Multiple Black Vue Cameras - BlackVue DR300G

Ian Miles

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Hi Guys,

Firstly I'd just like to say how thankful I am that this forum is here! I am new to all of this camera stuff but I am glad I invested in one!

I have a couple of questions regarding my camera, I have just installed my BllackVue DR300G in to the front along with the Power Magic Pro, it is installed nicely and I THINK, it is working ok, the reason I am unsure is because when I get in the car in the morning, and start the engine, I thought the Power Magic Pro would tell the camera to jump straight in to Normal Mode, however it does take about 30 seconds before it does which I believe is what the spec of the camera does, but I wondered if it should be different with the Power Magic Pro installed.

Now, on to my second question! I am looking to move the camera in to the back, and install a DR500GW in to the front as that one is HD, can anyone tell me if there is going to be any complications for my car (Ford Focus 2011) if I was going to install another Magic Power Pro in to the car and run the second ccamera from that one as well? I am trying to determine if I am ikely to experience long term battery problem from doing it?

Any input would be great!

Thanks

Ian
 
Put the 300 in the back and buy a better one for the front The 300 is a low res camera and my one in the rear wont read plates more then 2 meters away
A PM only turns the power on or off The camera will boot the same whether through it or not.
Mine runs through a PM and boots faster than the 500 at the front which is direct off a fuse.
You dont need another PM Buy a ciggy socket at your local electronic store and splice the wires into the output of the one you have. Provided you get them the correct way around +to+ -to -

I just bought some 2 strand wire and made a length long enough to go to the back corner of the car and plugged the camera lead into that.

SOLDER the connections Dont just wrap them They could overheat and barbeque your car.
 
Hi Hillbilly,

Thank you for the great advice.

As soon as I get the DR500 that is precisely what I will do, place the 300 in the back and the 500 in the front.

The bonus about the DR500 that I am getting is that it comes with another PM, so I think I will go ahead and get that wired in, I have now disconnected it for the time being as I am not very keen on the idea of wrapping the wires around the fuses like you mentioned about the overheating and blowing my car up! Plus my soldering ability is non-existent! So in the interests of getting it done properly, I have decided to purchase a few piggy back fuses or fuse taps as they are commonly known as, they look more acceptable to me as all I need to do then is crimp a connector on the end of the wires and off I go!

Interestingly I had another slight problem this morning, I got in the car and the PM had turned off... the weird thing is that the timer is set to infinity and the power is set to 12v, so I switched the PM off, and then on again and it all came back on without a problem... Weird that it turned itself off though.

I think I will see how it goes after the piggy back fuses have been installed, that way I can rule out the possibility of a bad connection, on the plus side though, this camera is already paying for itself as I got cut up on the way in to work! As soon as I pointed to the camera to let him know it was there it was amazing watching the transformation from erratic driving to grand-dad style driving!

Thanks for the advice and I'll keep you informed as to how the install goes and when it is completed.

Ian
 
If your PM is not powered on when you expect it to be, its because either you battery has dropped to the voltage cut off of 12v, or you have wired it into a circuit that is not permanently live, i.e. it's a delayed sleep, the vehicle may power that circuit down 10 mins after being locked, or you have the PM switch set to 'O' not 'I'.
 
Thanks for the suggestion.

I think I isolated the problem, the fuse that I connected the ACC wire to was a 20A fuse, however it appears that the fuse was NOT powered on on ignition turn, also when I got in the car and before I started the ignition, I swithced the rocker switch from I to O then I again and it switched back on, so I know the voltage was not lower than 12. It's a strange issue but I think that the change on fuse might help.

Another question though, should the PM be powered off of any max rated fuse? For example should the fuse be a max of 10A or 20A or does it not matter?

Thanks

Ian
 
The fuse rating won't affect the operation, and the Red ACC wire should be not receive power until the engine is started (according to PP manual, but I have mine connected to interior lights which come on when engine isn't running). So probably best to check when that wire is getting power. Generally you should go for the lowest fuse rating you can get away with.

It's possible your Yellow BATT wire is connected to a circuit that powers down x amount of minutes after the car is turned off or locked, it needs to be connected to a wire that is permanently live. One way to check is to connect a multi-meter up to the Yellow wire and lock it in the car so you can still see the display through the window, then leave it for half an hour before checking if its still displaying a voltage, (and its above 12v).
 
