Road Trip!

xwesx · August 2018

imidazol97 said:
What does the low cutoff switch do?

The system allows the camera to operate in "Parking Mode," which means the camera is on and will record "events" such as shock to the vehicle or motion around the vehicle. I can set how long the camera is allowed to operate after the car is shut off (anywhere from six hours to "infinity"), but if the battery drops to 12.0V, the system shuts off to conserve battery power.

I should post and link a video from the system, which I will soon, but still trying to work through the details of actually translating what the BlackVue player shows on my computer into something similar on a Youtube video.

xwesx · August 2018

Okay, let's see if this works..... I intentionally removed audio from this, so there's nothing wrong there if you do click play!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqfYbH59G7c

xwesx · August 2018

Ah, there we go. That was more challenging that I anticipated....!

fintail · August 2018

Nice, I use the prior generation of that same cam system. No real issues in approaching 4 years.

xwesx · August 2018

fintail said:
Nice, I use the prior generation of that same cam system. No real issues in approaching 4 years.

Your experience was certainly an encouragement to take the plunge. In reviews, I find few reviewers more harsh than they are with dash cameras. If I left it to them, virtually all dash cams are junk. Hahahha!

I thought I bought a 650, which was somewhat less than the 750, but, when it showed up, it was a 750! Turns out that I actually did get a decently good deal/price on it.

fintail · August 2018

I have found a couple quirks over the years. The cam only likes "high endurance" or similar memory cards made especially for camera use. It can also overheat if in direct sunlight in a hot (~100F) area.

xwesx said:

Your experience was certainly an encouragement to take the plunge. In reviews, I find few reviewers more harsh than they are with dash cameras. If I left it to them, virtually all dash cams are junk. Hahahha!

xwesx · August 2018

I can definitely see that happening! It is a harsh environment for any electronics!

I picked up a pair of 128GB high-end cards for it. They seem to work perfectly so far (but I only had it working for three days before taking the car to the shop for its new engine... and still have not received the car back). Probably a good thing, too, because the 32GB unit that came with the BlackVue mysteriously disappeared by the time we were finished with the project.

I think my son left it on the kitchen table and my wife ended up throwing it out with some various little baggies and whatnot (e.g., garbage) when she was prepping our dinner meal. She swears this is not true; I remain unconvinced given the card remains absent....!

fintail · August 2018

128GB will hold a lot. I run 64, which I think was the technical limit when my cam was made. I've had no over-writing issues, and one of my cards is a couple years old. I lost one earlier this year, dropped it when switching out, and of course it fell in the tiniest space between the top of the console lid and center stack, and vanished - I think I'd have to disassemble part of the lower console to get it back. I just ordered another card (I like to have a backup or two just in case, and with memory being relatively cheap, why not).

xwesx · August 2018

fintail said:
128GB will hold a lot. I run 64, which I think was the technical limit when my cam was made. I've had no over-writing issues, and one of my cards is a couple years old. I lost one earlier this year, dropped it when switching out, and of course it fell in the tiniest space between the top of the console lid and center stack, and vanished - I think I'd have to disassemble part of the lower console to get it back. I just ordered another card (I like to have a backup or two just in case, and with memory being relatively cheap, why not).

Haha; that always figures!

Yes, having the backup units is well worth it given how inexpensive they are. My son and I like to marvel at the capacity of these tiny drives, then consider that the largest flash drive I have (physical size) is a 128MB (not GB) unit that I purchased back in 2003. I think it was something like $35 at the time, but I was so pleased with that thing considering that it replaced my use of 1.44 MB 3.5" "floppy" disks. I just purchased a "small" 32GB drive for my son to use for his school work, and it was $13 at a local store. My how times change....

I still have that little 128MB drive, too. Works fine, save for it not being able to hold much of anything these days!

Michaell · August 2018

Then and now:

fintail · August 2018

I have bought 64GB name brand high endurance micro SD on amazon for around $30, can't beat that. That's around 100x the size of the HDD on my first computer.

xwesx said:

Yes, having the backup units is well worth it given how inexpensive they are. My son and I like to marvel at the capacity of these tiny drives, then consider that the largest flash drive I have (physical size) is a 128MB (not GB) unit that I purchased back in 2003. I think it was something like $35 at the time, but I was so pleased with that thing considering that it replaced my use of 1.44 MB 3.5" "floppy" disks. I just purchased a "small" 32GB drive for my son to use for his school work, and it was $13 at a local store. My how times change....

