Dash cam setup questions

[PennState08]

I am going to run the Blackvue dr650s-2ch.

First:

What is this sensor for? Trying to place my new dashcams and for the front to be dead center and not obstruct my view, it would be partially blocked by the cam. As of right now I have it slightly higher and partially offset to the passenger side, but this does not allow for the camera to be easily removed from the mount.

Second:
Any suggestions on placement for the rear camera? Going in perfect center right below the rear brake light makes it visible if I look in to my rear view mirror. Again, moving it higher and partially offsetting it to the driver side allows it to be a bit more hidden but the field of view is blocked slightly by the rear brake light frame.

Appreciate the help!

*note: that picture is not my actual mirror. Couldn't get the lighting correct to fully capture mine. This is the closest I could find.*

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[RAF_S7]

I have my rear in the centre (S7) the only annoying thing is it has a power LED that can be distracting when driving at night. I put some black tape over it.

On the front cam, mine is off centre, and hidden behind the mirror when your in the driving seat. It's got quite a wide field of view so off centre is not an issue as far as picture capture is concerned. It's been removed a couple of times, but it's not really an issue. From outside the car, which has a black interior/mirror housing, it's well camouflaged.

[PennState08]

Thanks for the info RAF_S7! The rear cam is quite small so it is not obstructing my field of view. I was hoping to create a more hidden/stealth install, but I suppose that is bit too much to expect. The front cam is pretty obvious, probably just in my head since I know exactly what to look for. I'll see if the wife notices, that'll be a good test.

Also, what settings are you running? What duration value are you using for normal recording and event/parking mode?

[tenspeed]

I got the Power Magic Pro mounted in the PS IP fuse box today. Have to figure out what's always hot and what's ignition.

I haven't decided on the best camera placement yet so I'll be checking this thread.

[PennState08]

I ended up putting the rear camera in the middle, mounted on the plastic housing of the brake light. I got the Cellink Battery B and hardwired it using the add-a-fuse, but I can't get it to charge. Every time I turn the switch to the 7A position, the fuse blows instantly. Very frustrating. Anyone have any experience with these? I'm going to email them and see what they say.

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[tenspeed]

I ended up putting the rear camera in the middle, mounted on the plastic housing of the brake light. I got the Cellink Battery B and hardwired it using the add-a-fuse, but I can't get it to charge. Every time I turn the switch to the 7A position, the fuse blows instantly.

What size fuse is it blowing? The Blackboxmycar people recommend a 15A fuse for hard wiring and using the 7A setting.

https://www.blackboxmycar.com/pages/...y-installation

[PennState08]

I was trying the steering column 10A fuse. Would blow out every time I would turn it to the 7A position (from off...). What confuses me, and make me think the one I got is defective, is that even in the Off positon the cameras wont turn on even when the ingition is on. Is there a certain position that each fuse needs to be in the the add-a-fuse?
Should I use a bigger fuse? Was thinking the climate control fuses. The blower is a 40A fuse which should be more than enough...

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[tenspeed]

I thought the Add A Fuse got power from a existing fuse and powered it's own fuse.

[RAF_S7]

I would not keep going up in fuse size, it sounds like your not wiring it correctly. Connecting to bigger and bigger fuse sizes is not going to solve the problem.

The camera itself doesn't draw a significant amount of power.

I have a sunroof, and wired my Power Magic Pro (recommended for the Blackvues) up behind the front roof lights. There is enough space to put the power magic up there as well.

From memory I set the camera to be powered 24x7, or until batt voltage drops to 12.7 or something.

I've not played with cloud recording, but will when l get time

[Soft]

I am going to run the Blackvue dr650s-2ch.

First:

What is this sensor for? Trying to place my new dashcams and for the front to be dead center and not obstruct my view, it would be partially blocked by the cam. As of right now I have it slightly higher and partially offset to the passenger side, but this does not allow for the camera to be easily removed from the mount.

Second:
Any suggestions on placement for the rear camera? Going in perfect center right below the rear brake light makes it visible if I look in to my rear view mirror. Again, moving it higher and partially offsetting it to the driver side allows it to be a bit more hidden but the field of view is blocked slightly by the rear brake light frame.

Appreciate the help!

*note: that picture is not my actual mirror. Couldn't get the lighting correct to fully capture mine. This is the closest I could find.*

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Seems somewhat wasted to put a camera under the existing one :-)
I'm sure the one who finds a video output from the built in camera could make some money! :-)

[tenspeed]

Finished up the dash cam installation today.

The A7 rear hatch did create a problem since the camera was supposed to be mounted on the glass. My glass moves and making a bracket that attached to the headliner was tidier than leaving a large loop of wire or removing all the panels to run it internally.




