cybermech
Getting the hang of it
- Jan 24, 2017
- 144
- 79
I have to replace my windshield (big crack from a rock thrown off a semi's tire in the dark on the freeway), so now I need to hop to it in order to install the cam.
Blackview DR650S-2CH-IR
- Thread starter nayr
- Start date
Hey there guys,
I just recently joined this forum and saw you had a dash cam section. I've been running a DR650-2ch for about 3yrs. Yes, the SD cards they come with are overpriced junk... so let me give you some other tips.
First, make absolutely sure your battery is in good shape. This camera with a power magic pro draws a little over an amp while running. If you don't have a new battery in your car it'll make short work of it quickly as it discharges it over an over again. The alternator should take care of it, but that's not always the case due to sulfide buildup and etc. I have an optima yellow top deep-cycle in my pickup which not only gives me about 2-3 days capacity to run the camera at a 11.8v low voltage trip, has to spin over a 454 when I need it to. I've had to upgrade my alternator as well just to support the battery so if you park in a garage overnight at home, I would suggest unplugging the camera. Batteries fair much better during warmer weather as well, so don't be surprised come next winter if the engine spins over poorly after its been sitting outside in the cold all day or all night. Those buses should have a dual battery setup for cranking, so they're much less likely to ever notice the battery is weak while starting.
Make sure you have a power magic pro. Not only will this save your battery, it'll save your alternator too. If you allow the battery to get down to 9-10v several times and keep getting jumped off you're putting way too much stress on your alternator each time. Mine is soft-wired into my fuse panel with some mini-fuse circuit splitters to T off of a couple of fuses.
You're going to want to order a few Samsung SD cards. Scandisks do not take heat well and will start to break down. You'll notice in the video player on your PC or phone that the video will be "damaged" or just unable to play... that's typically the SD card biting the dust. I've got 3 64gb samsungs that I rotate through and I pull them every 2-3days to check out the parking mode footage. IIRC kingstons work well, but I think I chose samsungs due to the price.
Don't be surprised this summer after a hot day and the camera has been sitting in the sun that it is "locked up" and not recording anything. I've talked to blackvue about it, they suggest running the latest firmware and all that, but it's the heat. The camera is black, so, it gets pretty hot. I ususally unplug the camera after it has been sitting in the sun, crank up my vehicle, turn on the defrost and let that run for a minute before plugging it back in. It sucks, but its life.
I just recently joined this forum and saw you had a dash cam section. I've been running a DR650-2ch for about 3yrs. Yes, the SD cards they come with are overpriced junk... so let me give you some other tips.
First, make absolutely sure your battery is in good shape. This camera with a power magic pro draws a little over an amp while running. If you don't have a new battery in your car it'll make short work of it quickly as it discharges it over an over again. The alternator should take care of it, but that's not always the case due to sulfide buildup and etc. I have an optima yellow top deep-cycle in my pickup which not only gives me about 2-3 days capacity to run the camera at a 11.8v low voltage trip, has to spin over a 454 when I need it to. I've had to upgrade my alternator as well just to support the battery so if you park in a garage overnight at home, I would suggest unplugging the camera. Batteries fair much better during warmer weather as well, so don't be surprised come next winter if the engine spins over poorly after its been sitting outside in the cold all day or all night. Those buses should have a dual battery setup for cranking, so they're much less likely to ever notice the battery is weak while starting.
Make sure you have a power magic pro. Not only will this save your battery, it'll save your alternator too. If you allow the battery to get down to 9-10v several times and keep getting jumped off you're putting way too much stress on your alternator each time. Mine is soft-wired into my fuse panel with some mini-fuse circuit splitters to T off of a couple of fuses.
You're going to want to order a few Samsung SD cards. Scandisks do not take heat well and will start to break down. You'll notice in the video player on your PC or phone that the video will be "damaged" or just unable to play... that's typically the SD card biting the dust. I've got 3 64gb samsungs that I rotate through and I pull them every 2-3days to check out the parking mode footage. IIRC kingstons work well, but I think I chose samsungs due to the price.
