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Show your Octavia III Dashcam setups


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Thanks for info Mr G. Can I pick your brains again, or anyone else's for that matter, for a little more knowledge please. What software is best for viewing the footage? I've noted Registrator Viewer is apparently a free download but are there better ones that are free or at moderate costs?! I'm hoping to have done the installation by this weekend.

 

I've not found anything that gom player doesn't play well.  

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Long overdue, because I've had them for months already:

 

DOD LS460w - HD 1080p, 64GB sd-card, going to receive a polarization filter soon

 

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Mini 0803, HD 1080p, 32GB sd-card, going to upgrade it to 128GB because it's used as a parking cam too:

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

EXcellent write up, Aurial. Brings together all the odd posts around. I'm off to order a camera for my rear screen, to go with the Transcend Pro in the front.

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I had to get a replacement for my dash cam because of a fault. It arrived today, so in order to assist Gallo, and any other prospective dashcam buyers out there who need a pointer in the right direction, I thought I'd remove what I could of my setup to try and give you a step-by-step guide. It's not difficult, so I hope this gives someone the confidence to give it a go.

DISCLAIMER: As always, this is entirely at your own risk.

I make two apologies up front. First, the state of my car. I did a long DIY detailing session last week but unfortunately the only space I could get in the car park over the weekend was under the bushes / trees so my pride and joy is filthy. Second, the quality of the pics isn't great but the weather is pretty pants today so I've done my best.

Also, this is not the only way to do this. Schodoodles and some other helpful users have posted other methods to get things wired up earlier in the thread, so have a look at their methods too and choose whichever you prefer. Schodoodles' is certainly better if you want to run something like a satnav as well as it allows you to power more than one device.

My dash cam is the Blackvue DR650 so it has two cameras that record front and rear. I've also got a Power Magic Pro to handle the power side of things. Those are the two bits of kit I'll show you how to fit here, but please do your own research and choose what's right for you.

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The Power Magic Pro is already stuck to the car, but it looks like this

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The purpose of the power magic pro is to keep your camera running while you're away from the car without running your battery flat. It has a series of jumpers which allow you to set either the battery voltage it will turn the camera off at, or the amount of time to run the camera after you've turned off the ignition. I have mine set to turn off once the battery voltage drops to 11.8v and that seems to work fine for me. You don't need one of these to run a dashcam as they all come with cigarette lighter sockets, it's just for the added benefit of battery safety.

You'll also need a pair of these Add A Circuit Fuse Taps.

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I got the pair for less than £4 from eBay. Be sure to get full size ones and not the mini version. You'll need two 5 amp blade fuses to go in them. I also got a plastic panel removal set so as not to damage the panel you need to take off to access the fuse box. A screwdriver may do just as good a job but I didn't want to take any chances with damaging my trim.

First step is to fit both cameras where you want them. I found that with mine I could mount the holder for the front camera at the very bottom of the black bobbles to the side of the rear view mirror, which kept it hidden behind the mirror from the driver and also meant the windscreen wipers cleared the glass in front of it when it was raining.

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Next, remove this panel from the passenger side (on U.K. cars) of the dashboard.

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Which will reveal this cavity

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Here you can see why I didn't photograph my Power Magic Pro, as it's already stuck to the inside of this recess. I used a piece of double sided adhesive that came with it to attach it, and it stops it from rattling around in there. Should be easy to remove when I change cars. Now you need to remove your glove box. There are instructions at the back of the owners manual with a diagram of how to do it. It's in the "Fuses" section of the book. Essentially you need to unhook a little arm from the back to the glovebox by poking a screwdriver through a hole which you can't really see in the picture above. Then it's a case of pulling the glovebox upwards to dislodge it. Be brave.

Once the glovebox is out your fusebox will be revealed.

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You may have more or less fuses depending on the options you have fitted to your car.

The Power Magic Pro has three wires that you need to hook up.

(BATT +) Yellow wire - Needs to be connected to an always on fuse.

(ACC) Red wire - Needs a fuse that is only live when the ignition is on (also known as a switched live).

Black wire - Needs to be earthed.

In the photo of the Power Magic Pro above I have loosened the bottom of the three bolts to the left of the recess and attached the black earth cable underneath it. I've checked the whole area with a multimeter and you can't really go wrong there wherever you put it as the whole metal plate, and therefore the three nuts are all earthed. The Yellow and Red wires, as you can see, are fed over the top of the metal plate and through a small hole there that drops down to just above and to the left of the fuse box. You'll easily find it with your fingers.

Once you've got your wires through feed the bare ends into the ends of your Fuse Taps and squash the metal ends to lock them in place.

