Dashcam Install Help

[Akikiki]

My ideal set up would be to run a server that recognizes when the car has arrived home (by way of a sensor inside the car connecting to home wi-fi or eventually the car itself connecting to home wi-fi) to execute a script that downloads the day's recordings from the dashcam, then cuts power to the dashcam relay afterward.

That's way beyond my abilities, but I'm sure there are industrious programmers out there that could find a way to do that with readily available components.

Someone on TMC did just that. See if this helps.
BlackVue DR750S Review
Post #63

 

[smak]

The B124 battery is a little too big to allow for the tray to remain so I just took it out.
I think it's a personal choice if you would rather use the compartment in front of the cup holder for the battery and keep the rear one with the shelf (requires very little additional work to get the cigarette lighter plug from that front compartment to the back one) or if you would rather give up the tray and use the rear compartment for the battery.

I personally liked keeping the forward compartment completely empty and usable and as I don't think I would have ever used the rear compartment, it wasn't a big sacrifice put the battery there and take out the shelf.

I'm gong to also need a place to plug in my hotspot.

Calibred Customs installed my B-112 in the passenger footwell, but I'm having an issue in that I don't drive enough to keep it fully charged, so unless I drive a lot more than usual, it slowly is losing charge, to where eventually it's dead before I turn on the car, and then it only gets a few hours of charge time.

I know the B-124 keeps double the charge, but I could see people having a similar issue eventually, and I'm wondering if anybody uses any other method to charge their Blackvue battery. Maybe charging up a big portable battery to charge it when the car isn't plugged in.

My other option is to get the B-124 instead, but I think eventually I'll have similar issues if I'm driving 25 minutes to work, and then parking it 4 hours, then driving to lunch for 20 minutes and then parking it again for 4 hours, the battery is going to die.

 

[K-MTG]

My ideal set up would be to run a server that recognizes when the car has arrived home (by way of a sensor inside the car connecting to home wi-fi or eventually the car itself connecting to home wi-fi) to execute a script that downloads the day's recordings from the dashcam, then cuts power to the dashcam relay afterward.

That's way beyond my abilities, but I'm sure there are industrious programmers out there that could find a way to do that with readily available components.

Great idea but don’t tesla’s disconnect from WiFi between 10 PM and 4 AM when the car goes to sleep?

 

[K-MTG]

I'm gong to also need a place to plug in my hotspot.

Calibred Customs installed my B-112 in the passenger footwell, but I'm having an issue in that I don't drive enough to keep it fully charged, so unless I drive a lot more than usual, it slowly is losing charge, to where eventually it's dead before I turn on the car, and then it only gets a few hours of charge time.

I know the B-124 keeps double the charge, but I could see people having a similar issue eventually, and I'm wondering if anybody uses any other method to charge their Blackvue battery. Maybe charging up a big portable battery to charge it when the car isn't plugged in.

My other option is to get the B-124 instead, but I think eventually I'll have similar issues if I'm driving 25 minutes to work, and then parking it 4 hours, then driving to lunch for 20 minutes and then parking it again for 4 hours, the battery is going to die.

I have a short commute with the B-124 and even though I am only charging it at 5 Amps...the capacity is enough for me. I do have a switch so I turn it off when I park at home (in the garage) and turn it on when I leave home

 

[TMK26]

The wire for the 12V adapter cable is very simple. There's just two wires: positive (carries the electricity) and negative (grounds the device)...

Thanks for this info SDKoalo! And thanks to paladineffo, too!

 

[AdamNS]

I'm gong to also need a place to plug in my hotspot.

Calibred Customs installed my B-112 in the passenger footwell, but I'm having an issue in that I don't drive enough to keep it fully charged, so unless I drive a lot more than usual, it slowly is losing charge, to where eventually it's dead before I turn on the car, and then it only gets a few hours of charge time.

I know the B-124 keeps double the charge, but I could see people having a similar issue eventually, and I'm wondering if anybody uses any other method to charge their Blackvue battery. Maybe charging up a big portable battery to charge it when the car isn't plugged in.

My other option is to get the B-124 instead, but I think eventually I'll have similar issues if I'm driving 25 minutes to work, and then parking it 4 hours, then driving to lunch for 20 minutes and then parking it again for 4 hours, the battery is going to die.

