New Dome DAB205 with custom mount and a CPL.
Purchased a Dome DAB205 with GPS module from
Capture Your Action for $119.98 delivered. I considered the cheaper Rove (DAB201), but some bad reviews and no GPS module bothered me. Mark @CYA shipped on Friday, the same day I ordered, and it was delivered Monday, well packed, and with 2386 firmware already installed. My month old a118c moved to the back as a rear-facing camera.
Mount: I fabricated a custom mount pictured below from 1/8" Lexan using a jig saw, heat gun, dremel, and several grits of sandpaper. Added a small bolt and epoxy'd on a nut for additional support and to allow fine tuning the angle, painted it flat black, and mounted to the top edge of the windshield with 3M automotive molding tape. A
2.5mm TRS M/F right-angle adapter keeps the camera as close to the roof as possible. Two 1" slits in the headliner about 5" apart allowed a small portion of the front edge to be rolled back enough to permit attaching and detaching the camera. This location makes it easy to deal with the camera, doesn't impair my vision, is at the high point of a wiper arc, and at the edge of the dark tint which shades the camera. The rearview mirror area on my vehicle was already consumed by the lane departure camera and my custom mounted Escort RedLine.
CPL: A
43mm Vivitar Filter Kit is used to reduce dash reflections. I drilled and broke-out the ND8 lens to have a recessed screw-on mount for the CPL. About 6 layers of 3M black vinyl tape wrapped around the outer portion of the lens barrel provided a tight push-on/screw-on fit for the lens-less ND8 filter ring. To keep it from moving, I put several tiny drops of epoxy between the back edge of the filter ring and the tape. Now I can just screw on or off the CPL filter. Keeping the CPL as close to the camera lens as possible avoided reducing the FOV. This kit claims to feature high quality optics that are multi-coated. I have not tried, and probably don't need, the UV filter, but the kit also includes a decent case to store the CPL if I remove it, and to hold spare micro-sd cards.
Notes: The shiny portions of my DAB205 are coated with black permanent marker to make it stealthly, and alcohol will remove this if I need to. I used the
Blackvue Power Magic Pro BDP and a couple
Add-a-Circuit micro2 Fuse Taps. These two items provided the biggest installation challenges. The Blackvue unit turned out to be DOA and the Fuse-Taps included 5 amp fuses that looked OK, one wasn't. These two problems wasted an hour or so trouble shooting. A
Silcon Power 128GB USH-1 card with standard exFAT is working fine.
Comments: DAB205's video performance (1440p 30fps hdr) is better than my decent a118c (1080p 30fps wdr), especially at night. Build quality is good, and the firmware appears solid, but options are limited. I am testing the 2385 brightness enhanced firmware by Falsificator, and look forward to a new version with an increased bitrate. If I could find a copy of the A12 sdk, I'd give it a shot myself. The form factor of the DAB205 is not the best. The perimiter buttons make the camera ackward to control and handle, and the recessed sd-card slot requires long finger nails or a tool. Lastly, the fact that this camera uses a battery concerns me regarding heat durability, and battery life. Yesterday we had an early rare 85F day, and my heat gun measured the camera at 150F (not running, closed car, direct sun).
