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RPI Based Dashcam

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2016 7:51 pm
by xjardin
I had a bit of inspiration today while digging through old electronics looking for some parts. I found my abandoned first generation Raspberry Pi and started thinking about how I can use this on my bike.

The first thing that came to mind is a dashcam. The basic device would consist of:

1) Raspberry Pi
2) Old PS Eye webcam
3) 5000 mAh battery pack. This will give the Pi at least 4 hours of run time.
4) For storage, I'll either use an old 128GB SSD or attach a USB SD card reader. Either way, some kind of solid state storage will be needed.

I plan to strap all of this together and mount it inside some kind of weatherproof container underneath the seat in the storage compartment.

I might look into using a ubec or something to charge the battery pack off the bike's electrical so I don't need to remove it and charge it every day.

Once I have this basic device running, the next step will be to write some scripts. I want to find a way to use the GPIO pins on the Pi to make it start recording when the bike is turned on.

I want to add a wifi adapter and write a script to scan for open networks and automatically upload videos. I'll probably add a second wifi adapter so I can pop an AP with sshd, allowing me to control it wirelessly with my phone or laptop.

I could also attach a GPS dongle and have it record my trips.

Any Raspi enthusiasts on the forum? Any other ideas to use with this?