Fitting a dashcam

[volvocamper]

Originally Posted by BARNEYROVER

I also have a Nextbase unit fitted by myself. No problems in ten months, just ran wire down A pillar. Changing car this week and Dealer is to wire into new car for me so will see if they do it any different.

V V interested to see where/how they fit this BARNEYROVER, perhaps you will be good enough to advise...maybe a pic pls?
My sales guy said whatever brand they sold as a dealer is a no no although not spoken to the friendly tech there yet to get a better idea so your findings may help immensely.

[volvocamper]

Originally Posted by cassell

I've fitted one of these into my V90: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-5-Mini-...gAAOSwoudW7~0P

If sits very neatly next to the Intellisafe housing at the top of the windscreen on the driver's side. I ran the power cable across the headlining, down the A pillar and plugged into one of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-Way-12v...97.m4902.l9144 which is fed from the rear seat 12v socket and neatly tucked behind and fixed on the transmission tunnel carpet next to my knee.

I removed the A pillar trim by prising out the little plastic IC logo, there is a small bolt behind it which holds the pillar trim in place.

The whole job took less than an hour and could be removed in half that time, there are no visible wires, in fact my local dealer commented on the neatness and asked where I'd had it fitted!

Paul

Hi Paul,
Comprehensive explanation thanks re the camera and the fitting. I was intending to run cable to fusebox and terminate there with a piggy-back fuse for the 5v hardwire kit i have for my nextbase. That camera looks a neat solution too, do you know if it has a built in battery or a capacitor by any chance pls? The mount certainly looks neater than my Nextbase suction mount.

[Quacker]

Originally Posted by cassell

I've fitted one of these into my V90: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-5-Mini-...gAAOSwoudW7~0P

If sits very neatly next to the Intellisafe housing at the top of the windscreen on the driver's side. I ran the power cable across the headlining, down the A pillar and plugged into one of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-Way-12v...97.m4902.l9144 which is fed from the rear seat 12v socket and neatly tucked behind and fixed on the transmission tunnel carpet next to my knee.

I removed the A pillar trim by prising out the little plastic IC logo, there is a small bolt behind it which holds the pillar trim in place.

The whole job took less than an hour and could be removed in half that time, there are no visible wires, in fact my local dealer commented on the neatness and asked where I'd had it fitted!



Paul

I have one of these Goluk T3 units in the Volvo. Brilliant. No problem in twelve months and right at the top to the left of the Intellisafe housing.
At the back I have a £15 supermarket cam which I intend to change for another Goluk unit some day and which will be viewed from the same phone app.
Another similar one to the Goluk is the Ddpai unit which is around the same £80 price point.

For another car, Ive just bought, but not fitted one of these Aukey front and rear kits on the recommendation of Techmoan seen on this youtube video review. It doesn't stream and doesn't have the convenient remote wireless button of the Goluk and it isn't as elegant, but for the price of £85 it seems to be good value and will do me.
It isn't available at this moment, probably because of the hundreds of extra sales made as the result of 'The Techmoan Effect"

Remember that if a hard-wire install is requited, then a piggyback fuse and a hardwire kit is needed as extras, in order to drop the voltage from a nominal 12V to the 5V required for dashcams.

Most importantly, don't forget to mount any dashcam, front and back, so as to look out through an area swept by the wipers.

[cassell]

Originally Posted by volvocamper

Hi Paul,
Comprehensive explanation thanks re the camera and the fitting. I was intending to run cable to fusebox and terminate there with a piggy-back fuse for the 5v hardwire kit i have for my nextbase. That camera looks a neat solution too, do you know if it has a built in battery or a capacitor by any chance pls? The mount certainly looks neater than my Nextbase suction mount.

Yes, mine is a slightly older model of this camera as I had it originally in my previous XC90 for 3 years and simply moved it across to my new V90 last summer, it does indeed have an internal battery and motion sensor for those annoying car park nudges!

I chose to use the standard 'fag lighter' plug set up to avoid any piggy-back connections and voltage drop requirements, really easy to do, neat too!

[Boatie]

A quick thanks to everyone who responded. Particularly grateful regarding the comments on the small plastic clip / cover. I'd read that it was a one use only clip.
Now to decide on which camera to get.


Frank

[BARNEYROVER]

Will do Volvocamper.

[Fliegenpilz]

I have an XC90 T8 2016 and fitted a 2ch Thinkware F770. I have no issues with it it works well. Here some tips:

- You must make sure the front cam is outside the Volvo camera/radar sweep area. Look at Lexman8 diagram which shows this. I chose to fit my dash next to the radar unit on the top LHS. This makes it impossible for the driver to see and is not in any sight of vision for the passenger.

- a lot of talk about the GPS and wifi signal interference with Volvo radar unit. Well, think about it, the Dashcam will only receive GPS, and your mobile is no different so it cannot interfere otherwise Volvo would have a HUGE problem. The freq is also different.

- Wifi is only ON when you download or calibrate the dash so it is irrelevant and OFF when you drive thus not a point of contention. Again I doubt Wifi could interfere otherwise any Mobile or ipad would and that makes no sense when Volvo even provide Car Wifi hotspot services.