I had this happen to me today. I barely drove the car yesterday and when I started the car in the morning the B-124 was completely dead from parking mode. I'm going to follow suit and put a switch in-line to turn off the cameras while parked at home.

 

[smak]

I'm in a condo, and am parked in a location that it would be very hard to accidentally hit me. But somebody could try and break in, so i'm not sure if I'd turn it off, but I may not always be in a condo, so it's probably a good idea.

 

[SDKoala]

Great idea but don’t tesla’s disconnect from WiFi between 10 PM and 4 AM when the car goes to sleep?

No idea. I guess we'll know when wi-fi is eventually enabled.

 

[Supertester777]

I'm going to follow suit and put a switch in-line to turn off the cameras while parked at home.

I am surprised Calibrated Customs did not do that for you. They should know by now that the M3 battery won’t last if permanently wired.

 

[AdamNS]

I am surprised Calibrated Customs did not do that for you. They should know by now that the M3 battery won’t last if permanently wired.

I wish. I installed everything myself. I can't put into words how terrified I was at some points pulling panels off my brand new car.
It's not the M3 battery though, it's the BlackView battery that died. It can only power the cameras for ~20 hours from full and it was probably less than half full when I parked it at 4pm yesterday so when I got in at 9am this morning, it showed 0% battery and the cameras were totally off.

 

[smak]

If you have relatively small commute, and If you go a day without driving, and don't have a on/off switch, you will almost never get the battery back to full. Either battery.

 

[SDKoala]

I'm gong to also need a place to plug in my hotspot.

Calibred Customs installed my B-112 in the passenger footwell, but I'm having an issue in that I don't drive enough to keep it fully charged, so unless I drive a lot more than usual, it slowly is losing charge, to where eventually it's dead before I turn on the car, and then it only gets a few hours of charge time.

I know the B-124 keeps double the charge, but I could see people having a similar issue eventually, and I'm wondering if anybody uses any other method to charge their Blackvue battery. Maybe charging up a big portable battery to charge it when the car isn't plugged in.

My other option is to get the B-124 instead, but I think eventually I'll have similar issues if I'm driving 25 minutes to work, and then parking it 4 hours, then driving to lunch for 20 minutes and then parking it again for 4 hours, the battery is going to die.

If you want to be able to record all through the night every night and don't drive long enough during the day to charge the battery, you really don't have many options. I only need my BlackVue to record while I'm out and luckily, my cumulative drive home and to work is long enough to get the battery full, as long as I turn off the camera overnight.

• You could buy a second BlackVue battery pack and swap them out. You'd have charge the second battery outside the car using an AC to DC power inverter. If you had the battery installed in an inaccessible area like the passenger footwell, it's might not even be possible. (Where exactly did they put it? I can't picture where a good place would be for it there.) Even if it's in an easily accessible area, you'd have to do this every time the battery is discharged if you don't drive enough to charge it. You'd have to switch the batteries out twice daily since you'd be discharging the battery while parked at work and again while parked overnight. That would get really annoying really fast.
• You could run an extension cord into the car overnight and use an inverter to charge the battery, but then you'd need a power outlet nearby. If you're in a condo, it's only a matter of time before some busybody in the HOA says something. You'd have to do this every night and someone could easily come by and unplug it. The benefit is a full charge once when you're at work and no need to remove the battery.
• It should be possible to use a rechargeable powerbank battery to charge the BlackVue battery and run the cam at the same time if you get one that's powerful enough. (The BlackVue battery is capable of pass-through charging since this is part of its normal function, so that shouldn't be an issue.) From the spec sheet, it looks like the B-112 needs 80W to charge with a minimum requirement of 12V at 6.5A and maximum of 24V at 3.65A. There are a couple of high capacity powerbanks on Amazon capable of 80-85W output through a standard plug, so you'd still need the AC to DC inverter. You shouldn't leave a battery pack like this in the car in very high or very low temps. There's a fire hazard at high temps and problems with maintaining capacity to very low temps.

I'm sure if I've made any mistakes here, someone will come by and point them out.

 

[K-MTG]

If you have relatively small commute, and If you go a day without driving, and don't have a on/off switch, you will almost never get the battery back to full. Either battery.

