Top Dawg Dash-Cam

cabwrecker · Jul 19, 2013

If anyone is curious, and still paying attention (doubtful) I wanted to drop a quick update.

The most recent camera broke.
Loves will not replace it, nor will TopDawg even respond to my emails and or phone calls.

I've given up on this and finally removed it from my dash which is code for ripping it off its mount and throwing it into a trash bin at a rest area whilst simultaneously ruining one of my valuable limited 12v dc power outlets.

I highly recommend against this product. Given that four of them broke in a period of just a few months with me.
This is typical crap quality electronics that show up in modern truckstops. There are some good recommendations above this post, however.

Good luck, good trucking and stay safe.

double yellow · Aug 4, 2013

After reading the OP, I decided on the diesel boss db4 dash cam (costs about the same if not slightly less). I've only had it a month or two, but haven't had any issues.

cabwrecker · Aug 5, 2013

I'm glad to hear it, you should do a review on it and feel free to link mine onto your own. It would be a big help to other drivers looking to invest in their own protection.

cabwrecker · Oct 14, 2013

Blue Tiger said: ↑

Spam deleted
Click to expand...

Why do you keep advertising in my thread?

Tenpintim · Dec 5, 2013

I purchased one of their cams with my pilot points yesterday, I chose the TDDCAM-01 because it had hd recording with night vision, in fact it does not record worth a darn at night...furthermore it claimed to easily interface with a PC, and again it does not at all...I even tried putting the sd card directly into my PC and it said "unrecognizable system format"...long story short it goes back tonioght.....

cabwrecker said: ↑

I wanted to post a review of this product for you guys to check out. This particular product is available at almost any Loves, Petro, TA, Flying J, and Pilot truck stops.
(edit- The cost of the camera package is $100 and can be bought off the shelf almost nation wide.)

Recently after witnessing a bad accident on I-70 and having no proof to offer to a state patrol officer other than an eye witness testimony, I decided it would be a smart decision to invest in a dash cam as way to protect myself from any future incidents of "he said/ she said."

I went straight to the nearest truck stop, put my five $20 bills on the table and asked the woman across the fuel desk at the loves in Boonville, MO to give me "the dash cam on the shelf there."
When I got the box, I knew straight away this might be trouble- the box was incredibly light. I'm not saying that weight is necessarily indicative of quality but I would be lying if I said otherwise in this case.

View attachment 46741

The product specs are as follows-

"AVI Format, 848x480 view size @ 15 FPS. Display is a colorful 2.4 inch TFT screen that rotates 270 degrees to suit driver viewing preferences."
That is just the camera alone, itself. The screen is by no means wonderful, but it's not as though you'll be driving your vehicle with it. The definition of a 2.4 in screen is the least of my concern.
The camera has several modes, it can take pictures or work as a video camera that cycles through 2.5 minuet recordings, saving up to 30+ at a time then overlapping and erasing the oldest copy.

If you want to, you can set it for motion detection (which I advise against, since the camera will not start even when the vehicle is in motion for some reason. To get it to work on this setting I had to actually wave my hand in front of the camera so I keep that particular setting, off.)
If you did have an accident and were not at fault then the first thing you would want to do with the camera, would be to cycle through the saved periods, find the one the accident occurred in and immediately protect the file from deletion so that it is not over-written in the cameras filming cycle.

View attachment 46742

The Camera itself is fairly small, being only 4-5 inches long and 2-3 wide while being 1-2 inches thick.

View attachment 46743

While it may appear sturdy and rugged, the camera is extremely light and frankly; flimsy. You could very easily brake any number of things off the unit thereby completely ruining it.

The low-wattage Infared LED's attached to the front create more problems then they solve. They have a tendency to create glare off your windshield interior, and when the camera notices this; it shuts them off. However it will turn them back on a few seconds later, only to shut them off again. This process will continue until daylight breaks.
View attachment 46744
While working with the buttons to select menu and mode options, I have almost accidentally broken the screen off several times. Not a very ergonomic design for $100.
View attachment 46745

Here the camera can be seen with it's screw in mount and the screen closed (note; the camera will not function without the screen open, and folded down. It will shut down otherwise.) I will post another picture of the screw on mount later.

View attachment 46746

(cant seem to rotate this picture in the thread box, not re-uploading) here is a diagram of what's included in the box.

View attachment 46747

A two axis screw-pin mount. I'm very surprised with the quality of this; and wish, frankly that more devices came with a screw-pin mounting style. Very convenient and the suction cup grips extremely tightly. You can loosen the knobs on either axis to move the viewing angle.

View attachment 46748

Mic Jack in, avi out plugs. Pretty standard, cheap quality though. The wires used are extremely thin and don't look up to years of service. This isn't news though.

View attachment 46749 View attachment 46750

Out of all the things that made me regret this purchase, it's the "charging system." Which is a huge joke.

A bit of a back story, this is my third topdawg dash cam (I'll get to the later.) The charging port and cable included with the camera are entirely not up to the job for this already bad product.
The USB port style plug does not have an inline fuse (read on, later about this) which can in fact, lead to the destruction of your camera. The cable is short and adds unnecessary clutter to my already cluttered dash board.

The unit also includes a very generic brand 8Gb flash card that is installed via a small port on the side of the camera, next to the charging port.

As I said earlier, this will be my third TopDawg Dash cam.
The first two I got, broke, almost immediately after un-boxing.

The first had a defective SD card. It would not format or store information, instead it would just lose everything you put on it- Which I only noticed after deciding to look at some video of myself driving later after buying it. It lasted a whole 2-3 hours before I took it back (unsurprisingly I was met with a rude attitude from the loves I was bringing it back to.)

