Installing Dash Cam with Parking Mode

The best "parking mode" dashcam installations involve a secondary battery dedicated to the dashcam.

The next best would be a camera that can be preset to shut itself down at a certain voltage, thus preserving the remainder of the main battery for a future startup attempt. That way you get at least some coverage while parked, no extra expense and (probably) no dead main battery.

If the camera you have does not support already this feature, you can get a low voltage disconnect circuit from Amazon for under $15. Not that hard to wire in and program, at least for the intermediate DIYer.

 

You can install it with a hardwire kit. Need to buy it separately. That way your 12v battery would not be depleted and 24hrs parking surveillance will be ON.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

+1
The only minor thing I would add is that I'd use a cell phone power bank instead of messing with the aux aux or traction battery and charge THAT unit while you're driving.

Good Luck!

 

Typically the most heat-sensitive part in a low cost dashcam is an internal battery. They use this battery to guarantee a clean shutdown when external power is lost. This prevents corrupt video files.

More expensive dashcams use large capacitors instead of batteries. The capacitors are much less sensitive to operating temps.

 

I hard wired a 5v usb charger powered from the dome light circuit board.. There is a lot of copper to connect to, scrape the coating away and solder or screw your leads to it... Then I ran a small push button so I could cut the constant power source if needed...

 

I'm in the same boat as topbob - I just bought a RedTiger F9 and want to hardwire it. RedTiger sells a hardwire kit with connections to constant 12v and switched 12v (as well as a ground screw). The two different sources of 12v are necessary for it to do its "parking monitoring" function - it lays dormant until the accelerometer detects the car has been moved, then it starts recording. If you were to just connect the included power cable to constant 12v, it wouldn't know when you turn the car off, and will keep recording overnight. This would likely drain the battery in a hurry.

The hardwire kit also includes a low voltage cutoff in case you leave the car parked for a week or so. It says it shuts off at 11.8V (+/-0.2V). That seems very low to me - if you regularly drain a lead acid starter battery down to 11.8V, you'll shorten the lifespan of that battery dramatically. For the LiFePo4 12V battery I just installed, 11.8V would mean the battery is at less than 10% state of charge. That would be a deal breaker for me, but depending on how energy-efficient that parking mode is, it may be extremely rare to discharge that much.

The two 12v connections are attached to what look like mini-size fuses, and the instructions on the amazon listing are to probe your fuse panel for empty slots that provide constant and switched power. I emailed RedTiger to see if this is a plug & play affair for the 2nd gen Prius. I'll update with their response. They also sell a hardwire kit that plugs into the OBDII port. That could potentially work, although plenty of the reviews mention it not working properly. I think the pins in an OBDII port are not standardized, so finding both constant and switched power may not be guaranteed. I've also heard horro stories about people installing driving trackers from their insurance companies in their OBDII ports and getting their ECUs fried. So I think I'll be staying away from that option.

 

They make that kit specifically because certain pins are standardized by federal regulation. Pin 16 is always battery +, and pin 4 is always ground. The roles of pins 2, 5 & 10 are also standardized by law. The remaining ones are not standardized, so different manufacturers have done different things with them.

The difficulty is that the OBDII interface doesn't explicitly include switched power on any of those pins.

This means that non-diagnostic devices using the OBDII port tend to make educated guesses as to the state of the ignition switch- they fake it.

A complication on the complication is that the 12v charging system on a hybrid doesn't always produce the same pattern as a car with a spinning alternator, or at the same times.

So the fake-in circuits on these devices can get faked-out.

11.8 is not too low to get a good start. I'd agree that it will shorten the lifespan of the battery, but the value proposition isn't terrible: If you use your battery for all that extra utility, why wouldn't you be okay with the cost of more frequent replacement? After all, they've saved you the cost of a secondary battery system dedicated to the task- which would've required its own periodic replacement costs.