Parking protection in a cam with capacitor AND battery?

[DavidUK]

Just crossed my mind...

Why not a cam with a battery which charges when cam is in use but is only used to power up the cam so it saves a short burst if the cam senses a shock whilst parked? Otherwise the cam works via capacitor for longer life.

The only parking mode systems available currently appear to be either with a large battery pack installed or with the car's battery protected from discharging too far.

Surely a small rechargeable battery, either in cam or in the glove box, would provide sufficient residual power to wake up the cam, record the "shock" clip, then switch off again? It gets recharged the next time the power supply to the cam is live again, i.e. when the car is next used.

No doubt this has been thought of and discarded, so please give me brief reasons why it wouldn't work?

 

[abarth]

it's not a bad option but there are already solutions which you've mentioned above.

as far as "true" parking mode is concerned, you'll want a camera that has pre-buffered motion and/or shock detection. i would not want a camera to "wake up" and then start recording. that process will take much too long and by the time the camera is recording anything to the memory card, all the action is over and the perpetrator is long gone.

 

[DavidUK]

Yes, I see where you're coming from.

 

[SawMaster]

I run a Mobius capacitor cam 24/7 and don't have any car starting problems after it sits parked 48 hours- in fact I can't tell any difference in starting power at all, only that the charging amperage is somewhat higher than usual for a few minutes once I'm going. I do have a big van with a big battery but I think almost any car can run this cam overnight without issues. IIRC it draws 1.35A maximum but I could be wrong with that number. It's one of the few cams which doesn't seem to have any problems constantly recording even though it isn't rated to do that. It does put a lot of wear on the SD cards but one of mine is nearly a year old and still tests like new.

Pre-buffering is the way to go, but only the better cams have that and those do cost more. Even then they too draw significant power since they are always on, just not saving files or illuminating the display until they're activated. That's almost as much power as being on and recording normally but it saves wear on the SD card so it's worthwhile. And it actually does the intended job which cheaper cams can't do well enough to be useful for parking.

Phil

 

[russ331]

Pre-buffering is the way to go, but only the better cams have that and those do cost more. Even then they too draw significant power since they are always on...

My SGZC12RC draws roughly the same power as my Mobius. Mobius in loop-recording mode, 12RC in pre-buffered motion detect mode with screen set to turn off after 1 minute. Both consume <0.5mA if I recall correctly ... I did measure consumption a year or so ago, but cannot find my note.