HOW TO: Ford dash cam

Longshot270

I'm too COOL (lazy) to Choose a Custom Title!!!
Joined
Jul 21, 2010
Posts
1,641
Reaction score
0
Location
TX, where else should I be?
Nice, man, that looks great! The bolt should be 1/4" x 20. Most (if not all) cameras have threads for that size. Seems like it would get perfect visibility of trail rides or whatnot. I only have one suggestion:

Throw a wingnut on the bolt to tighten against the camera. This will benefit in that you won't have to tighten the camera down all the way (or too far). You can screw the camera on 1/2 or 3/4 of the way on, then tighten the wingnut up against it. I made an old bike mount for one of my old P&S cameras using a bolt. It wiggled loose (or so I thought), but when I went to tighten it back down it went too far. Went through the body and into the lens (I heard a nice crack). Adding a wingnut (or something similar) would prevent any unfortunate accidents. Murphy's Law. :thumbs:

Yeah, I just had a ruler for sizing drill bits and figured that was the best I could get. The wing nut ideal is a good one, I'll have to find one to fit.

I'll be getting a video tomorrow probably...hopefully it'll still be raining, makes a cool effect when I turn on the overhead lights.
 

Longshot270

I'm too COOL (lazy) to Choose a Custom Title!!!
Joined
Jul 21, 2010
Posts
1,641
Reaction score
0
Location
TX, where else should I be?
While I'm cropping the bits and putting them together I'll go ahead and say the wingnut was a great idea because it allows me to set any angle on top of the 90 degree increments from the magnetic sheets.
Brings me to my next comment, the magnet was a GREAT idea because when the road/terrain was rough enough to bounce the camera base off, when it came back down the magnetic fields guided the camera back to its original position and held just as tight as before. I will however, go back to a shorter bolt because the center of gravity is a bit high.

I'll have the vid up in a while. I've got several different conditions to demonstrate.
 

Longshot270

I'm too COOL (lazy) to Choose a Custom Title!!!
Joined
Jul 21, 2010
Posts
1,641
Reaction score
0
Location
TX, where else should I be?
Ok here is the video, just keep in mind YouTube lowered the video quality a bit. :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOIsP_cK6CI
[YT]VOIsP_cK6CI[/YT]

Some things I want to note is that the magnets will fix the camera if it "jumps" from a jolt. Not like the major jolt but there were over a dozen little jolts that I got on video. I did have reallign on the BIG one, I was referring to the smaller ones that followed.

The bolt size is indeed 1/4 inch but I'd go with one about 2 inches. The long bolt I used is a 3 inch.

The two cameras have shown to each have an advantage over the other. My cheapo camera is better on gravel roads and stuff during the day because it just gets blurred while the faster camera is shaky. It also does not record the loud clacking sound from the Image Stabilizing lense bouncing around because it is so cheap it doesn't have one. I specifically picked that camera because it has no true moving parts. But the Canon is my best picture taker. It has taken clear pics at over 300 yards with the 10 power optical and the digital zoom taking it up to 40x.
 
Last edited:

mblouir

I need a hobby.
Joined
Oct 31, 2009
Posts
3,059
Reaction score
0
Location
Greenville, SC
Very nice! Great visibility. FYI if you take the last part of the link (after the equals sign) you can use the YouTube button to embed it into your post.

So for yours, paste the "VOIsP_cK6CI" into the box that pops up when you click the red YT button. :thumbs:
 

Longshot270

I'm too COOL (lazy) to Choose a Custom Title!!!
Joined
Jul 21, 2010
Posts
1,641
Reaction score
0
Location
TX, where else should I be?
Very nice! Great visibility. FYI if you take the last part of the link (after the equals sign) you can use the YouTube button to embed it into your post.

So for yours, paste the "VOIsP_cK6CI" into the box that pops up when you click the red YT button. :thumbs:

Tried it and didn't work :dunno:
I've seen it work with other videos around here but I had trouble uploading.

Oh that is BS, wont work on that other post but it'll work on this one?!? WTF TMC? :lol:

[YT]VOIsP_cK6CI[/YT]
 

Staff online

Members online

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
28,836
Posts
1,109,352
Members
4,800
Latest member
SpeakerMan
Back
Top