Hi guys,

 

I received my new 67 plate Octavia yesterday but haven't had much time to play with it. I'm away from the car at the moment but had a thought. I have been wondering about what to do with about the always live 12v socket when using a dashcam. I know there are options to hardwire it, etc but I wondered if the main USB slot under the entertainment system could be used as a power source instead? Most dashcams seem to capable  of being run from a usb cable. 

 

Does anyone know?

I think infotainment must be on for USB to work. For a dashcam you need to connect it to permanently.

For testing purposes USB will do the job.

 

I prefer to leave my dashcam on at all times. My cars have been "scratched and bumped" more times when parked-up/left-alone than whilst driving. It also acts as a household security-cam when parked on my drive at night.

I would prefer that too Orville. How do you deal with the risk of running the battery flat when you run the camera off the car battery 24/7? Have you had any problems so far? Does the average dashcam not going to draw enough power to run the battery flat between drives? I'm tempted to use a piggy back fuse to hide the camera cable and avoid having to plug it into the 12v socket.

1 minute ago, spinnaker said:

I would prefer that too Orville. How do you deal with the risk of running the battery flat when you run the camera off the car battery 24/7? Have you had any problems so far? Does the average dashcam not going to draw enough power to run the battery flat between drives? I'm tempted to use a piggy back fuse to hide the camera cable and avoid having to plug it into the 12v socket.

I leave mine on 24/7 never had a problem

Mine has also been on 24/7 for 2-years without any battery warnings. Modern cars have big batteries due to stop-start and dask cams require very little power.

 

I've even been on holiday for 3-weeks and returned to find car, dashcam and battery working fine.

 

Edit: The average car battery provides ~90Ah of capacity. Most dashcams will draw ~200mA with screen on, or ~50mA with screen off. That gives 450-hours or  1800-hours with LCD off before battery is fully drained. Of course, the cars alarm and standby systems will draw additional idle power, but most cams should run for several weeks before draining the battery noticeably.

Edited 13 September, 20178 yr by Orville