Next situation was to find a place to mount the front camera. Instructions say to mount it centered behind the mirror. Audi has sensors and a camera so I went to the passenger side.



Wiring was straight forward. I read that the A8 PS IP fuse panel had no accessory power. Fortunately, the A7 has both battery and accessory power available. The empty slots in the top fuse panel (Fuse panel B) is battery power. The empty slots in the bottom fuse panel (Fuse panel A) are hot with the ignition on.

[RAF_S7]

Nice install tenspeed.

I like the bracket you made up to carry the rear cam. Mine is on the glass with a cable loop to allow for opening the tailgate. I may just copy your idea

[PennState08]

Been busy the past few days, so here is my update. Not sure if this will be the permanent solution but it does the job...
I ended up routing the power line back to the trunk, where I will store the Cellink Battery B in the open cubby/compartment on the passenger side. The Cellink Battery will run off of the cigarette receptacle. I will post pictures of the cam placement in the next day or two. The only change I would make is to hardwire it to an ACC fuse in the trunk, there are lots of places to put the ground.

[agent47]

Been busy the past few days, so here is my update. Not sure if this will be the permanent solution but it does the job...
I ended up routing the power line back to the trunk, where I will store the Cellink Battery B in the open cubby/compartment on the passenger side. The Cellink Battery will run off of the cigarette receptacle. I will post pictures of the cam placement in the next day or two. The only change I would make is to hardwire it to an ACC fuse in the trunk, there are lots of places to put the ground.

I am very interested to see this. I have been wanting to install a rear cam as well. Just not sure of the wiring and where to tap..just the electrical stuff.

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[tenspeed]

Nice install tenspeed.

I like the bracket you made up to carry the rear cam. Mine is on the glass with a cable loop to allow for opening the tailgate. I may just copy your idea

Feel free to give it a go. I made it twice - the top hook was too long on the first one.
-----

PennState - I'm interested in the dashcam battery too. I was looking at solar collectors to put on the rear shelf but an aux battery may be a better way to power it when parked.

[SpectreGadget]

My glass moves and making a bracket that attached to the headliner was tidier than leaving a large loop of wire or removing all the panels to run it internally.

I was debating this mounting too, although I don't have the camera yet. I might give a go at designing a part and 3D printing it in ABS.

[tenspeed]

I was debating this mounting too, although I don't have the camera yet. I might give a go at designing a part and 3D printing it in ABS.

Toss me a few bucks when you get rich!

IDK how stiff ABS is. You may want to add some ribs or make it thicker.

[PennState08]

OK so here are some pictures of the placement of both cameras and where I stored the Cellink Battery.

Here is what it looks like from outside looking in at the dash. Try to look past the solar panels that show up in the reflection...


View from passenger seat looking up at the front camera. Can't even see it when in the driver seat.


Shot of the rear camera while looking in to the rear view mirror. Also, the front camera is "hidden" from my field of view (being blocked by mirror)


Best pic I could get of the rear camera looking in. I have 30% tint on rear windshield. This was under direct light and at the proper angle. Otherwise you can't even see that anything is there (from the outside that is).


Inside the car looking out the rear windshield, looking up at the camera. I mounted it to the plastic rear brake light cover.


Here is where the Cellink Battery B lives. Haven't done a great job trying to hide all the wires, but in reality it's in the trunk and in a cubby... so I really don't care that everything isn't 100% "hidden".


All the wires were run the rough the upper doorjam/weather stripping and the headliner. The actual process of tucking it in there isn't bad, it's just finding the right path to get from point A to point B.

The Cellink keeps the cameras on overnight. I have yet to have them shutoff on me even after having the car sit in the garage for ~12 hours.

Still have some tweaking to do as far as the settings but I'm happy with the results. Here's to hoping that I never have to actually use footage from it


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[markoos]

I want to do the exact same setup for mine. Couple quick questions:

1. Is that bracket just a simple piece of metal from a HW store? Or did you get it online?
2. How did you route the wire to the rear? Along the headliner or the floor?

thanks

[tenspeed]

I want to do the exact same setup for mine. Couple quick questions:

1. Is that bracket just a simple piece of metal from a HW store? Or did you get it online?

I salvaged that piece out of a broken electronic air purifier. It's 1 3/8" wide and 3" long stainless steel. You should be able to find something around that size in a hobby shop. I would try brass because aluminum would have a tendency to crack when forming that top hook.