Don't be surprised this summer after a hot day and the camera has been sitting in the sun that it is "locked up" and not recording anything. I've talked to blackvue about it, they suggest running the latest firmware and all that, but it's the heat. The camera is black, so, it gets pretty hot. I ususally unplug the camera after it has been sitting in the sun, crank up my vehicle, turn on the defrost and let that run for a minute before plugging it back in. It sucks, but its life.
wantafastz28
Getting comfortable
Yeah, I'm curious if it will survive the summer here in AZ. Time will tell. Was hoping there would be a discrete place to mount it, but there is no way to hide this sucker.
No one has ever noticed my cameras honestly. Back glass has a little tint and you can't see that one. The front one you can see the white double-sided tape that I had to use to hold it up. There is nothing wrong with the adhesive that holds it in place, and its nice because its clear, but i tested mine out in a rental car first when I used to travel and didn't get another sticky pad until much later.... and I haven't been bothered to change it in all of these years.
I think people write it off as a toll lane transponder.
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
- 36,892
- 21,408
wantafastz28
Getting comfortable
I mean inside the vehicle... i know whenever someone gets in, they are gonna be asking wtf is that.
No shit. I heard of others with Thinkware cams that have had the same thing happen to them. I've thought about some sort of solar powered fan setup, but so far murphy's law hasn't hit me.
hmjgriffon
Known around here
If you buy a dash cam you need to make sure it has capacitors instead of batteries.
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Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
wantafastz28
Getting comfortable
If it gets to that, I'll probably just sell it, and if anything happens lets insurance deal with it as usual.
cryptelli
Pulling my weight
Should that occur maybe look into Vicovation. I own the Macus One and that puppy can get up to 75c or 167f and still function properly.
Our summer in Sydney just past set a number of records with some days reaching into the low to mid 40c (104-111f) and a number of those were spent in the car, leaving it parked parked outside in that heat would have to have gotten the camera close to that operating temperature, but it kept chugging along.
On top of that, didn't like the sneaky tactics Blackvue used in their earlier days. Lowing bitrate to stop the thing from overheating is just damn deceitful.
wantafastz28
Getting comfortable
Yeah that isn't cool... this really was kind of an impulse buy...will hope for the best. 115 days are common here and not having shaded parking sucks.
tangent
IPCT Contributor
- May 12, 2016
- 4,629
- 3,982
The camera itself doesn't contain a battery. There's an optional accessory battery pack and and optional module to allow it to drain your car battery while the car is off that cuts power before it goes too low.
and unfortunately those low voltage cutoffs let em suck too much power down for my Diesel.. most let em drain it down below 12v
you can also get an external LiPo or LiFe battery packs that charge when the car is running and provide power when the car is off.. these will leave your car battery alone so it dont sit there and do a full discharge every night you go to park it.
you can also get an external LiPo or LiFe battery packs that charge when the car is running and provide power when the car is off.. these will leave your car battery alone so it dont sit there and do a full discharge every night you go to park it.
That's a pretty good idea.
Curious though, you should have enough juice in 2 batts to spin your diesel over even if one is down a little. I hope you've looked into that?
considering the primary battery is under the drivers seat I'm not quite sure where I'd add an aux bat.. I have one on my trailer though when they hooked together.
My Campervan has two batteries and ones dedicated just to starting, when shutoff a relay closes em off and all the accessories only run off its own battery.. it also has a master solid state relay hooked up to the aux battery thats got a low voltage disconnect on it, so you can run it til it shuts off w/out damage to batteries.