I still have that little 128MB drive, too. Works fine, save for it not being able to hold much of anything these days!

imidazol97 · August 2018

fintail said:
I have bought 64GB name brand high endurance micro SD on amazon for around $30, can't beat that. That's around 100x the size of the HDD on my first computer.

Your first computer had a hard drive? Wow. Mine had a cassette recorder.

fintail · August 2018

Wow, that must have been an expensive abacus

imidazol97 said:

Your first computer had a hard drive? Wow. Mine had a cassette recorder.

elias · August 2018

My earliest computer (PDP-8 TS8) had a drum, before either cassette-drive or disks were available for storage. My second computer PDP-11 RSTS/E had many disks, including removable RK05 "pizza-box" disks and enormous heavy platter-racks (RP05?) that dropped into "washing machine" disk drives. I can call them both my computers because I sure did PWN them before anyone knew what pwning was. In ROAD TRIP news: back in first-computer days, we road-tripped to great vacations at middlesex/bethany beach delaware, in our 1971 green plymouth satellite wagon (318), a 10 hour drive from beantown due partially to inevitable "short cuts" that took longer.

imidazol97 · August 2018

fintail said:
Wow, that must have been an expensive abacus
imidazol97 said:
Your first computer had a hard drive? Wow. Mine had a cassette recorder.

Wow. That's funny!

I do remember, barely, that I upgraded by putting in aluminum supports and two drives. But they weren't hard drives. They must have been 5 1/4 in floppy drives. I am having trouble remembering that far back!

I recall soldering together a network for the cassette recorder to load that information onto a group of TRS80 Model III's at work at the same time by playing the cassette recording of the data using a small amplifier.

Haven't thought about those days in a long time.

fintail · August 2018

We had TRS80s when I was in grade school, along with Apple IIs, I remember playing Oregon Trail and Miner's Cave many times. We got PCs when I was in high school around 1991/92. My first machine was a 1993, 4MB of RAM, I believe. My dashcam is probably more powerful, not to mention my phone being exponentially more powerful.

imidazol97 said:

Wow. That's funny!

I do remember, barely, that I upgraded by putting in aluminum supports and two drives. But they weren't hard drives. They must have been 5 1/4 in floppy drives. I am having trouble remembering that far back!

I recall soldering together a network for the cassette recorder to load that information onto a group of TRS80 Model III's at work at the same time by playing the cassette recording of the data using a small amplifier.

Haven't thought about those days in a long time.

cdnpinhead · August 2018

Ah yes, the trash 80.

fintail · September 2018

Took a road trip away from the city for a few days. 405 ands 5 weren't too bad for a weekday afternoon, but I did have to pass a couple of dopes on the right. Today's random dashcam clip, included for the wacky lifted old Impreza:

https://youtu.be/Ydg2Zw3G_pU

xwesx · September 2018

Hahahaha; nice catch! Now, how much time did it take sorting through the camera clips to actually find that?!

fintail · September 2018

I remembered it from the drive, so it was easy to pick out

Not much else of note on the drive, other than periods of rain, and a few passes on the right.

fintail · September 2018

My drive back to the rat race was pretty much like this:

https://youtu.be/rXrXn4F-PMo

Rain the whole way, some of it heavy. Summer is ending with a bang here in the PNW. Haven't seen rain like this in many months.

xwesx · September 2018

fintail said:

Rain the whole way, some of it heavy. Summer is ending with a bang here in the PNW. Haven't seen rain like this in many months.

70km/h. Wee!!! But, hey, at least you were moving!

fintail · September 2018

And that was in the left lane, passing everyone. It was heavy rain with a little standing water (roads and drainage, nice engineering in some places), but it can scare people even without water on the road - I suspect due the amount of transplants here from drier climes.

xwesx said:

70km/h. Wee!!! But, hey, at least you were moving!

xwesx · September 2018

One week from SLC. My FLX bike is at my brother's place now, waiting for me. I'm excited!

