Power ports
#12
Puttster, if your truck is a 2002, it should have switched accessory power at the rear of the radio (probably dark green wire). This wire will be controlled by the RAP circuit like what Christine described. You can use this with a relay to interrupt the power on one of the sockets to make it switched instead of always on.
FYI, they changed the setup in 2003 and the factory radio is turned on by a databus signal instead, so there's no accessory wire.
FYI, they changed the setup in 2003 and the factory radio is turned on by a databus signal instead, so there's no accessory wire.
#13
Add an inline switch to cig lighter adapter
Another easy and fairly cheap option would be to add an inline switch to the actual power cable that runs to the dashcam. Any sort of cheap, SPST switch should work, and there are ones available on Amazon rated at like 3Amps that would work nicely, and have a built-in LED so you can see when it's on or off. BTW, I have the same thing, dashcam plugged into the 12V always on accessory outlet and it's never run my battery down. Then again, the battery is not quite a year old now, but either way, mine draws like 5V 1.5A, so 7.5Watts, even if we call it 9Watts with losses from the 12V-5V stepdown, 9W x 12hours is still only 108Wh, which is less than 20% of what the battery's capacity is (mine is 12V 48AH = 576Wh *if fully charged).
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
ekerry
2nd Generation S-series (1995-2005) Tech
0
10-03-2010 01:27 PM