2. How did you route the wire to the rear? Along the headliner or the floor?

I put the rear camera on the left side and ran the wire to the right under the rubber weather seal so I would have slack if I needed to move the camera to the right. The rest of the wire was run along the headliner to the right front "A" pillar then to the front camera. I plugged the video wire into the camera, removed the visor lamp housing and stowed the extra wire in the headliner. I mostly used my Harbor Freight panel tools to poke and pry. They are much like the cute little prying tool that BlackVue supplies with their camera only larger.

The power wire goes up the "A" pillar on the outside so it won't interfere with the air bag. It is tucked into the headliner with the video cable. I removed the fused power plug and socket off the PMP and power wire so I didn't have a wad of wires in the fuse panel. The only part of the wire installation that is visible was at the top of the fuse box. I used a couple pieces of electrical tape to cover it.

[markoos]

@Tenspeed: thanks very much for the info. Will try to duplicate this super clean install!

[leobg]

I am on the same boat with the dash cam install. Initially planned to get the BlackVue DR650, then changed mind I will be ok with 1ch recorder and got the QVIA (Lukas) T790 which was (very so) slightly smaller than the DR650. But when I got it, I couldn't accept that (still) huge thing that had to be hung on the windshield, so I decided my best bet for getting good video footage, parking mode and all without a huge camera stuck on the windshield is to go split system. So after some more research I got Street Guardian SGZC12RC 2016 v2. Got it installed fairly easy in the car (2017 S6, will post some pictures later for reference). Turned out quite nice and "stealthy". Camera I located on the driver side of the rear view mirror near the top of the windshield, DVR is in the top right compartment of the glove box. There were even some (square) holes conveniently present at the far back of the glove box which I used to route the camera signal and the power cable without any modifications to the car. Just to make sure things are working (and I ran out of daylight), I simply routed the power cable to the cigarette lighter port in the center console. I'd like to have the thing hard-wired though as this would allow parking mode recordings. The driver side fuse box has 3 rails - black, brown and red. Black one does certainly have switched power - ignition on - all black rail fuses are energized. Ignition off - immediately de-energized. Brown and red fuse panels are confusing me though. At first sight it seems both provide battery power. But it makes no sense to use different colors for same thing, doesn't it? I suspect one of the two it is not true battery, but "switched" in a certain, delayed way. I didn't have time to experiment any longer but I suspect one (perhaps red) is constantly battery on, while the other (brown) would be switched off after certain time is passed with ignition off. The The passenger side fuse box on my S6 has two rails only - red and brown. My setup makes it very convenient for using the passenger side fuse panel(s) to wire up the dash cam, but not having true switched power complicates the things a bit.

I still can't find enough information about the car fuse boxes though. Hopefully someone here can shed some light!

Edit: here are some pics I took this morning:
Outside:


Inside:

[Julius_855]

This is truly splendi. I wish I had this piece of steel around.

My turn now that I have received my dashcam. Any ideas where to store the cellink battery? I think in fromt is much less work. But where... ideas? Is the glovebox the only way? I'm fine (I never put anything there.) so I would have some work still to get the wires in there...

[DoItAllGarage]

I'm slowly mapping out how I want to run the wire for the rear cam, but at the same time looking to get my windows tinted. Anyone with 20-25% tint, did you cut a small section for the camera to see out the back window?

[Marcothelab]

That camera is for the headlight auto high beam assist. Learned the hard way by mounting my dash cam right in front of it.


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[Gunmeister]

The dash cam I chose was a thinkware f800 pro. Here is a picture of where I got it mounted. It blends in very well and is hard to see from outside the vehicle. And from the drivers seat you can't even see it. And here is a screenshot of what the video looks like with it mounted to the right slightly.

2016 A6 TDI*|*Mugello Blue, Pearl EffectExterior | Alabastar White Interior | Audi Exclusive Line | Eucalyptus Natural Wood Decorative Inlays | Prestige Package | Comfort Seating Package | Driver Assistance Package | S Line Sport Package | 20" Black Optic Package | Cold Weather Package | 18% Ceramic Film Windows | 70% Ceramic Film Windshield | Thinkware F800 Pro Dash Cam | Audi All Weather Mats*|1 of 1 for 2016

[Gunmeister]

The dash cam I chose was a thinkware f800 pro. Here is a picture of where I got it mounted. It blends in very well and is hard to see from outside the vehicle. And from the drivers seat you can't even see it. And here is a screenshot of what the video looks like with it mounted to the right slightly.

