Taxiway

The Vantrue X2 dashcam was one that I picked up from Amazon a few weeks ago. I wanted to have a small, yet functional, dashcam to capture our travels and, specifically, to capture any issues that might crop up when driving our coach.

The X2 is a capable dashcam. Very small, light and discrete. I have it positioned on the centre of the windshield quite high, just below the dark tint that occupies the first ten to twelve inches of the windshield. I can see it from the driver’s seat. I cannot see it when we are in the coach.

This dashcam is almost useless on battery power. It will burn through the onboard battery within minutes. The windshield mount includes a USB port which makes it convenient for a permanent installation. The only problem? Not designed for a coach our size. Running a cable to a suitable outlet would be quite a job especially if I wanted to keep the cables out of sight.

My first thought was to run the USB cable from the camera into the AV cabinet above the driver’s seat. Not really possible without making quite a mess: cabling that would need to be tied, looped over the windshield night and day shade rollers, and through to the back grate of the AV cabinet.

My solution was pretty elegant. The only downside is that it requires a little bit of extra work.

I ordered an Anker Powercore USB charger.

It can easily provide power to the X2 dashcam for a full day of driving and then some.

I placed some velcro on the top ceiling lid immediately above the dashcam and on the bottom of the Anker Powercore. A short USB cable to connect the Anker to the X2 and I had all the power I needed without complicated cable runs and holes in the coach.

The only maintenance for this setup is to disconnect the Anker to charge it up. Very easy for me to do as part of the setup and teardown routine in the coach.

Attached is a video taken on a cool, overcast day when we were leaving our home. Our drive is about 1,000 feet long and fairly narrow with a lot of trees. You can see Lorraine guiding me out from the house. Good thing I have such an awesome co-pilot.