The second one was a glorious meltdown, literally.
Less than a day after receiving an immediate replacement of the first TopDawg Dash cam, the second broke. Only this time it could've been really bad.
I'm driving along, nice warm day- no rain. The camera is plugged in and mounted in an area it would be safe from any inclement weather (on the passenger side of my dash.) I notice that the camera has suddenly stopped working. I pull into a rest area to diagnose the problem, however I decided first to check the temps on my reefer. Getting back into the truck I noticed the strong smell of burning plastic, I look around to check that nothing is on fire- but low and freagggin behold that ###### dash cam is smoking up a storm. I removed the power supply immediately but it continued to smoke until I took the battery out of the camera. It continued to smolder for several minutes saturating every square inch of my cab covered in fabric, with a wreaking permeating stench of burnt plastic that, 30 some hour later, still has yet to dissipate.

Stopped at yet another loves, and as a very annoyed trucker replaced the camera, yet again.

I've called the TopDawg help line several times and have been told that basically, it was probably my fault. Though I doubt that, and don't really see how using something to the tee of written instruction can put the user in fault; that's their response to a very pissed off trucker.

On the whole, it's an okay product- but I think that $100 might've been spent in a few, better areas.
Click to expand...

EZX1100 · Dec 5, 2013

Dieselboss said: ↑

Yes. I played with one on my motorcycle. (GoPro Hero 3, Silver edition.) They use the Ambarella chipset inside for video processing. They are also waterproof and shock-resistant. So what does that mean? It means that if a driver wants to mount it outside of the cab, he can. It also means that if he uses the 1080P quality setting that you will get HD videos capable of reading license plates at a fair distance. Beware that you will use up all of a 32 Gb memory card in 4 hours on 1080p setting, and 2 hours if you had a 16 Gb card. Personally I don't think that anything less than 16 gb storage is even practical on a 1080p camera so definitely "bigger is better" if you are recording that much data. If you reduce the setting down from 1080p to increase the recording time to say - 8 hours on a 32 Gb card, then you are paying a lot more money for a camera that you are not using it's main cost feature with.

Here is an interesting look at video from one of those mounted outside on a bumper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MArSQb3YH4E

If you are doing recording for skiing, motorcycling, biking, etc, then it cannot be beaten, especially if you get an extended battery pack.

If you need it mounted such that you are recording something outside the truck (i.e. in the weather) then it also can't be beaten as a stand-alone unit. Or if the driver is also a motorcyclist or a scuba diver for instance, then it would serve a useful dual purpose compelling the added cost too. Most of them are capable of using a little remote control or an app to control them too if that is a needed feature difference.

If you are intending primarily for dash/windshield "road" recording, it certainly will do the trick admirably as far as quality, but you will be paying a larger price for features that you are not using too.

So I don't have any bad experiences with that brand that I can report. It's a solid unit. If budget isn't an issue in the decision then you would not go wrong, if that is what you are asking. But if the only usage is for inside-cab road recording, and there is a budget consideration, then it could be argued that it's a little overkill to go "shock-proof / waterproof" for GoPro.
Click to expand...

thanks for the info and insight

i will be getting one soon, still debating if it is in my interest or will work against me (some days i am a good boy, other days not)

v6killer · Dec 5, 2013

If you want the best dash cam this is the one http://gopro.com/cameras

OttMan · Dec 23, 2013

So far I am satisfied with the ones that I have for more than seven months. They're not expensive and the video quality is really great.

Here it is the link on Amazon, where I bought mines:
[h=1]Car DVR-2.7'' or 2.0'' LCD screen Rotating Dual Len Vehicle DVR Road Dash Video Camera Recorder Traffic Dashboard recorder[/h]http://www.amazon.com/BOOMYOURS-270...=UTF8&qid=1387854978&sr=8-2&keywords=dash+cam

[h=1]HD 720P Dual Lens IR Night Vision Car DVR Camera Dash Cam Video Recorder Motion Detection[/h]http://www.amazon.com/Vision-Camera...=UTF8&qid=1387854978&sr=8-7&keywords=dash+cam

OttMan · Dec 23, 2013

I think this way:
Is the camera cheap? YES...
Will it eventually break? SURE...
What should I do, get mad with the saller? NO (and Yes...ha ha), but I would buy another brand new one...
Would be cheaper for me to keep on buying the cams if they brake, because in case of an accident, to have the video proof of what had happened would be worth of , than to be mad with the product and not have one any more! Think about that,

cabwrecker · Apr 2, 2014

OttMan said: ↑

I think this way:
Is the camera cheap? YES...
Will it eventually break? SURE...
What should I do, get mad with the saller? NO (and Yes...ha ha), but I would buy another brand new one...
Would be cheaper for me to keep on buying the cams if they brake, because in case of an accident, to have the video proof of what had happened would be worth of , than to be mad with the product and not have one any more! Think about that,
Click to expand...

I know this is four months too late to update, but since when do I honestly give much consideration to rules...

It sounds like I'm complaining. In the end, I did- I went through nearly half a dozen of these things, just trying to find one that worked!
I mean, hot #### son! If you bought 4 cb's, or 4 cell phones, or 4 gps units and the first two almost immediately broke (one threatened to arson-up-my truck) and the last two had more problems than an epileptic lot lizard with rough hands working on rave night.

I'd say, I'd rather have my $100 back! I can do a lot with $100, so when I spent it on a product that had an extremely simple job, and it consistently failed to deliver- it got a little annoying, especially towards the end.

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