New member/my first cam. :)

mesohungry

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I've never had a dashcam before, but this past year has been pretty bad for me.
One night a teenage kid I didn't know knocked on my door saying he missed the last bus and asked if I can drive him home. On my way back home while driving down an empty road a dark 4 door car pulled alongside of me. I thought they were just going to pass me, but instead I heard a very loud noise. For a second there I thought they had shot at me, but as they drove passed me, I noticed a guy with his head out the passenger window holding a baseball bat. I was fortunate it wasn't a gun. Also was fortunate my glass didn't shatter. The bat left permanent damage on the window about ear level so if the glass had shattered, I would definitely have been injured.
I called police as I was following the guys, but they were only worried about getting my name, number, and home address so they can send someone to my home to file a police report (at their convenience).

A couple months later some jerk rear-ended my car. I pulled over to the side of the road and the guy hauled ass. I followed and called the police. I was telling them every turn he was making, but again they just wanted to know where I would be later that day so they can send someone to get a report from me.

2 weeks ago, I saw a car speed by me. I told my son "that guy is going to cause a wreck." Seconds later, that's exactly what happened. I bought a dashcam. I just wanted something decent that can possibly catch license plate numbers and based on some reviews of the Z7, this was a good budget cam for the job.

The cam arrived and made no sound. Because of a video review I had seen, I knew something was wrong. I factory reset it, but still nothing. I cracked it open and found the very thin wires to the speaker were not attached. I soldered them on and I was back in business. I also didn't like the chrome ring, nor the lettering above the camera and the high gloss of the plastic so I removed the ring and used some 3000 grit sandpaper to remove the lettering to knock off the gloss. I like it better this way, but still might put some black tape over the IR LED's since I've read they won't help much at night and I won't be using the motion sensing functions.

Anyway, here are pics of the cam as well as how it looks installed behind my rear view mirror. :)
 

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Well, that didn't last too long.
This afternoon I noticed my dashcam would turn on, but wasn't recording. I checked the MicroSD card and it was working fine.
Apparently it stopped recording on the 24th of this month. I tried to access the menu settings of the cam, but nothing happened.
I managed to get to them by removing the microSD card and powering on the cam. Did a factory reset, inserted card and formatted it.
All was well... for about an hour. Now I get absolutely no power.

I brought my cam into the house and tested with another cable and it's working. So now I need a new USB charging cable.
Does anyone know where I can get a good one that won't die within a few weeks?
 
I'm not an expert in this particular camera, but it looks like it's standard microUSB

microUSB cigarette
power supplies are very common since those are what Android phones use. I see a few on Amazon with good reviews.

you could also get a standard cigarette charger with regular USB ports, and use a standard USB - microUSB cable as well. (but L shape connectors are best on the end)
 
Well, that didn't last too long.
This afternoon I noticed my dashcam would turn on, but wasn't recording. I checked the MicroSD card and it was working fine.
Apparently it stopped recording on the 24th of this month. I tried to access the menu settings of the cam, but nothing happened.
I managed to get to them by removing the microSD card and powering on the cam. Did a factory reset, inserted card and formatted it.
All was well... for about an hour. Now I get absolutely no power.

I brought my cam into the house and tested with another cable and it's working. So now I need a new USB charging cable.
Does anyone know where I can get a good one that won't die within a few weeks?

Check my post here:
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threa...-and-comparison-against-g1wh.6849/#post-82413

I had the same issue.
Micro charging port is not as snug and robust as mini usb.
The provided usb charger didn't stay there strong so I was getting videos off and on.
I have used a different micro usb cable and that fixed the issue.
 
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