{"id":929,"date":"2016-03-14T11:56:01","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T11:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.vwlowen.co.uk\/?p=929"},"modified":"2016-03-14T11:56:34","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T11:56:34","slug":"dashcam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/?p=929","title":{"rendered":"DashCam"},"content":{"rendered":"

In July last year, I posted about a dashcam<\/a> I’d fitted to the car.. well, the GPS unit packed up last week. Also, the connections on the mounting bracket (which were always a bit suspect) had got worse so I decided it was time for a new dashcam.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, of necessity, these cameras operate in what must be one of the worst environments possible for a bit of domestic electronics – stuck at the top of the windscreen in the full glare and heat of the sun (if we’re lucky) so I guess 18 months is a reasonable time for them to last – especially for low to mid-priced units such as the E-Prance 0803.<\/p>\n

So, I ordered one of these.<\/a> I don’t know if mine was faulty but the GPS unit wasn’t working and it wouldn’t remember any of the settings I’d configured. So, back it went for a full refund.<\/p>\n

I’ve now ordered the latest version of the E-Prance camera – the 0806. So far, it seems to be working as expected (although it’s not fitted in the car as yet).<\/p>\n

I thought it would be interesting (to me anyway) to open up the old E-Prance 0803 because I wanted to disconnect the defunct GPS unit internally and I wanted to see what exactly was used as the standby power supply. From the very short time the standby supply lasted, my guess was that it used a super-capacitor.<\/p>\n

Click the pics for a larger version.<\/p>\n

\"eprance01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"eprance02\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was surprised to find that it uses a fairly large lithium-polymer battery rated at 400mAh. Presumably it was another victim of the excessively high temperature inside the unit as it didn’t really hold any meaningful charge at all.<\/p>\n

Other than that, I was actually quite impressed at the overall quality of the camera’s construction. Two double-sided PCBs mated with three high-quality miniature two-row header plugs and sockets.<\/p>\n

The latest model has addressed the overheating issue (basically by drilling loads of holes in the case) so, hopefully, it will last at least as long as the old one.<\/p>\n

The old one is now re-assembled (and working!) so I intend to install it in the rear windscreen to see if it will deter the bane of my life – tailgaters!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In July last year, I posted about a dashcam I’d fitted to the car.. well, the GPS unit packed up last week. Also, the connections on the mounting bracket (which were always a bit suspect) had got worse so I decided it was time for a new dashcam. Unfortunately, of necessity, these cameras operate in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-car","category-electronics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=929"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":939,"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions\/939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}