Bought an HD Dash Cam for my LEAF - Check it out here...

[GregH]

Neat.. Something like this would have been awesome when poor Joulee3 was in the accident in the carpool lane.. The eBay write up mentions 1, 3 and 5 minute recording.. I'm guessing you can set it up to record the last few minutes in an endless loop then hit a button to save it to.. what, microSD? I'm guessing you wouldn't need too a big SD card if you only wanted the last 1/3/5 minutes right? I understand others want to make full drive recordings, but if you only wanted to record the last few minutes prior to hitting a button is that more or less how these work?

[palmermd]

Do you remove it from your car ever?

While it is somewhat removable, I do not remove it. It can be clipped in and out fairly easily, but it tucks in behind the mirror and it not easily visible from the outside, so I just leave it. It does power down every time right now, so I don't get the benefit of the parking mode. I have left the car in "ready" mode, on a few occasions, which allows the unit to go into parking mode. I like the parking mode, and I'll probably figure out a way to keep it powered all the time to enable it.

[palmermd]

Neat.. Something like this would have been awesome when poor Joulee3 was in the accident in the carpool lane.. The eBay write up mentions 1, 3 and 5 minute recording.. I'm guessing you can set it up to record the last few minutes in an endless loop then hit a button to save it to.. what, microSD? I'm guessing you wouldn't need too a big SD card if you only wanted the last 1/3/5 minutes right? I understand others want to make full drive recordings, but if you only wanted to record the last few minutes prior to hitting a button is that more or less how these work?

On the Lukas you set up the length of the video clips. Mine are 3 minute clips right now and with an 8GB SD card you get about 25 clips recorded.

You can set up the memory in three choices for the driving, event (bump/jolt/button press....) and motion (parking mode). Based on your selection for the memory division, you get a certain number of clips stored on the memory card. FIFO stack of the clips.

[palmermd]

Here's one 1 minute video of me pulling out of a poorly labelled handicap spot and moving to a non-handicap space.

I found you get a little bit better picture if you point the camera down a bit further than you have shown. With all the sky in the image the brightness gets turned way down automatically and you cant see the other cars as well. If you lower the image and get more of a static picture of the car in the image (about 25-30% of the lower image), and less bright sky, it greatly improves the brightness of the images.

[UBUYGAS]

I was thinking of putting one of these USB mobile phone recharging batteries in my glove box. While I'm driving it will be charging and providing power to the dash cam and when i turn off the Leaf the USB battery will provide power.

That might work.

I may hardwire this so that I have a switch that will go between ignition hot and always hot. This way I can have it on every time I drive automatically or the option to turn it off and also have it on all the time with the car off when parked in questionable situations.

[UBUYGAS]

Been thinking about this and what I really need is a direct line from the 12V battery and a power switch because I don't want to come home and record my garage door for 8 hours. When I'm parked in the city then I want the camera recording. When I'm home I'll turn off the power to the camera.

[GlennD]

Got my camera in the mail yesterday. The camera runs on 5V. There is a power supply built into the cigarette lighter plug. It would not be practical to connect the device to the mirror. It might be possible to take the case off and put the guts in the head liner. It could be powered by the light circuit.

I know from experience mounting police cameras that the windshield must be warm or the adhesive will not stick. It is in the forties so I am going to wait for a warm spell to mount the camera.

[UBUYGAS]

I turned on my heat for 30 mins and then stuck it on. It hasn't come off yet.

[kubel]

Got my camera in the mail yesterday. The camera runs on 5V. There is a power supply built into the cigarette lighter plug. It would not be practical to connect the device to the mirror. It might be possible to take the case off and put the guts in the head liner. It could be powered by the light circuit.

I was able to place my BlackVue behind the mirror, then use the mirror cable shroud to conceal the dashcam cable all the way up to the headliner where I routed it just behind the headliner to the passenger A pillar trim, down to under the dash (where I coiled up and hid the excess wiring), then to the cigarette lighter. Super easy, and looks like a professional install, without tapping into any other power sources.

The only negative is the LEAF turns off the cigarette lighter when it shuts down. I would like to find the relay that controls this and rig something to prevent it from turning off. Anyone have ideas?

[UBUYGAS]

I ran my wires exactly like yours.

But I'm going to install a cig lighter in the glove box that is directly connected to the 12V battery with a power switch.

So when I'm home parked for the night I'll flip the power switch and kill the power to the cig lighter. And the dash cam will shut down on its own.