2016 A6 TDI*|*Mugello Blue, Pearl EffectExterior | Alabastar White Interior | Audi Exclusive Line | Eucalyptus Natural Wood Decorative Inlays | Prestige Package | Comfort Seating Package | Driver Assistance Package | S Line Sport Package | 20" Black Optic Package | Cold Weather Package | 18% Ceramic Film Windows | 70% Ceramic Film Windshield | Thinkware F800 Pro Dash Cam | Audi All Weather Mats*|1 of 1 for 2016

Here is some pictures. I know we have different cameras but maybe this can help you decide where to mount it?Screenshot_20190608-074335_THINKWARE%20CLOUD.jpegExterior%2059.jpegExterior%2058.jpeg

2016 A6 TDI*|*Mugello Blue, Pearl EffectExterior | Alabastar White Interior | Audi Exclusive Line | Eucalyptus Natural Wood Decorative Inlays | Prestige Package | Comfort Seating Package | Driver Assistance Package | S Line Sport Package | 20" Black Optic Package | Cold Weather Package | 18% Ceramic Film Windows | 70% Ceramic Film Windshield | Thinkware F800 Pro Dash Cam | Audi All Weather Mats*|1 of 1 for 2016

[Audibot]

The dash cam I chose was a thinkware f800 pro. Here is a picture of where I got it mounted. It blends in very well and is hard to see from outside the vehicle. And from the drivers seat you can't even see it. And here is a screenshot of what the video looks like with it mounted to the right slightly.

2016 A6 TDI*|*Mugello Blue, Pearl EffectExterior | Alabastar White Interior | Audi Exclusive Line | Eucalyptus Natural Wood Decorative Inlays | Prestige Package | Comfort Seating Package | Driver Assistance Package | S Line Sport Package | 20" Black Optic Package | Cold Weather Package | 18% Ceramic Film Windows | 70% Ceramic Film Windshield | Thinkware F800 Pro Dash Cam | Audi All Weather Mats*|1 of 1 for 2016

Same one I purchased but haven't installed yet.

[Gunmeister]

Same one I purchased but haven't installed yet.

Make sure you get the kit that allows for parking recording mode (it will record if it senses motion or impact with the car not on).

2016 A6 TDI*|*Mugello Blue, Pearl EffectExterior | Alabastar White Interior | Audi Exclusive Line | Eucalyptus Natural Wood Decorative Inlays | Prestige Package | Comfort Seating Package | Driver Assistance Package | S Line Sport Package | 20" Black Optic Package | Cold Weather Package | 18% Ceramic Film Windows | 70% Ceramic Film Windshield | Thinkware F800 Pro Dash Cam | Audi All Weather Mats*|1 of 1 for 2016

[Johndep7]

This is an old thread but I had an idea from it and wanted to share. My coworker and I 3d printed a mount that works pretty well for the rear camera. This is just our first attempt at it, we are modifying it soon and making it black but it's pretty awesome for now. I can post more specific pictures of what was done exactly if requested. We will be adding a support bracket soon, making it black, possibly adding an Audi logo to it, and minor adjustments to make it more snug.
https://ibb.co/C9MT1dM

[Audisthesia]

This is an old thread but I had an idea from it and wanted to share. My coworker and I 3d printed a mount that works pretty well for the rear camera. This is just our first attempt at it, we are modifying it soon and making it black but it's pretty awesome for now. I can post more specific pictures of what was done exactly if requested. We will be adding a support bracket soon, making it black, possibly adding an Audi logo to it, and minor adjustments to make it more snug.
https://ibb.co/C9MT1dM

Nice, i wonder would that work on a 6 as well?

BTW, the new blackvue camera have the PMP built into them so no need for the extra box anymore

[Johndep7]

Nice, i wonder would that work on a 6 as well?

BTW, the new blackvue camera have the PMP built into them so no need for the extra box anymore

I don't see why not, maybe minor adjustments needed to take it further away from the rear windshield but I would think it would work. There should still be a spot to get into the ceiling.

[SuperCiv]

This is an old thread but I had an idea from it and wanted to share. My coworker and I 3d printed a mount that works pretty well for the rear camera. This is just our first attempt at it, we are modifying it soon and making it black but it's pretty awesome for now. I can post more specific pictures of what was done exactly if requested. We will be adding a support bracket soon, making it black, possibly adding an Audi logo to it, and minor adjustments to make it more snug.
https://ibb.co/C9MT1dM

Any chance you can share the file? Trying to find a solution similar to the metal bracket above that I can print here at work.

[mmurphys7]

This is an old thread but I had an idea from it and wanted to share. My coworker and I 3d printed a mount that works pretty well for the rear camera. This is just our first attempt at it, we are modifying it soon and making it black but it's pretty awesome for now. I can post more specific pictures of what was done exactly if requested. We will be adding a support bracket soon, making it black, possibly adding an Audi logo to it, and minor adjustments to make it more snug.
https://ibb.co/C9MT1dM

Please share the 3D print file. I've got an S7 and your bracket design looks ideal! Thanks in advance.

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