Fitting a rear battery (in boot)

[snowathlete]

16 hours ago, superbdreams said:

 

Not definitively but I looked into this quite exhaustively.

My plan was to have the boot battery charged when the main battery was full, there are devices made (for caravans/force vehicles) for this purpose.

The drawback apart from cost which I would have paid (iirc £130 ish) was cabling through the car.

A sealed lead acid standard battery was going to be my choice and fitted where the 3 litre superb is, in the left boot compartment.

 

I fitted a dashcam from new but because of my constant flat battery problems I also fitted a hidden switch so I could shut it down overnight, the blackvue battery magic device fitted did not help because as you know from your own experience, the car drained the battery overnight anyway and the camera just exasperated this.

On a side note the camera paid for itself twice by catching a hit and run driver and alerting me to the damage caused to my vehicle by blade group.

 

As of now with my car somehow fixed, I have often forgotten to shut down the camera and still the car starts the next morning.

I urge you to pursue your efforts to cure the drain and then just fit a dashcam with a low voltage shut off switch.

 

If it helps, I decided to throw money at a dashcam and have the best, I bought a twin camera system from blackvue with wifi.

Very disappointed!

The sd card needs formatting regularly and if you don't the date and time jump forward years (Samsung are more reliable in it than sandisk)

The wifi is a joke as you cant transfer any files via it.

The rear camera often gives a psychedelic picture despite being sent back under warranty with no fault found.

Picture quality is good but other much cheaper cameras are as good, probably better by now.

Gps, route map,parking mode and incident recording are all excellent.

 

The G sensor incident recording is what I want for when the car is parked. Although it's in standby most of the time it's still using up a fair amount of juice in that mode. Obviously a lot less juice than when you're driving and it's writing everything to the SD card but I still worry it'll upset my main battery if I leave it connected. Maybe I'll give it a go and see how much power it uses over the night. One of my neighbors woke up to their car having been written off recently, someone crashed into it in the night and drove off. Unfortunately for my neighbor this is a claim on their own insurance as a result of the guilty party not being known. It's been a right headache for them. A parking mode dash cam would have probably caught whoever did it. Sounds like you had a similar experience with a hit and run but were saved by your camera, which is good to hear. Disturbing to hear of a dealer damaging your car also.

[superbdreams]

8 hours ago, snowathlete said:

 

The G sensor incident recording is what I want for when the car is parked. Although it's in standby most of the time it's still using up a fair amount of juice in that mode. Obviously a lot less juice than when you're driving and it's writing everything to the SD card

 

They don't work like that, everything is written to the card all the time, G sensor will result in the current portion being saved otherwise it is overwritten.

To stress the point, once the drain is cured you have no problem leaving a camera running albeit with a low voltage shut off device.

[MikeHig]

Just a thought......are there any dashcams with their own rechargeable batteries? Maybe there's a model which could run on its own power when the car is unattended and then be plugged into the 12v boot socket when it needed recharging?

 

On the solar panel idea, some rough, back-of-a-beermat calculations suggest it will generate very little power, being small, behind tinted glass, not at the optimum incidence angle, etc.. And that's before the vagaries of the weather.

[snowathlete]

1 hour ago, superbdreams said:

 

They don't work like that, everything is written to the card all the time, G sensor will result in the current portion being saved otherwise it is overwritten.

To stress the point, once the drain is cured you have no problem leaving a camera running albeit with a low voltage shut off device.

 

Some do, it depends on the device. Some have buffered parking modes, they're constantly recording but only save it to the SD card if there is an event. 

[snowathlete]

Just now, MikeHig said:

Just a thought......are there any dashcams with their own rechargeable batteries? Maybe there's a model which could run on its own power when the car is unattended and then be plugged into the 12v boot socket when it needed recharging?

 

On the solar panel idea, some rough, back-of-a-beermat calculations suggest it will generate very little power, being small, behind tinted glass, not at the optimum incidence angle, etc.. And that's before the vagaries of the weather.

 

Not really. Most cameras have either a very small internal battery or capacitor so allow the camera to save the current file when the engine is turned off, but they only last a matter of minutes.

 

We'll see with the panel. It doesn't have to produce a lot. 

[exFiesta]

Another option albeit, not cheap: 

 

http://www.carcamerashop.co.uk/cellink-neo6-battery-pack.html

 

saw this recently when looking at replacing my somewhat useless mi-witness camera.

[TLV]

Very few dashcams have batteries in them, some even recording for hours. They're rare because it gets hot in the car during summer time and heat kills said batteries fast. It can be either from the car being left out in the sun and becoming a sauna inside or even just from driving during hot weather with the sun shining through the windshield and on to the dashcam. Cameras produce quite a bit of heat themselves and need to vent said heat somewhere.. That's why most modern dashcams come with capacitors instead of batteries, which can take the heat. Ideally you'd place your phone and dashcam in places where they can get cool air.

 

Even with the AC running, you may experience your phone getting so hot that it refuses to charge. The same can happen to dashcams and other gadgets. Some don't even do that and just let the battery die.

Edited 25 March, 2018 by TLV

[snowathlete]

2 hours ago, exFiesta said:

Another option albeit, not cheap: 

 

http://www.carcamerashop.co.uk/cellink-neo6-battery-pack.html

 

saw this recently when looking at replacing my somewhat useless mi-witness camera.

