lmk2008

Hi all! My first post here.

I am about to pick up my E400 in December. I am wondering if anyone has installed front and rear dash cam. Did you hardwire it?

I would like to hear your experience as I want to do it myself. I hope the wire can be hidden nicely.

Any share would be much appreciated.



--lmk

Egonvdv

Hi, bit of a late repyl maybe but:

I got TWO front+rear cams installed on my W212. (thinkware F750 + F770
Of each set the rear camera is used as side cam, so I get a 360° view.

The front is wired in the engine bay fuse box and the rear on the taillight fusebox.
(used piggybacks)

It's very easy to do and the cables can be tugged away under the door trim.

can post pics if you want/need.




https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/thread...-8#post-300827

beejAMG

@Egon, I have Thinkware F750 on all my cars. though I love it and I reckon its one of the best brands out there, one minor complain would be NO motion detection at the rear cam. now your set up may have solve that.

questions but...
1. why do you have the 750 and the newer 770 and not the same model?
2. clicked your link but wont allow me to view larger photots. would you mind posting pics of the rear (side) cams? im very interested to see how it looks.

cheers!

Egonvdv

Hi @beejAMG

0) the rear camera does have motion detection.

1) I already had the F750 for about a year and added the F770 a few weeks ago.

the only difference is the design as hardware/specs are exactly the same.

Also the f770 has night vision but this is done with FW only.
You can upgrade your F7750 to the fw of F770 which will add the night vision.
But you can only do so if you're FW right now is not higher than 0.15.
see instructions here (READ CAREFULLY):
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/thread...lopment.20296/

I put black tape on the f750 to make it less visible.
the f770 is already fully black.

2) attached some pics. I basically run all wires under the door trims
and any excess cable has been tucked under the rear seats.

to go from engine bay to inside of car I go "behind" the car's body (see pics 2+3).

the 2 side cams are stuck on a strong magnet which in turn just hangs
from the ceiling. + put some velcro on the magnet in order to keep it from sliding.

both cameras are filming through the interior to the other side of the car.
for me this gives a better overall view than to stick it directly on
the side window.

(here's a little clip of me testing several different angles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U_3erTgi6Q )

let me know if you need more info or pics (I took them rather hastily).

beejAMG

cheers mate! looks good and brilliant idea. my wife always wishes her E coupe has cameras pointed on the sides.

i didnt realize that the F750 rear cam has the motion detection as well. whenever I watch the recorded videos from my cars. it only starts recording when it detects motion from the front then activates both front and rear. when new, i always watch the videos recorded when parked and i always watch front and rear but seems like i can only see motion front the front and nothing from the rear.

btw, thanks for the info with the night vision fw. ill check on my cars and see if i can download it.

Egonvdv

it's true that the front and rear cam do not record separately.
when either one detects motion, both start to film.

(I replied to yr pm)

cheers

beejAMG

OP, my apologies if you feel i high jacked your thread.
I reckon Egonvdv has the info you need.

Lanzz

I am going to try and take on hard wiring mine this weekend. Seems like there is a fuse panel in the inside passenger footwell - I might look to use that one for the front cam.

Egonvdv

are u sure? in the w212 it's in the engine bay and near the tail light
then again, i'm only getting my w213 in 6 months so it might have changed...

Egonvdv

beejAMG

further to your PM

We can convert our f750 to an f770 without issue and all functions work correctly, so long as you haven't upgraded to a firmware version beyond 0.15


Convert your F750 to a F770:

- Format the Thinkware SD card
- download the FW for the F770 cam
- extract the F770-pkg.bin file from the downloaded zip
- copy the bin file to the SD card
- Rename F770-pkg.bin to F750-pkg.bin
- insert SD card and turn on the camera
- Update may take a few minuets so DO NOT TURN OFF!


Update your converted F750:

- same as above only this time u do NOT change the file name
since the camera already thinks it's an F770

beejAMG

is that an underscore or a hyphen?