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If you glance back at the picture of the fuse box, we're going to use fuse 47 for the switched live (red wire). Fuse 47 is the blue one on the bottom row and is the fuse for your rear wiper. For the always on current (yellow wire) we'll use fuse 40 which in the picture is the yellow fuse on the row above. Fuse 40 is for the cigarette lighter socket.

The first step is to remove both of those fuses. Next, put one 5 amp fuse into each of the fuse taps in the slot directly above the wire. Then put the fuses you've just removed into the spare slot on each tap, which should be the closest slot to the metal pins on the end of the tap. The tap on the red (BATT+) wire should now look like this.

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And the yellow (ACC) wire should look like this.

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It's very important you get these the right way around.

Once that's done plug the fuse taps into the slots in the fuse box where you removed the fuses from earlier. Red wire (which now has a blue fuse in the tap) into slot 47, and yellow wire (with yellow fuse) into slot 40. It should look like this.

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The fuse numbers are embossed into the plastic of the fuse box if you look closely, so that makes things a little easier.

Now, so long as you have your earth wire connected to one of the bolts mentioned earlier you are good to go. It's simply a matter of plugging the power cable from the camera into the cigarette plug on the Power Magic Pro and you should have power. Note that there is an On/Off style switch on the power magic. If it is set in the On position it will provide power to the camera whether the ignition is switched on or off. If, however, you have it in the Off position it will only provide power to the camera when the ignition is turned on. I haven't mentioned how to set the jumpers for voltage or time limits, but there are too many permutations to cover so I advise you to look in the instructions. It's very simple.

All that remains for you to do now is route the power cable and the connecting cable for the rear camera. Both of these can be tucked into the roof lining along the top of the windscreen quite easily. From there I ran mine tucked into the top of the A pillar, and brought the power cable down the door side of the A piller into the recess where the power magic is. The cable for the rear camera I just carried on around the edge of the roof lining all the way to the back of the car.

Once your glovebox is back in place and you've put the plastic panel back on it's job done. Make yourself a cup of tea.

Where are you based ? If I chuck you £50 would you fit one for me ? :)

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Excellent guide for the blackvue, mine is pretty much identical to your setup except I located the PowerMagic Pro in the glove box as I wanted the option to power down when required without pulling the plug from the camera.

 

The dashcam paid for itself 2 weeks ago when a Toyota mini bus decided it needed to reverse when stationary at a red light. Luckily he stomped on the brakes after hearing me leaning very hard on the horn, so impact ended up being small, with just a small crack in the grille surround near the bonnet catch.

 

Any harder it would have been an insurance job and he could have easily claimed I ran into the back of him and I was in the wrong. Once I pointed out that I had a dashcam running, it took that option away from him so it ended up amicably. In Australia, the rear car in a nose to tail accident is automatically in the wrong unless you can prove otherwise.

 

I can imagine which way an insurer would usually tend to go without hard evidence the vehicle in front reversed from a stationary position at a red light - the reversing lights are very incriminating in this case, not to mention my indicated speed of 000kmh.

 

 

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Excellent guide for the blackvue, mine is pretty much identical to your setup except I located the PowerMagic Pro in the glove box as I wanted the option to power down when required without pulling the plug from the camera.

The dashcam paid for itself 2 weeks ago when a Toyota mini bus decided it needed to reverse when stationary at a red light. Luckily he stomped on the brakes after hearing me leaning very hard on the horn, so impact ended up being small, with just a small crack in the grille surround near the bonnet catch.

Any harder it would have been an insurance job and he could have easily claimed I ran into the back of him and I was in the wrong. Once I pointed out that I had a dashcam running, it took that option away from him so it ended up amicably. In Australia, the rear car in a nose to tail accident is automatically in the wrong unless you can prove otherwise.

I can imagine which way an insurer would usually tend to go without hard evidence the vehicle in front reversed from a stationary position at a red light - the reversing lights are very incriminating in this case, not to mention my indicated speed of 000kmh.

If you dont mind me asking...where did you get your blackvue from? Im in Perth and have found a local supplier but wondered if it would be cheaper buying from the East coast (it normally is...).

Cheers

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Yes I like the set up you have, so would be looking at buying the same..

I'm in the Leicester so you're a bit too far TBH :(

I think you're right, that's a bit of a trek!

It's really not difficult to do yourself, and if you have any problems I'm only a PM away and happy to help. I have confidence in you!

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Not a problem.

 

In typical Oz fashion, I ordered it online from the NRMA in NSW where it was $100 cheaper than the official distributor in Perth (Auto blackbox).

 

It was then shipped to me direct from where else - the official distributor in Perth. So I paid $100 less for ordering from the east coast and they then had to freight it 3500km to me.