 

These are good by all accounts. Quite costly. You need to drive the car enough to recharge it though.

[TLV]

You were already considering a plug-in heating system, perhaps consider using a mains power battery charger/tender overnight.

[snowathlete]

3 minutes ago, TLV said:

You were already considering a plug-in heating system, perhaps consider using a mains power battery charger/tender overnight.

 

Good idea.

[Russ77]

8 hours ago, MikeHig said:

Just a thought......are there any dashcams with their own rechargeable batteries? Maybe there's a model which could run on its own power when the car is unattended and then be plugged into the 12v boot socket when it needed recharging?

 

On the solar panel idea, some rough, back-of-a-beermat calculations suggest it will generate very little power, being small, behind tinted glass, not at the optimum incidence angle, etc.. And that's before the vagaries of the weather.

I'm pretty sure even un-coated/non-tinted glass blocks most UV light so I'm not even sure a solar panel would work in this instance

[jafo]

@snowathlete

 

If you are worried about hit-and-run incidents - wouldn't be better to install camera at the wall of your home ? Would be 2-in-1

[snowathlete]

2 hours ago, Russ77 said:

I'm pretty sure even un-coated/non-tinted glass blocks most UV light so I'm not even sure a solar panel would work in this instance

 

Solar panels don't run on UV light, they run on photons from the visible spectrum.

[snowathlete]

1 hour ago, jafo said:

@snowathlete

 

If you are worried about hit-and-run incidents - wouldn't be better to install camera at the wall of your home ? Would be 2-in-1

I guess that would be easier practically speaking, but probably unnecessary to record that much material, and with CCTV there's a code of practice to consider.

[jafo]

@snowathlete

 

What is the difference if you'll have your camera recording 24/7 in the car or on the wall - in respect to CCTV rules ???

 

You can set home camera to react to motion - in specified area(s) - and work in a loop so won't save everything. 

[snowathlete]

11 hours ago, jafo said:

@snowathlete

 

What is the difference if you'll have your camera recording 24/7 in the car or on the wall - in respect to CCTV rules ???

 

You can set home camera to react to motion - in specified area(s) - and work in a loop so won't save everything. 

 

 

 

Probably not a lot, but I said powered 24/7 not recording 24/7.

 

[jafo]

12 hours ago, snowathlete said:

Probably not a lot, but I said powered 24/7 not recording 24/7.

 

?!?!?

[FlyingSpanner]

Gone

Edited 9 January, 2019 by FlyingSpanner

[vborovic]

17 minutes ago, VWGDT said:

To capture the arse reversing into the car and not stopping to give details.

 

Sorry, mate ... GDPR ...

[FlyingSpanner]

[FlyingSpanner]

Gone

Edited 9 January, 2019 by FlyingSpanner

[vborovic]

Not quite, you won't need the battery detonator (the three fuses), since the battery would be a secondary, not a primary source of power ... the main issue I have with the theory is, how will you recharge the boot battery? If someone just plans to connect it parallel to the engine battery, they'd be in for a big surprise, because the car's alternator isn't designed to charge 2x 70-80 AH batteries at once ... if it won't be recharged, what's the point of the capacity that will eventually run out? There are much simpler solutions that placing an entire battery just for the camera or the electric bits (Phaeton had such an approach - which included two batteries - back in 2003, from the factory)

[FlyingSpanner]

G

Edited 9 January, 2019 by FlyingSpanner

[knfruitbat]

3 hours ago, VWGDT said:

I have a dual channel DR900 Blackvue in mine with its own battery pack (B-124 power magic) under the passenger seat. The cameras connect only to the stand-alone battery, not the car so it does not suffer from flat batteries. When the engine runs, the battery under the seat charges fully in around 35 mins which gives between thirteen to fifteen hours run time for the cameras. It charges at 9 amps via hard wire to terminal 75x in the dash fuse box as does the EE wifi unit so I can monitor the car and it's surroundings if needed remotely from my phone. It can also connect to two additional wifi hotspots, i.e work and home. 

To give the battery a boost, I sometimes place a spare AGM battery in the passenger footwell and power the Blackvue battery via a ciggi lead charging at 7 amps which keeps it constantly charged for when it won't be started for a few days. I can see what you want to do by having it fitted in the rear and would be a good permanent solution to what I do on the cheap by just placing it in the footwell.

It would be easy enough to install it in the back, as when I removed my mickey mouse towbar and fitted a Westfalia removable with full 13 pin electrics the other day,  I noticed in that left rear corner, it had the studs already welded in place to accept the battery tray so I may consider doing that too.

I will let you know how I get on IF I do.

What is the point? To capture the arse reversing into the car and not stopping to give details. 

Let us know if you do this as I was interested in the same set up, and leave my car for many days without use. Have factory fitted towbar so should already have updated alternator and battery.

[knfruitbat]

3 hours ago, vborovic said:

 

Sorry, mate ... GDPR ...

If that were an issue they would have to put a warning against using using dashcam in public spaces. Which would destroy the market instantly. And most police forces in UK are happy to receive video footage of people driving like complete morons. They couldn't use it if it wasn't legal.