- The wiring of the front cam HAS to be done correctly to avoid any entanglement with the airbag. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Look at

http://forums.swedespeed.com/showthr...radar-detector

which shows nicely the path it should take. You MUST use proper clips to ensure the wires stay put and always behind the airbag (preferably following other wiring paths). Access is easy when removing the cover (only one screw).

- The rear cam I wired alongside the bottom footwell, NOT along the A and B beam as there are too many airbags. Simply tug the wires between the carpet and plastic covers. It is easy and cables stay put. Zero interference with any safety devices. Once you get behind the rear passenger seat go upward around the wheelarch (below the back window) and then finally do into the roof area at he very rear Beam (again remove cover is easy). The wires then follow the roof cover and you must tug them through the rubber ducts into the tailgate. This takes some fiddling, but when done it is waterproof, safe and neat. Tailgate covers easily pop off, just go easy and slow.

- Position front dash as close to the upper window edge but leave a small gap to the RHS as you need this in order to slot the dash onto the adhesive plate. Some prefer to have the dash about 1 inch away from the upper window edge in order to access the memory card, but I think it is batter to go all the way to the edge and simply detach the cam when you need to remove the memory card which should be hardly ever. This way the install looks neater and away from obstructing vision.

- Once all wires lead to the fuse box in the passenger side footwell. accessing that fusebox is a pain in the A$$, unless you are a contortist with Cirque du soleil. Anyway after some time removing the carpet you get to the box and there you hardwire using micro fuse piggybacks (ebay) which are safe and proper. make sure you connect the battery wire to the always ON fuse and the ACC to the ignition ON supply. Fuse 15 and 10 was what I used if I remember it, but double check that. You can easily test with a meter. I connecte dthe COM wire to the screw that hold the fusebox so it has proper chassis connection. Make sure wiring is neat, not cramped and solidly secured with plastic straps. Otherwise vibration will make them move, cause loose connections etc. Do take your time on this and do it properly as once you close everything you dont want to revisit the footwell again.

- The F770 also has its own inline fuses so you got double safety and correct AMP ratings. The F770 also allows you to set the cutoff if the battery power goes below a set voltage. Many other dashcams do not do this! Again plastic strap the excess wires so they dont move otherwise you will hear it later.

- The dashcam works well at night and records sound well, but external sound recording is poor since the Volvo is so well audio insulated.

- I have used it for two months in city and motorway traffic. I use adaptive cruise control all the time and adaptive steering now and then. Never had a problem. BLIS also work without any problems. I therefore think it work without interfering with any of the Volvo bits.

- Ahhh the F770 also comes with autocollision warning or lane warning of some sorts, obviously make sure when you calibrate it that you switch this off since you already have this via Volvo.

- In case you ask... the answer is NO, you cannot change the voice of the F770 from american immigration officer voice to something more like adele. gotta life with that.

Hope this helps and obviously the above tips are at your risk.

[Philip Fisher]

Originally Posted by Busa1400

I have a next base dash cam on my T8 and it sits nicely next to the rearview mirror with no interference at all, 5 months and 7,000 miles.

The wire being tucked behind the trim to my mind would not stop an explosive airbag from deployment - you are not wrapping airbag in wire and they are designed to blow trim off!

Obviously you are free to make your own choices here but I strongly disagree with your position.

The airbags are carefully designed to deploy through predetmined routes and then extensively tested and crash tested. To put a wire across the path of the airbag is interferring with all this careful research and testing. Sure the airbag might be fine and obviously you are very unlikely to ever need the airbags, but you cannot be sure that it wont interfere. I strongly recommend to anyone doing the job to go the effort of removing the a pillar trim and routing the cable with the other cables behind the airbag.

[simonjedrake]

Originally Posted by Philip Fisher

Obviously you are free to make your own choices here but I strongly disagree with your position.

The airbags are carefully designed to deploy through predetmined routes and then extensively tested and crash tested. To put a wire across the path of the airbag is interferring with all this careful research and testing. Sure the airbag might be fine and obviously you are very unlikely to ever need the airbags, but you cannot be sure that it wont interfere. I strongly recommend to anyone doing the job to go the effort of removing the a pillar trim and routing the cable with the other cables behind the airbag.

100% agree. Whilst the “wire” positioned across the airbag will NOT prevent the airbag from activating, there will be a near 100% certainty that the ‘wire” will deflect the airbag forcing it to open in an different direction from that as designed by Volvo. So the deployment of the bag may be in ‘say’ an upwards direction towards the car’s roof instead of towards your head.........enough said.........

[Quacker]

Originally Posted by simonjedrake

100% agree. Whilst the “wire” positioned across the airbag will NOT prevent the airbag from activating, there will be a near 100% certainty that the ‘wire” will deflect the airbag forcing it to open in an different direction from that as designed by Volvo. So the deployment of the bag may be in ‘say’ an upwards direction towards the car’s roof instead of towards your head.........enough said.........

Why cross the airbag? If you push it inside the trim down the windscreen side of the pillar it will not cross the bag and the airbag will deploy normally to the side of it. The airbag deploys with a large explosive force that blows the trim clear away and the cable to the side is an insignificance, if only because it will rip out from the headlining to give plenty of slack in the exceedingly unlikely event that it would be in front of the airbag.
If it crosses the top of the pillar to run down the inside of the door seal, or even if its spudgered into the side of the pillar trim, again I just cannot see it being in the way of any explosive deployment.