Front Dashcam Pair#
I installed a BlackVue dashcam along with multiple batteries to get about 2 days of recording time while my vehicle is parked. I live in San Francisco and while my car is parked overnight in a garage, I occasionally park my car in the street and after a year nobody has broken in to steal the camera.
As a precaution I bought the tamper-proof case so a thief can’t just pull out the wires and take the camera. Additionally I zip tied the wires tightly to the internal metal part of my rearview mirror (and threaded it through a narrow hole for more strength). Hopefully this means anyone that wants to steal the camera will need to bring a knife or scissors along, and I’m hoping those are the minority of opportunistic thieves in the city.
Note
I suggest covering up unused ports on the BlackVue battery with electrical tape. When I was unplugging and plugging in wires I accidentally plugged the input power cable in the expansion port of the main battery, sending 12v from the battery back to my car. Luckily nothing broke but I kept getting ABS errors until I figured out my mistake.
Items Purchased#
- BlackVue DR900S-2CH Dashcam
$490
Installed behind rearview mirror
4K main camera
1080p infrared second camera
WiFi, GPS, microSD slot
- Blackvue B-124X Power Magic Ultra Battery Pack
$330
Installed in the cargo area
Comes with 3 meter long cables which just barely reached with no slack left
- BlackVue B-124E Power Magic Ultra Battery Expansion
$267
Front Camera Pair#
I first installed just the two cameras in the front and wired them to the batteries in my cargo area. For now I didn’t wire the batteries to my fuse panel, using the rear 12v outlet instead.
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Hardwire Batteries#
Once I was happy with the cameras I finished the project by hardwiring the batteries to my fuse box. I used the included fuse taps and I used 15 amp fuses. In the photos below you’ll see two pairs of wires from my fusebox. I ran a second wire from a second tapped fuse since I may add a second pair of cameras in the future. I tapped fuse 48 and 36. These are switched fuses so when the ignition is off they’ll lose power and prevent the BlackVue battery from draining my car’s battery when parked.
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