Michaell · September 2018

Made it to Santa Fe yesterday. Got a late start, but made excellent time. 5 hours 20 minutes, and that included a 20-30 minute stop about halfway through the trip.

I have been driving for over 35 years, and I don't think I've ever seen an interstate as empty as I-25 south in northern New Mexico. Not even a lot of truck traffic. I set the cruise to 85. Did a bit of testing and found the speedo is just a fraction optimistic - a hand calculation showed 83.72 MPH.

The in car computer showed 24 MPG. I'll fill it up today and see what I really achieved.

tjc78 · September 2018

I love those kind of drives. My last trip to Idaho was like that... wide open and cruise set on 89.

I got to drive in Montana during the “reasonable and prudent” times (no speed limit). Fun.

berri · September 2018

Yeah, kinda hard to find a lot of wide open driving anymore. Gotta take advantage when it happens

Michaell · September 2018

I bumped the cruise up to 90 a couple of times to escape what traffic did exist.

berri · September 2018

...and you were probably wearing some shades

xwesx · September 2018

I am stoked to be headed out in a few hours! Should be in SLC come morning (about 1000 hrs), will likely spend the day there, then overnight in Idaho before making a serious push north come Saturday morning! If I have a chance of it, I will follow up while we're on the road. Otherwise, probably Tuesday.

fintail · September 2018

Sounds like you'll be avoiding the Seattle metro, and a good call at that.

cdnpinhead · September 2018

Down to Edmonton, then due South, is my guess. I used to drive from Edmonton to Phoenix is about 31 hours, but that was a number of decades ago.

fintail · September 2018

Avoiding the I5 corridor sounds smart.

Here's Seattle traffic yesterday afternoon - this was several miles from downtown. Traffic would later unclog for a few minutes, but then got bound up again in downtown. It's like this on weekends, you should see weekdays.

https://youtu.be/c0tyV_Aaj60

xwesx · October 2018

You held at 20 km/h fairly well by keeping that following distance. I saw some vehicles stop multiple times in that short clip. Sad.

But, what's even more sad is this new Edmunds log in process! I tried a few times to get to the forums and post updates while we were traveling, but apparently the system is VERY picky when it comes to what people use to log in. Safari, it seems, is definitely out of favor.

xwesx · October 2018

Suffice it to say that we made the trip without any major fanfare. I also now have my bike home and assembled; I'm very excited about that! Saving the shipping cost is a big plus, too.

xwesx · October 2018

Leaving Salt Lake City Friday afternoon.

Stop in Pendleton, Oregon, Saturday morning.

Columbia River gorge, on 730 heading into Washington.

Perhaps more later.... gotta run for now!

tjc78 · October 2018

I’ve driven in that area. Beautiful

That is my Enclave’s twin!

xwesx · October 2018

tjc78 said:
I’ve driven in that area. Beautiful

That is my Enclave’s twin!

Haha! I did not even notice that car was an Enclave. It took me a minute, and scrolling back over the photo, to even figure out what you meant.

fintail · October 2018

People here often don't have what one would call any amount of driving skill. The same people who brake for changes in direction on interstates, who creep forward constantly at red lights, who hit the brakes when someone moves into their lane 500 yards ahead, etc.

Any snow on the trip? I see Calgary got a nice little dumping.

I guess I am lucky, I have had no login issues - but I notice the forums crash chrome now and then, so I use firefox for it,

xwesx said:
You held at 20 km/h fairly well by keeping that following distance. I saw some vehicles stop multiple times in that short clip. Sad.

But, what's even more sad is this new Edmunds log in process! I tried a few times to get to the forums and post updates while we were traveling, but apparently the system is VERY picky when it comes to what people use to log in. Safari, it seems, is definitely out of favor.

tjc78 · October 2018

If you return to the forums from a bookmarked link and are logged out you can't sign back in from there on any browser. You have to scroll to the very bottom of the screen past the large "Most Popular Vehicles" verbiage to the column headed "car articles and advice" from there select "Automobile Forums" and you will be taken to the correct login.