They do have expansion batteries.

 

[SDKoala]

They do have expansion batteries.

Still would have to take them out of the car to recharge eventually if you never drive long enough to charge them through the car itself.

 

[Jason Bourne]

This is so crazy to me that we're talking about complex solutions and expensive hardware additions to get a dashcam to constantly run in an EV.

 

[Supertester777]

I would wait for Tesla to release the updated software and use the built in dashcam.

 

[navinsiri]

This is so crazy to me that we're talking about complex solutions and expensive hardware additions to get a dashcam to constantly run in an EV.

Yeah why is it so difficult? How many people reported having an issue with it being wired directly to the 12v? How do we know it just wasn’t a side effect of some monitoring algorithm that Tesla fixed in an update?

I’ve had dashcams running 24/7 in both Model 3s directly connected to the 12volt battery. It’s been 4ish months and I haven’t had any issues yet.

 

[JPP]

If you want to be able to record all through the night every night and don't drive long enough during the day to charge the battery, you really don't have many options. I only need my BlackVue to record while I'm out and luckily, my cumulative drive home and to work is long enough to get the battery full, as long as I turn off the camera overnight.

• You could buy a second BlackVue battery pack and swap them out. You'd have charge the second battery outside the car using an AC to DC power inverter. If you had the battery installed in an inaccessible area like the passenger footwell, it's might not even be possible. (Where exactly did they put it? I can't picture where a good place would be for it there.) Even if it's in an easily accessible area, you'd have to do this every time the battery is discharged if you don't drive enough to charge it. You'd have to switch the batteries out twice daily since you'd be discharging the battery while parked at work and again while parked overnight. That would get really annoying really fast.
• You could run an extension cord into the car overnight and use an inverter to charge the battery, but then you'd need a power outlet nearby. If you're in a condo, it's only a matter of time before some busybody in the HOA says something. You'd have to do this every night and someone could easily come by and unplug it. The benefit is a full charge once when you're at work and no need to remove the battery.
• It should be possible to use a rechargeable powerbank battery to charge the BlackVue battery and run the cam at the same time if you get one that's powerful enough. (The BlackVue battery is capable of pass-through charging since this is part of its normal function, so that shouldn't be an issue.) From the spec sheet, it looks like the B-112 needs 80W to charge with a minimum requirement of 12V at 6.5A and maximum of 24V at 3.65A. There are a couple of high capacity powerbanks on Amazon capable of 80-85W output through a standard plug, so you'd still need the AC to DC inverter. You shouldn't leave a battery pack like this in the car in very high or very low temps. There's a fire hazard at high temps and problems with maintaining capacity to very low temps.

I'm sure if I've made any mistakes here, someone will come by and point them out.

I read somewhere here on the forums that those folks who have used the Model 3 center console 12V outlet (either hard wired or with the cigarette lighter adapter) to power their Blackvue battery pack, that if they remotely turned on Climate Control, that the 12V powered up. You would then get 30 minutes of charge on the pack. I don't have my Model 3 yet to test....

 

[paladinfello]

I read somewhere here on the forums that those folks who have used the Model 3 center console 12V outlet (either hard wired or with the cigarette lighter adapter) to power their Blackvue battery pack, that if they remotely turned on Climate Control, that the 12V powered up. You would then get 30 minutes of charge on the pack. I don't have my Model 3 yet to test....

Correct, this is the solution that @nhirsch came up with, however, he did have intermittent problems of the 12V outlet not working when he got in until he reset the Model 3. Is this still happening to you @nhirsch? This is what I plan to do this month... next month... whenever my 3 is ready...

 

[flashflooder]

Yeah why is it so difficult? How many people reported having an issue with it being wired directly to the 12v? How do we know it just wasn’t a side effect of some monitoring algorithm that Tesla fixed in an update?

I’ve had dashcams running 24/7 in both Model 3s directly connected to the 12volt battery. It’s been 4ish months and I haven’t had any issues yet.

Thanks for the datapoint. I am starting to lean towards this being an anomaly, rather than a systematic problem, because as far as I know there have only been 1-2 reports of the error message actually popping up (someone correct me if I'm wrong, here).

I've already got mine installed via the cig adapter, but I might just go ahead and wire it up to the 12V battery.