My Campervan has two batteries and ones dedicated just to starting, when shutoff a relay closes em off and all the accessories only run off its own battery.. it also has a master solid state relay hooked up to the aux battery thats got a low voltage disconnect on it, so you can run it til it shuts off w/out damage to batteries.
cybermech
Getting the hang of it
- Jan 24, 2017
- 144
- 79
they seem to get high marks for reliability, guess time will tell on that one.. the main reason I got this was for a decent interior IR camera and I wanted a discrete permanent install behind the mirror I didnt have to dick with.. The app seems easy enough but the livestream quality seems pretty low bitrate; however what it was recording was really good looking, downloaded video fine and I could save it right to my ownCloud folder from my phone, the client in OSX seems to work really well w/no fuss.. I think I'll get a polarized filter for it to cut down on glare, stuffing a 128G sd into it and its only going to record while keyed to come on when interior lighting has power (doors open w/20min timeout)
I think the WAF factor is high; after testing it in her car and letting her play with the app she wanted one.. so, there's that too
The vehicle in question does have a built in hotspot; so I could in theory mebe cast a great road trip to alaska or somethin
Did you get a polarized filter for this yet? Got mine up and running this weekend and the daytime video seems a little washed out. It's been completely clear and full sun the last few days.
One other observation, the night video is ok as long as there is some light around, but very dark if there isn't much light. Not quite the same as a Dahua Starlight cam. =)
I've not, fly out to drive the new car home Wednesday.. taking dashcam with me for the trip home.. then I'll find out if my windshield angle calls for it or not.. I suspect it will.
I did some google searching before buying and found some Starvis IMX291 Dashcams but it looks like the DSP they had on em was very low power and quality was hardly impressive, tons more noise and it didnt really help much... I got an email from Blackview about a new Starvis dashcam they had but its the ones w/a onboard display and I dont want that hanging on my window.. I figured the'd eventually catch up and I'd upgrade it to a 'Starlight' sensor, then I'll just move this over to the Wife's car and it'll be an excuse to upgrade.
If I were to design a dashcam from ground up on available technology; I'd take whatever Sony Starvis in the big sensor 8MP Dahuas and use that.. with these ultrawide angles you dont get any decent pixel density and thats what makes reading plates at more than a car length away really challenging.
I did some google searching before buying and found some Starvis IMX291 Dashcams but it looks like the DSP they had on em was very low power and quality was hardly impressive, tons more noise and it didnt really help much... I got an email from Blackview about a new Starvis dashcam they had but its the ones w/a onboard display and I dont want that hanging on my window.. I figured the'd eventually catch up and I'd upgrade it to a 'Starlight' sensor, then I'll just move this over to the Wife's car and it'll be an excuse to upgrade.
If I were to design a dashcam from ground up on available technology; I'd take whatever Sony Starvis in the big sensor 8MP Dahuas and use that.. with these ultrawide angles you dont get any decent pixel density and thats what makes reading plates at more than a car length away really challenging.
Installed it last night, then today I got in the car and was wondering why the fuck my side view mirrors had turned black.. yanked the camera out of its mount, still black.. all my auto-darkening mirrors were stuck in dark mode.. then I moved the mirror vertically and everything went back to normal, got to my destination and upon closer inspection the light sensor was on back side of mirror and I installed this fucking thing so the mount was almost entirely blocking it out...
sigh, take it back off and try again.. I guess I know why they gave me two sticky pads, lol.. Soo, inspect your mirrors if your trying to hide a camera behind em.. and test it w/temporary wiring before permanently wiring it, luckily I had not gotten that far.
Having it streaming over WiFi and displayed on phone really helps w/installation.
sigh, take it back off and try again.. I guess I know why they gave me two sticky pads, lol.. Soo, inspect your mirrors if your trying to hide a camera behind em.. and test it w/temporary wiring before permanently wiring it, luckily I had not gotten that far.
Having it streaming over WiFi and displayed on phone really helps w/installation.
hmjgriffon
Known around here
auto darkening mirrors LOL does it wipe your ass too? Sounds like prime target for some hacker to have a field day with a car like this.