Something is wrong in the system when you return from a bookmark (or restored session like in Iphone) and are logged out.

tjc78 · October 2018

For reference:

Bad login screen

Good Login Screen after clicking where I explained above:

Pop up after clicking "Sign in or register" from above. Remember to click where I circled.

Screenshots taken from newest version of Google Chrome running WIN10.

xwesx · October 2018

Thanks on the login information. I don't often use my iPod to log in (last time was while on our trip in June). However, I can get to the correct location to log in, but after clicking "sign in" on that display, it pulls up a grey screen and never gets any further. There doesn't seem to be any way around it.

For weather, it as near perfect!

We hit some rain up through the Omak / Osoyoos area, as well as on 97 north in the Williams Lake and Quesnel areas, but after that it was clear skies and crisp air all the way home.

Frankly, I've never driven a vehicle up the highway that stayed as clean as my friend's van! I swear the thing ended the trip as clean as when we picked it up. And, no, it wasn't freshly washed, but it was reasonably clean.

xwesx · October 2018

Dry Falls, in the channeled scablands of Washington (sun lakes area).

fintail · October 2018

Oh yeah, you drove an oddball Nissan van, I forgot you mentioned that. How was it?

Fun coincidence on the Dry Falls pic, I posted one here from almost the exact same spot last year:

I spent some of my childhood in the Columbia Basin, and was fascinated by the geology.

xwesx · October 2018

Looks like there was quite a bit more water down there in your pic! The area on the lower right side was completely dry on Saturday when we were through there.

Also, I saw an MB E-class, in a sort of silvery blue color, pass us going south when we were just entering the sun lakes area. I immediately thought, "I wonder what fintail is doing this weekend?" Hahahaha.

Yes, we drove an NV3500 van with 4x4 conversion (using stock Titan parts, so it has full Nissan warranty). He bought it totally decked out, which means considerably less for a commercial vehicle than it might for a "family SUV". However, it was a surprisingly comfortable and compliant ride. It even handled quite well. All in all, I think he made a good choice with this vehicle. I even noted that if Nissan offered it with their Cummins V8 from the Titan, I might be tempted.

With him buying winter tires and wheels at TireRack, delivered to the dealer, my bicycle, and a trip to Costco before heading north, we had it pretty full for the trip home!

fintail · October 2018

NV 4x4 conversion, never seen one of those before. I suppose for a rugged family hauler that can be subject to more wear and tear than the typical fru-fru big SUV, it might work.

I suppose Alaskans bring loads of stuff across the border is a regular thing.

xwesx · October 2018

fintail said:
NV 4x4 conversion, never seen one of those before. I suppose for a rugged family hauler that can be subject to more wear and tear than the typical fru-fru big SUV, it might work.

I suppose Alaskans bring loads of stuff across the border is a regular thing.

He has a family of nine now, so his vehicular options are limited. Now that I broadened his horizons about vehicle buying and transport, he's talking about finding a car like mine (Forester w/ MT) in the lower 48 and driving it back. Muahahahahahahahah; I've created a monster!

Oh, and I asked the dealership that did the conversion how many of these that they do, and the tech said they probably average two per week for the last eight months since they started doing them. They only do it on the NV2500/3500, too, so there must be a lot of these commercial haulers out there with 4x4!

tifighter · October 2018

Is this a Quigley conversion?

xwesx · October 2018

tifighter said:
Is this a Quigley conversion?

No, it is full Nissan factory parts.

https://www.timdahlesouthtowne.com/nissan-nvp-4wd-conversion.html

Apparently there are two other 4x4 conversion companies out there (Quigley is one of them), but there was some sort of TCM change with the 2018 model, and these other conversions cause false CEL indicators sometimes under various conditions. They haven't worked out those bugs yet.

ab348 · October 2018

tjc78 said:
For reference:

Bad login screen

Good Login Screen after clicking where I explained above:

I've never seen that "bad login screen".

I agree though that there seem to be a multitude of loose ends and many confusing steps required. Surely that can be fixed. It is disappointing that it hasn't been done.

Road Trip!

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