might do for the G1W-H. I tried three different focal length lenses in the camera and with each of them I ran into an issue where I could not screw the lenses into the module base threads far enough to achieve focus. This was partly because of the barrel length and thread depth on the lenses and partly because of the thread depth on the module. In other words, on some dash cam lenses the threads do not go all the way up the full length of the barrel, the barrel lengths themselves are relatively short and the module tube itself on the G1WH is fairly deep.
Finally, I decided to try the new Mobius C lens I happen to have from the defective module sent to me by Banggood and it fit and focused perfectly. (still waiting for the replacement from Bangood BTW!) The only problem now was that the hole for the standard lens bezel on the G1WH is much too small to accommodate the 17.4 millimeter diameter bezel of the Mobius C lens. It needed to be drilled out.
Since I'm not yet sure I want to permanently commit the Mobius C lens to the G1W-H for this experiment I was reluctant to alter the case of the original camera but I just happen to have the front shell of my old (now defunct) GT300W. For those of you who don't know, the G1W-H is basically a low priced, lower quality clone of the GT300W, which itself was a clone of the original DOD LS300 and the cases are all interchangeable. So I drilled out the GT300W front shell to accommodate the Mobius lens. The only problem I ran into was that the closest drill bit size I had was EXACTLY the same diameter as the Mobius lens (17.4 mm) and so it wouldn't quite fit the hole I drilled. At first, my plan was to simply file the hole bigger to get the lens bezel to fit but I was feeling really lazy about spending the time to do that and so I got the brilliant idea to drill a much bigger hole using the next bigger bit size I have for my drill press --- 20.5mm! Yes friends, this is one of those rare examples of when being lazy actually leads to a better design and improved performance! The bigger bezel hole for the lens provides for excellent ventilation and airflow around the lens, thereby keeping it cooler to avoid focus shifts with the fringe benefit of allowing the use of the original lens cap! How cool is that?
BTW, after focusing the new lens in the camera I used a small piece of 3M VHB tape to secure the threads in place. This works as securely as glue but since unlike glue, the tape is easily removable so it allows for easy refocusing or replacement of the lens.
Anyway, since installing the Mobius C lens in the G1W-H chassis I've been testing it out for a few days and I'm pretty amazed at the improved performance. My G1W-H is now a “real” dash cam! The only issue is that the Mobius C lens used with this particular sensor and module housing yields a very slight amount of vignetting in the upper corners of the image but this has been negligible enough to ignore.
Here are quite a few screen shots that tell the story:
All images are with the camera mounted in the rear right passenger side (dark factory tinted) window of a Toyota Tacoma access-cab pick-up truck.
Here's the finished project showing the G1W-H with the GT300W front shell and a "stealth" flat black paint job. You can see the ventilating air gap around the Mobius C lens bezel.
The Mobius lens cap still fits!
On the drill press.
Original G1W-H shell with flat black camouflage paint. Notice the difference in the size of the lens opening.
Curiously the Mobius C lens is supposed to provide 131 degrees of horizontal coverage but mounted in the G1W-H lens module chassis the apparent FOV is FAR wider than that.
Here is an example of the focus problems with the original stock lens on the G1W-H (and poor color rendering of the sky)
Edit: Anybody happen to notice that there are 8 pick-up trucks (including mine) in this screen shot?....... It's because I'm in the parking lot of a building supply and tool outlet.
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