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Thanks for the advice shiggsy, I did some more testing and I think that what I did resolved it. It's a little strange though, so the fuse that the ACC wire was attached to appeared to not be powered for some reason, the BATT wire was attached to a 20A fuse, so I moved the wires to 5A fuses instead, one for the permanent live (BATT) and one that came on after start (ACC) and now it appears to have resolved the switching off issue I had! The camera is now working great!

Since this was resolved, I went an bought a DR500 camera from eBay which arrived 2 days ago, I'm in the process of repeating the Power Magic install in the rear fuse box so as soon as that is done the DR300 will be moved to the back window and the DR 500 in the front. I'll put some pics up after it has been completed in case you want to see the work.

Thanks
 
That's good. I presume your piggy backing onto fuses in your fuse box, so when you say you have switched fuses then you have probably landed on a circuit that acts the way you need it to. It took a fair bit of checking on mine to find permanent live and ignition live.
 
Yeah that's exactly right, piggy backing was something I was not too sure about at first but by the looks of it, it seems pretty safe to do, I was going to just wrap the wies round the fuse and solder it but I thought if I am going to do it, it's going to be done properly! I went out and bought a cheap multimeter from Maplins for about £10, that soon did the trick in locating the right fuses. Do you want me to post the pictures once it is all finished?
 
The amperage of the fuses is immaterial as the ciggy plug in the camera has a fuse in it and thats the one that matters.

What does matter is you have wrongly used the wrong thing by going to the 5 amp fuses .

It is far better to hook them into a higher rated circuit as it wont affect it so much.

Also its what the fuse that its protecting that matters. NEVER use the airbag fuse.

I found some blank sockets and put the fuses in there ( Like these)full size 10amp.jpg

They just slot in and work perfectly and dont upset anything.

How did you attach the wires to whatever in the fuse box. If using piggyback fuses it does matter which way round you put them in
 
Hi Hillbilly,

Thank you for the response, funnily enough I am using piggy back fuses, I found after installing them that they have to have another fuse loaded in the top of them as well as the bottom to get the voltage to come through, so I went out and bought another couple of fuses and loaded them in. Thankfully I avoided all airbag fuses as I read that one up before I did all the work!

I've uploaded a few pics with this post so you can see how I did it, if you have any criticism or comments that you think might help (and please be as direct as possible) then please let me know as it would be nice to hear thoughts and comments especially as I am new to all of this.

Thanks for all the advice guys.

Ian

Front Camera (800x600).jpg Front Fuse Box (800x600).jpg Front Power Magic (800x600).jpg Rear Camera (800x600).jpg Rear Fuse Box (800x600).jpg Rear Power Magic (800x600).jpg
 
looks alright except you could have put the PM behind the trim for neatness I dislike drilling holes in $60,000 cars LOL.

How did you connect the wires to the ones on the adda fuse and yes you have to add a second one as you found out Read this thread about installing addafuses the should have the wire end coming from the cold side of a fuse ( The Out end)

https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/piggy-back-fuseholders-a-right-way-and-a-wrong-way.7524/

The pic with the green fuse beside it is correct
 
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Hi Hillbilly,

Your knowledge on this is awesome!

I read the thread that you sent and think I understand a lot more now, so it is potentially dangerous to have them the wrong way round, I will re-check the way they are loaded and get them moved around if needed, so far I haven't blown any fuses which is a good sign!

Thanks for your help.

Ian
 
Ha Ha its knowing where someone else has posted the info What did you use to connect the wire on the addafuse to the wire from the Power Magic
 
Lol, That may well be the case, but you're still great for helping me out... You'll be even better in my books if you can help me with my WiFi issue!! ;-)
 
You are avoiding answering the question of how you connected the wires together.

What Wifi problem
 
Hi Hillbilly,

Thanks for the reply's, I used a bullet connector to place the wires together, that way it can easily be removed if I need it to. With regards to your post about the addafuses, I got the trusted multimeter tool on to it and checked the voltage, it was indeed coming in from the left so I reversed the logic of the connectors, effectively turning them the other way so that it matches what was mentioned in the guide. I'm pretty happy with the work that's been done now and think I've pretty much finished the install, I am thinking though that perhaps I should move the rear power magic in case I put something in the back and it smashes into it! Other than that I think it's all pretty much done.

I'm going to try modifying the config.ini file later to add the compatibility of the correct WiFi channel to help the buffering from the iPhone, I saw a post somewhere else which talks about the amount of time the app takes on the iphone to buffer videos. I also saw a post about modifying the wifi network on the iPhone so that you can use 3G at the same time as using the app for the BlackVue, that could come in handy!

I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks

Ian
 
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