Wiring parking mode Dash Cam

[tezarc]

So, after witnessing a rather bizarre collision where the vehicle in front of me was struck even though they initially avoided the incoming vehicle I decided it is high time I stopped procrastinating and install a dash cam.

I have decided on a Blackvue 2ch with power magic ultra battery. Through my readings I'm familiar with the switched and constant 12v contacts in the fuse box but I would like the dash cam's battery to only charge when the vehicle is plugged in.

Does anyone know of a signal or connection for this purpose?

 

[EVeryThang]

Did you find a solution for this?

 

[Kippy]

Any word?

 

[mojo]

In my opinion, the best solution is to wire it into the same circuit that supplies the 12V outlets in the car. This makes sense because that circuit is live whenever the main traction battery is powering the car, and for approximately 13 minutes after the car is turned off, and is also live for the whole time that the car is plugged in to a charge point.

That circuit can be accessed easily within the car's fuse box - either with a "piggy-back" fuse or by using one of the spare fuse ways.

 

[wjsi327]

I’m new at this so this might not work, but if you want surveillance while the car is off, power the camera from an external battery pack which can be recharged from an accessory jack whenever the car is running. I have a few battery packs that have a USB outlet for accessories plus a micro/mini port for recharging the battery.

Your power magic ultra battery, whatever that is, might augment or interfere with my idea.

 

[Simoni3]

I’m new at this so this might not work, but if you want surveillance while the car is off, power the camera from an external battery pack which can be recharged from an accessory jack whenever the car is running. I have a few battery packs that have a USB outlet for accessories plus a micro/mini port for recharging the battery.

Your power magic ultra battery, whatever that is, might augment or interfere with my idea.

Or pick up a permanent live from the fuse board

The 12V will get charged by the traction battery, some one work out how many months that would take to run the traction battery flat

 

[Oldsparks]

Or pick up a permanent live from the fuse board

The 12V will get charged by the traction battery, some one work out how many months that would take to run the traction battery flat

Hi I bought a special lead which plugs onto the OBD port which powers the dashcam when the i3 is switched on, it also has an override switch so you can leave it on and the dash cam then becomes a security camera, bought from Halfords with the Blackvue dash cams.

 

[mojo]

Or pick up a permanent live from the fuse board

As already said, I don't think that's advisable, given the capacity of the 12V battery. Although nobody here (as far as I'm aware) has a complete understanding of exactly what can trigger the car's control modules to "wake up" and start up the DC-DC converter, it's quite likely that putting a permanent load on the 12V battery could have one of several bad effects. For example, it might cause the control modules to be "awake" much more than intended, or it might cause the 12V battery to be more deeply cycled than intended.

Of course, it all depends how power-hungry the camera system's parking mode is - no doubt some are better than others at conserving battery power.

 

[JamesInLondon]

I have the BMW Advanced Eye 3.0 dash cam fitted during my last service and it works well, if the car is in use or parked. The associated app is pretty good too.

 

[Simoni3]

As already said, I don't think that's advisable, given the capacity of the 12V battery. Although nobody here (as far as I'm aware) has a complete understanding of exactly what can trigger the car's control modules to "wake up" and start up the DC-DC converter, it's quite likely that putting a permanent load on the 12V battery could have one of several bad effects. For example, it might cause the control modules to be "awake" much more than intended, or it might cause the 12V battery to be more deeply cycled than intended.

Of course, it all depends how power-hungry the camera system's parking mode is - no doubt some are better than others at conserving battery power.

On my 12V bluetooth monitor the 12V battery is charged / topped up daily

 

[ksnax]

I’m new at this so this might not work, but if you want surveillance while the car is off, power the camera from an external battery pack which can be recharged from an accessory jack whenever the car is running. I have a few battery packs that have a USB outlet for accessories plus a micro/mini port for recharging the battery.

Your power magic ultra battery, whatever that is, might augment or interfere with my idea.

This is the way to do it right in my opinion. Zero chance of draining the main 12V battery if connected to switched power. Some accessory packs can only do one or the other at a time however, leaving no output when charge power is present.

 

[Kippy]

So I have since outfitted my car with an external battery pack that is tapped into the cigarette lighter fuse for charging.

All was well until I noticed that the dash cam wouldn't go into parking mode while the car is charging; which is where I learned that the components that would normally shut off a couple minutes after powering off the car actually stay on during charging.

Does anybody know of a fuse that shuts off even when the car is charging? I would go in with a multimeter but that is easier said than done.

 

[mojo]

As I understand it, all of the fuses in the range F49 - F60 should be Terminal 15N supplies. They should be live only when the car is in drive-ready mode.

 

[Kippy]

As I understand it, all of the fuses in the range F49 - F60 should be Terminal 15N supplies. They should be live only when the car is in drive-ready mode.

From what I was able to test with a multimeter, this seems to be accurate, so thank you!

I tapped F51 since from what I was able to find, it doesn't seem like a super-critical component. The fuse diagram simply labels it as "MEDIA" but this resource says it's for the horn. If that's true, F51 isn't exactly ideal (I'd place some importance on the horn) but it's one of the only fuses that could fit a tap.

 

[mojo]

If you get the right type of termination, it's not hard to simply add one wire so that you can use a fuse with a suitable rating in one of the spare slots in that range.

 

[friviera]

BMW uses the fuses numbers in the attached image to connect their Advanced Car Eye dashcam to the i3 with parking mode.
The connectors used are:
1x 61138353763 eyelet for ground point
1x 61139232673 MCP 2.8 microfuse connector
1x 61139316221 mini fuse connector

I did the installation that way, my dashcam enters parking mode when turning the car off but unfortunately my dashcam (not BMW one) seems to be draining too much battery in parking mode so the BMS desactivated remote unlocking, welcome lights and other features and triggered an alert about a high power consumption during sleep.
So do not use anything that would use the permanent 12V if it's not totally desactivated when the car is off.

 

[Kippy]

From what I was able to test with a multimeter, this seems to be accurate, so thank you!

I tapped F51 since from what I was able to find, it doesn't seem like a super-critical component. The fuse diagram simply labels it as "MEDIA" but this resource says it's for the horn. If that's true, F51 isn't exactly ideal (I'd place some importance on the horn) but it's one of the only fuses that could fit a tap.

Well I found out what F51 really is... it's the acoustic pedestrian warning system! I found this out because as I jumped into my car this morning I got the alert that APWS had a fault. I also noticed that my dash cam was still in parking mode as I was driving which indicated to me that my external battery wasn't getting power. So I checked the fuse tap and I saw that the original 5A fuse was blown.

This setup has been running fine since June 20 so I'm not sure what caused this. I was wondering if using only a 5A fuse would cause any issues, even though I'm running my external battery on 'Cigarette Lighter' charging mode. Until I figure out a new way to hook this up, I'm just going to order another 5A fuse to get APWS active again.