Quote:
Originally Posted by afsar
I think if you power camera directly from battery it will draw a constant and over period of time it will build-up (lets say overnight), car detecting this loss will report "increased battery discharge message".
I have thought over this detail and came to conclusion that a true 24/7 surveillance is possible if you separate this completely from your car electronics. Way I thought is like this:
Buy a small 12v 10ah to 20ah sealed battery which you can hide somewhere behind boot trims. Now buy a compact low power (like 5-10 amp, higher doesn't harm but unnecessery) solar charge controller (no solar panel) and in the solar charge controller hook battery to charge terminal and camera(s) to output terminal. Now using a flat 12v supply from ciggy lighter (whichever is ignition switched) you can hook charge controller's panel input.
This way when you are driving your camera battery is being charged, and solar charge controller is making sure you don't overcharge it. I have calculated that 20ah battery will continuously run one Blackvue camera for appx 60 hours which is 2.5 days even if you don't drive your car at all. If you are able to tuck bigger battery in then record time will improve even further. But beware you can only charge upto microSD card's storage capability (blackvue on full hd 30fps can store upto 10 hrs of recording) any extra time won't be really that helpful. To keep this in recording loop infinitely I think you will can easily add a small solar panel.
Feel free to suggest any better solution as this is what I am going to do in next few weeks.
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yes, you are right. the battery discharge message will appear if you have idrive. and if you have comfort access, that will stop working as well.
you could power the camera via external battery and charge the battery while driving. i did consider doing this (using lit ion battery pack) while doing my install but over here in Singapore, the internal temperature of the cabin could go up to 70 degrees celcius or more and there is a risk of the lit ion battery leaking and even catching fire.