How to choose / install / use dashcam on Ducati Monster

[S21FOLGORE]

Introduction

Do you get upset by regularly seeing car drivers of surrounding traffic texting while driving ?
Have you been involved in some sort of incident lately ?
Do you commute on a motorcycle?
Do you live in / around the big city so you have to deal with congested city traffic?
Do you ride mostly alone?

If you answered “yes” to more than two of the questions above, I’d recommend you to consider installing “dash-cam” on your bike.

But first, let me clarify that “Dashcam” is different from “Action cam” such as GoPro, Contour, Drift (Ghost) , etc.
Dashcam is NOT meant to capture your memories of journeys or action shots. In fact, it is quite opposite. Dashcam, once you finish installing them,  should be left untouched, forgotten until, ... well, something happens and you need the video evidence.
Trying to use action cam (GoPro, etc) as dashcam is a poor idea, as they are not designed for such purpose.

If you haven’t been browsing on the net about dashcam yet, watch this guy’s video (very well put together) to get basic understanding.



http://www.techmoan.com/guide-to-dashcams/

Which one to buy : Choosing a camera specifically for motorcycle
There are many, many dedicated dashcams available. However, most of them are, not surprisingly, designed for automobile use, and not quite suitable for mounting on a motorcycle.
Here are some key points choosing a camera for motorcycle use.

1)Discreetness
The smaller the camera, the more mounting options you have. You don’t need / want the screen. Like I said earlier, once you complete the set up, you shouldn’t have to tweak the setting (including the camera angle), there’s no need to have built-in screen.
This is another reason to avoid GoPro (and some GoPro look-a-like such as SJ4000). Because everyone knows how the GoPro camera looks like, it is very noticeable and will most likely become a target of the theft.

2)Loop recording / auto on/off
This is very important  for dashcam. When the ignition key is turned on, the camera starts recoding. When ignition key is turned off, it stops recording. The camera keeps recording all the while the vehicle’s power is on. Pretty simple. When the memory card gets full, it will overwrite on older file so you can pretty much forget about it until the moment you need the video file.
You don’t want something that you have to manually turn on / off, start / stop recording. (Another reason why action cam is not a good choice for dash cam use.)


3)Reliability
The camera that will capture highest quality video would be useless as a dashcam if it’s not reliable.
Unfortunately, reliability information is somewhat difficult to find. (You almost never find this kind of info from the manufacturer / seller. You have to search “real life user’s info”. )

4)waterproofness
I’d say, don’t overly get caught the idea of “waterproof”. In reality, “weather proof”, “splash proof”,  “water resistant”, level of waterproofness is more than adequate. (To call the camera literally “waterproof”, you have to make it submersible. The motorcycle is not designed for underwater operation.)
Realistically, worst case scenario would be a couple of hours of riding in downpour rain.

5)GPS
Forget about all GPS function. Who wants to give the video file with exact speed of your vehicle embeded on  to the Police / insurance company / court ?

6)Video quality
Unfortunately, you can not check / compare the video image quality of the camera on youtube. (File heavily compressed, thus seriously lowering the image quality.)
The only way to see the real quality of the video is to watch the “original” file, which are available sometimes. (eg, Thechmoan’s review includes downloadable sample clip.)
http://www.techmoan.com/blog/category/car-dvr-dashcams

The camera I bought

There were two candidates when I was searching the camera.

Mobius


Innovv C3


In the end, I went with Mobius (bought two of them, one for the car, one for Monster), Mostly because of the reliability issue and tech support.

I swapped the battery to the capacitor (highly recommended for dedicated dash cam duty).



and installed like this.

On my Monster S4R, can you see?



It’s here.




How about on my DD (92 NA6)...





... it’s here




Other than Mobius camera itself, what I had to buy were these. (You will need to convert 12 V DC to 5 V DC USB output. And I hate cigar lighter accessory plug with passion.)



(the one on the left is for Monster (single USB output), the one with dual USB output and volt meter is for my car.)

Link to the products
http://www.powerwerx.com/batteries-chargers/usbbuddy-powerpole-12v-usb-5v-device-charger.html
http://www.powerwerx.com/oem-connectors/panel-mount-dual-usb-device-charger.html#desc

[S21FOLGORE]

Here’s an example video of my Mobius-as-dashcam set up.

At the time of purchase, they were available with lens A (standard , 87 degree) or lens B (wide angle, approximately 120 degree ( I can not find exact #) ). I bought lens B, as lens A, about 90 degree, is a bit narrow for dashcam purpose , IMO.
Now, lens B is superseded by lens C (approximately 130 degree). If you decide to buy Mobius, this is the one you want.

The camera is mounted under the left hand side turn signal stalk. And it is left at  1080p 30fps setting all the time.
I wanted as much horizontal field of view as possible, also I did not want to include speedo and tach in the video, for obvious reason. I also didn’t want front wheel, suspension components in the video.
As a result, the video clip recorded by this set up will be pretty boring to watch, but that’s fine. Dashcam is not meant to be entertaining (although, sometimes it can be).

First example

V 1 vs Ka band radar

(Keep in mind the clip looks worse than the original due to the file compression by youtube. Also, this video was taken at around 8:30 PM, almost 20 min. after sunset. In this kind of lighting, almost any camera out there would struggle to take a nice, clear picture.)