Egonvdv

Sorry I don't ustand yr last

the file you download is called " F770-pkg.bin"

you just change the 2nd "7" to a "5" (creating the name F750-pkg.bin)
and stick it on the card

beejAMG

sorry for the confusion.
when i donwload the new fw, it would say F770_pkg.bin and the instructions on your link and the one you posted says change to F750-pkg.bin.

so im wondering if i need to change 7 to 5 and the underscore to hyphen or was it just a typo from the original link?

Egonvdv

ah ok, I copied it directly off the dashcamtalk website.

but NO, keep the name AS IS and only change 7 to 5

beejAMG

will try it again. cheers mate!

beejAMG

@Egon, tried the upgrade again. this time i formatted the sd card first then went ahead. it worked fine and upgraded the system alright. thanks again mate.

but theres a bit of a problem. i imagined all the settings will be changed including the name of the camera itself, no worries, my iphone connected to the wifi seamlessly so i was able to adjust the settings back to how i like it. tried connecting again but after a few times, it started to ask for the password. keyed my password several times but it would not accept it. will try to figure it out.

Egonvdv

that's very weird. Did you try the factory password 123456789 ?

Also, try a hard reboot of your iPhone (hold menu button and lock button at same time
until phone switched off and then on again)

beejAMG

i did.

found this and ill try it later and post back.

http://www.thinkware.com/Support/Faq?cat=VIEWER


incidentally, do you notice any difference with the night vision?

Egonvdv

ok hope the factory reset will work!

yes night visison definitely makes a difference.

I'm not a big fan of the timelaps though. It's too difficult to find the actual incident
and it doesn't capture the precise moment as accurate.

I prefer to keep it in motion detection

beejAMG

quick run to my car and fixed it. had to forget the IP address from my iphone wifi and then reconnect the dashcam and seem to work fine now. will update the other cars later.

also, when i went to the settings juts now, i noticed 2 separate lines for the "off voltage" for the park mode. i remember mine (old fw) at 12V and set it at 11.8V (set it again to turn off at 11.8V with the new fw). but now im seeing another setting with 24V in it.

EDIT: forget it, i should search more before posting.
24V is for commercial vehicle. we dont have to set both apparently. just the first one.

http://thinkwarenorthamerica.blogspo...g-parking.html

Egonvdv

i would not set it a 11.8 v, it will destroy your battery. It happened to me to recently

See my post here: https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/thread...9/#post-308012

set it to 12 at least, better is 12.2

beejAMG

just got a new bat for my W212 sedan, Bosch, apparently bigger and more appropriate for the car as told by my mech.

always had the cut-off set at 11.8V on all my cars for more than a yr now. park mode lasts for more than 8 hrs which i normally need and when it dies prematurely, i charge the bat at home with my ctek. after reading your thread on the other forum, i may have to reset my cut-off to 12.2V. how many hours does it last you on a busy parking lot?

Egonvdv

easily 48hrs with the TWO dual cams.
(unfort this is the max the timer on the camera will give you before the camera shuts of).

I had a blackvue before which didn't have a limit and that one went over 3 days.

from what I understood a battery at 11.8 is pretty much empty, whilst 12.2 is about 50%

beejAMG

wow 48 hrs is insane. most i had before camera shutting off is 16hrs and that has minimal recording as its parked in my driveway.

although i only need 8hrs a day (that is if i even drive to work as most times i take public transport). cant recall where but i read that minimum charge to start a car is 11.6V. so i set all my cameras with our cars to 11.8V. never had an issue for more than a yr until recently with my 212 sedan when car wont start. found out previous owner replaced the battery with a smaller one and i though it was due to be replaced anyways so i didnt really give it much thought until i read your thread from the other forum.

also, our cars (especially the C63 which we seldom use) is hooked up with the ctek when garaged and we always turn the dashcam off when parked at home. ill prolly experiment again and see...thanks for all the help and info mate. cheers!

Royce118

Attempted this yesterday and it works great. Thanks for sharing such info.