 

Cheers

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Not a problem.

In typical Oz fashion, I ordered it online from the NRMA in NSW where it was $100 cheaper than the official distributor in Perth (Auto blackbox).

It was then shipped to me direct from where else - the official distributor in Perth. So I paid $100 less for ordering from the east coast and they then had to freight it 3500km to me.

Cheers

Only in Oz........[emoji23]

Cheers, will have a look at NRMA.

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Yes I like the set up you have, so would be looking at buying the same..

I'm in the Leicester so you're a bit too far TBH :(

Kyle have a go at this yourself. It really is a simple thing to do. You can't really go wrong if you follow the guide on here.

I did mine in 25 mins and I was in two minds about paying someone to do it for me but I decided to bite the bullet and try it.

Easy diy job

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Well maybe it's been a bad week but I've had 3 near misses in 2 days. Avoided all 3 but it got me thinking about how the heck you prove liability. Blackvue 650 ordered ☺

Edited by classic
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Out of interest what was the fault in the original 650 you had or was it a different make/model?

 

Me and my dad both have the same camera and both had to return ours within weeks of each other both for a rear camera which stopped working completely and a random no gps or sound issue. Now I've got another issue which is the 'cap' (the rectangle bit which turns audio recording on and off) on the left hand side looking at the rear of the front camera is poping out so I will need to replace again!

 

I've also just purchased this polarising filter for mine which gets rid of nearly all reflections of the dash in the windscreen: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131415076235

 

Makes a huge difference!

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Out of interest what was the fault in the original 650 you had or was it a different make/model?

Me and my dad both have the same camera and both had to return ours within weeks of each other both for a rear camera which stopped working completely and a random no gps or sound issue. Now I've got another issue which is the 'cap' (the rectangle bit which turns audio recording on and off) on the left hand side looking at the rear of the front camera is poping out so I will need to replace again!

I've also just purchased this polarising filter for mine which gets rid of nearly all reflections of the dash in the windscreen: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131415076235

Makes a huge difference!

Great tip about the filter. I may well invest in one myself.

My fault was indeed with a 650. I had only just received it and went out to fit it. I tried it on its own first (without the power magic) to make sure it was all working before fitting. The inline fuse in the power cable blew within about 20 mins.

I replaced the fuse, fitted the power magic and wired it all up. Then it would randomly say it was switching off and then come back on again. It also used to turn off and not come back on despite the fact I was driving around and so you'd think the voltage would not be an issue. It certainly wasn't for the Stop/Start which usually stops if the voltage isn't high.

I figured the fuse had gone again so I contacted the merchant to return it. They were really good and sent out another one before I returned the original. In the meantime it randomly started working again.

I have no idea if it was a fault with the power cable or the camera itself, but I've replaced it now with the new one and it's been great since.

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I had a rebranded mini 0801 (naito v2 gps)

Then when I sold my old car and had some spare cash I decided I'd upgrade and pass the naito on to the wife.

I went for the all singing all dancing Blackvue dr650 2 channel.

I fitted them this afternoon along with the power magic pro.

These things are in a different league to the naito (which I was really happy with)

Build quality is amazing. The power magic pro is brilliant, I've got it set to record until the voltage drops below 12v or after 24hrs of being parked.

Two slight niggles I have are that the Blackvue is supposed to have voice feedback, so it speaks to let you know it's recording etc. mine doesn't. Not at all bothered about it.

The second is that the footage plays fine in the Blackvue PC app, until I full screen it, it then goes very stuttey. The videos are smooth as silk if I play them in windows media player though so suggests to me it's a software issue.

Love the cameras and nice and simple to fit.

I don't understand why anyone would pay a lot of money to have something like this installed. Do it yourself it's straightforward and free!

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Two slight niggles I have are that the Blackvue is supposed to have voice feedback, so it speaks to let you know it's recording etc. mine doesn't. Not at all bothered about it.

As you have the power pro it should always be recording so it will only tell you when it's stopped (voltage dropped for example) and starts again when you start the car.

If that doesn't work then check the firmware settings as there is options to turn the different voice feedbacks on and off.

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When I was choosing my cam, I was advised not to go for a Blackvue 650GW because of the rear windscreen being the DAB/FM radio aerial could cause interference with it, or it cause interference with the radio, I can't remember which now.

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When I was choosing my cam, I was advised not to go for a Blackvue 650GW because of the rear windscreen being the DAB/FM radio aerial could cause interference with it, or it cause interference with the radio, I can't remember which now.

I believe that was a problem to do with the shielding on the cable that connects the front and rear cameras. As I understand it Blackvue replaced that cable with a new version. I haven't had any issues since fitting mine.

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