Anther example of exactly same set up at around 7:00 PM. Plenty of sunlight, the camera captures a lot of details.

Mobius sample

I did not bother to block the wind noise, so the camera’s built in microphone picks up awful wind noise, but again, for the purpose of dashcam, it’s not a problem.

[S21FOLGORE]

I forgot to mention about the “overlapping” in the last post.
In the second example video, at around 1:53, you see the picture kind of jumps back a little bit.
It’s because this part is “overlap” , automatically created by the camera.
(All dashcam do this. The camera creates, for example, video segments in 5 minutes length (my setup), and all the video files are saved consecutively onto the micro SD card. The camera automatically creates “overlapping” in between each segment, so that you won’t miss an important moment.)

I will write a bit more about the camera.

Like I said in the first post, there aren’t really any dash cam system developed for motorcycle use in mind, besides Innovv C3. Snake camera configuration, water proof lens portion (the recorder unit is not), at first, it looked promising as motorcycle dash cam system.

However, the more I researched, the more I found out that it's not quite what I had thought initially.

A) The bullet camera (lens) part is too big. If you mount the lens for optimum performance, people will notice that you have a camera on your bike.
It's not as discreet as I first thought.

B) HDMI cable (which connects the lens portion and the recording unit) is quite thick (read not really flexible), and not really long enough, which seriously limits your mounting options.

C) USB to mini USB cable that comes with the C3 is proprietary. (meaning, it’s not standard cable. You can not plug your regular USB cable into C3 cam. You have to use “Innovv USB” cable, and if you loose / damage the cable, you will have to buy one from Innovv, which will be, no doubt, major PITB. )

D) Some people reported about the loose connection of the cable to the camera. What it means is that you go over a bump, them, your dashcam system can stop working. Again, this is a major problem for dashcam. (You don’t want the system that you have to check if it’s still working every time you go over the gap on the road.

E) Way too many people (by my standard) reported that the computer does not recognize the C3. I wanted something that works right out of the box.

D) Lack of support from the manufacture

Overall, Innovv C3 is a nice system, IF you get lucky and everything works as advertised right out of the box.
The idea of snake camera configuration is good. But right now, there are just too many negatives.

[S21FOLGORE]

Today, I’m going to show you the example of “why you want a dashcam” video.


Published on May 22, 2015
Car accident at Wornall Rd. and Gregory 7:19AM caught on dash camera, Kansas City, MO. Honda Pilot wins, two vehicles totaled. One minor injury. Mitsubishi Eclipse driver claimed she had the green light!

OK, she claims “she had the green light”. Let’s take a look at what she was doing just before this accident happened.



Can you see what’s in her left hand ?


Yup. She was using smart phone.

Imagine, something similar happens to you. The video footage, the blown up screenshot taken from the video, they all stand as solid evidence in the court of law. And unlike human witnesses, the video camera does not lie, or change mind.
1080p 30fps is good enough to get this much detail. Not quite good enough to see what she was posting on her facebook at the moment of the accident, but, for the purpose of the dashcam, this is good enough.
(Don’t try to capture more detail by going to 60fps. You are not going to get any more detail than the example above.)

[Nibor]

I'm just about to buy a dashcam for the car, as I had a bloke pull out of a service station and t-bone me, only to claim I merged into him!

One for the bike sounds like a good idea!

[S21FOLGORE]

Waterproofing (weatherproofing) the cam

Well, like I said in the first post, it should be called “weatherproof” or “water resistant”.
Anyhow, some of you may live in the area where you’d have to worry about waterproofness of such a device.

Mobius is almost perfect for motorcycle dashcam application, except for the fact that it’s not waterproof. (It’s not even weatherproof.)
Fortunately, it is relatively easy to fix that.
Mobius comes with a small screw driver, to open the case. (Or, you may already have a set of small screw drivers.)
Open the case, and apply liquid electrical tape such as this, on to the circuit board.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000AXNOD/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0000AXNOD&linkCode=as2&tag=dacata-20

Then, cover up the micro SD card slot with electrical tape, apply a small amount of silicone grease around mini USB port area.
That’s it. Pretty simple, isn’t it ?

Another way to do it is buying a waterproof case, and modify it so that the cam can be externally powered.
https://www.joovuu.com/gb/home/103-mobius-waterproof-case.html

Tip : Drip loop
When you hook up the wire ( USB cable ) for powering the cam, make sure you leave enough slack , so that the cable hang below the mini USB port.

[SwiftTone]

I'm interested in doing this.

How is it installed so the dash cam will have auto on/off feature when you turn on/off the bike?

I have a s2r1000 so it should be really similar install to your bike

[S21FOLGORE]

The camera (Mobius, Innov C-3, pretty much everything designed with dash-cam use in mind) comes with that auto on / off function and loop recording.
All you have to do is to hook up the camera to switched 12V power. (and, preferably replace the battery in the camera with the capacitor.)

I also recommend to add fuse panel, if you *think* you are going to add one or more gadgets on your bike.
(Dash-cam, radar detector, louder horn, high-wattage head light bulb, auxiliary lights, ... you know what you’d want in the future.)

[SpikeC]

^^^ this is very very good advice!