Hi all, I just wanted to share a DIY dash cam I put together over the weekend.

I was searching high and low for a dash cam that would fit nicely in my w211. My main requirement was to have a cam that was hidden enough as to not tempt anyone from smashing my window for an $80 dash cam. Though there are some small ones out there, I felt that they were still too visible and potentially tempting to the neighborhood thieves. With nothing quite satisfactory on the market, I decided to purchase a cheap Chinese spy cam:

I ended up putting the body of the camera in the passenger headliner. Although the body of the cam is extremely small, it still caused an unwanted budge in the headliner. To eliminate the bulge, I took the casing off and just wrapped the circuit board in paper and tape. Without the battery attached, I ran a 6' micro USB cable to the back of my head unit and tapped power from there. Now with the unit powered only with the ignition on, I placed the lens towards the center of the headliner, just slightly peaking out. In order to position to lens to the desired angle, I backed the lens with a small piece of moldable glue.

Because I didn't want this lens permanently stuck to the headliner fabric, I backed it with painters tape, which seems to be holding the lens firmly in place for the time being. I may use double sided tape if it gets out of place in the future.

Anyhow, final result is a nearly invisible dash cam with WIFI that can feed to my phone or android head unit. All video is also backed up on a microSD card that was placed in the cam. Although this doesn't have all the bells and whistles such as a G sensor or snapshot button, its a cheap option for recording any potential incidents.

 

can you read licence plate 100' away with it?

 

You can zoom into the video on your phone.

The resolution is pretty good for the price point, I think from 100', you would be able to make out a plate.

 

Doubt I'd be worried about the plate that is 100' away. It's the one that's turning left in front of me that I'd have issues with.

 

100' is exaggeration, but I zoom on the picture and face of bicyclist, estimated 20' away is a blur, so likely licence number at this distance will be the same.
I bought several dash cams in last years. The good one- with dual cams is in the car I am selling now and pulling the hidden wires will cost me some time to save it.
But fact is that licence plate reading might not be high priority and for other cars I bought $49 camera that attach to rear-view mirror. I am loosing some of rear view mirror functionality, but camera is cheap enough and takes just seconds to change from car to car.
I also like the feature that camera is attached to mirror with rotating joint and can be turned back or on driver side mirror if you expect LEO there
Cameras are important. Not only a member here posted video, where a guy with no insurance backed up into his front, but my son lately had incident with red light runner that he could not see having a pickup on next lane.
Without camera it is always "his word v/s your word" and human are genetically dishonest.