Driving cameras, LCD, and VCR

October, 2003 I added the ability to record my driving to my neon. I had had a jury rigged setup hooked up for a while using existing equipment, but the setup was difficult to use, parts kept shifting around while driving, and the wires were haphazard. When I added the LCD and a second camera I actually went to the effort to hide some of the wiring and to permaninze the setup. The LCD is a MA Audio MA2256 5.6" TFT-LCD which runs off the car battery (even though the box says it's 12V it's not, you have to have 13-16V to run it, which the car provides but that my test bench setup did not). It cost $150 from Fry's. The VCR is the cheapest one I could find at Fry's. The cameras are a Swann DIY Security Cam which I got at Fry's for $40. It has color video and pinhole audio. The bumper camera was my existing X-10 wireless color with audio. The VCR I mounted to the rear of the folding seat by simply opening the top and drilling screws into the plastic backplane of the seat. Here you can see the bumper camera, and compare its size to the stock fog lights. The camera is mounted to the metal of the front bumper with zip ties. The door mount became the most important mount. The camera is the $40 from above. I took some spare plexiglass left over from another project. The Neon has a door ding guards that are right where a good camera mount would be. They're plastic, so it would be possible to remove them or mount directly to them, but I didn't want to make any permanent changes to the car. So I cut and shaped the plexiglass into a nice mount that has suction cups to attach above and below the plastic guard. The threat of wind resistance was a potential problem, but it turns out that since only the 1/4" thickness is exposed to the wind, and the windsceen is slanted, the mount is really steady. Even up to 90mph the camera was steady, most of the movement came from the whole car bouncing. Another potential problem was the g-forces when going around corners and braking. The extra weight of the camera and mount could have overwhelmed the suction cups. The whole unit would have gone flying off, maybe hitting the ground and being destroyed. As it turns out, the suction cups held on perfectly! Video - 2003Oct06a.avi (4.3 megs, DivX 5)

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