Dashmellow
Well-Known Member
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- Sep 22, 2013
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- Dash Cam
- Umpteen
I reckon this is the reason I haven't dug deeper into the power bank. I do remember the Mobius USB's have to be one way or the other depending on what you want to use it for. Perhaps you can enlighten me a bit more. Let's say I didn't get a smart power bank, I'd need a 5 ft USB cable, but know the pins have to be a certain way. How would I obtain or jimmy rig one to work?
Everything I've said below the asterisk line is all about getting a Mobius to work with a power bank. If all you want to do is run the Mobius off a cigarette lighter adapter in a car or a home USB adapter all you need is a 5-pin USB-A t0 mini-B cable in the length you desire. Monoprice sells very nice quality shielded cables dirt cheap and any cable on this list will work.
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It is getting harder and harder to find a power bank that is not "smart" as most of them these days are used to manage charging of smartphones and tablets. The problem is that "smart" power banks can be too smart for their own damn good when it comes to running a dash cam without having the camera think it is connected to a computer.
Since the Mobius uses a 5-pin USB-A to mini-B plug cable, often the best thing to do is to simply cut the appropriate cable wires as mentioned above. From my experience this can sometimes be more challenging than it seems as the woven shielding and other wiring in the cable can trick the camera into still believing that it has a data connection. My solution has been to cut the cable completely in two, clip and trim away everything but the red and black wires and solder those two wires back together. I use very narrow heat shrink tubing over each of the black and red wires after carefully soldering them back together and then larger heat shrink tubing over both of those to complete the repair of the cable.
You can get a 6 foot USB 5-pin USB-A to mini-B for only 89 cents. For slightly more you can get cables with a ferrite bead or in heavier AWG sizes for longer runs. I use the 10 foot and 15 foot versions in my vehicle.
You can also buy 4 pin USB cables from Monoprice but I don't know whether they will work on the Mobius using a power bank without modification. For the modest investment involved it could be worth a try.
I've been using power banks with my dash cams daily for almost two years now and I love the capability and functionality.