Lightning Flight Recorder / Black Box

[mr.Magoo]

See that's the catch22, in order to capture data you need to request it, OBD doesn't stream stuff and you just happen to evesdrop, so if you request data you will wake the modules up, if you wake up the modules you'll drain your 12V / LVB, an external battery won't save you here since it's the car itself draining it and not your external devices, plus the Wican is powered through the OBD plug so you can't power it externally.

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[kraxner]

I'm also contemplating switching HW to a Seeedstudio R1100 it's a lot more expensive, but it's really nice in that you can power it off 12V nativly, has a UPS option that allows for a graceful shutdown and it also have two digital outputs that can drive a 12V relay, so it's easier to do a hold circuit and control the shutdown through software.

I found this awhile back, so far the battery is good on my Pi4. I still have not soldered header to use the GPIO to monitor the battery/charging/power source triggers.

SunFounder PiPower Raspberry Pi UPS Power Supply, Protect The Raspberry Pi and SD, 5V/3A, Expansion Board, Compatible with Raspberry Pi 4B/3B+/3B/Zero 2 W/Zero W (Battery Included)

 

[mr.Magoo]

So I think I've found the perfect (for me) setup that addresses previous issues / shortcomings.

I did end up using the Seeedstudio R1100 I mentioned earlier, it's a really nice unit, passivly cooled, PCIe based SSD (no need to go via USB like you do on a standard Pi4 vs. Compute Module).
It has two digital outputs and two digital inputs so I can / have hardwired the ignition signal to an input and I use the two outputs to control two timers which in turn allows me to independently keep the black box and the LTE / Mobile modem alive even with the ignition off, but yet I can control when I want to shut them down.
Another nice feature is that it's UPS is a supercap(acitor) so no batteries, most UPS solutions rely on batteries which will have issues if you live in a cold climate.

My home network setup is Unify based, so I'm using a Unify UMR as my LTE modem.
This has a few benefits over the onboard mPCIe SIM solution I was using previously in that it is rock solid, and it's super easy to set up a VPN tunnel to my home network.

One of my main "issues" in the past was that all the data resided in the unit itself and in the truck, so unless it/the truck was running I couldn't access it. With this setup, and the VPN tunnel, Influx (the database) is set to replicate everything to my network at home, so I have a backup of the data and easy access from anywhere.

On the power side I used the trucks own LVB for some time which worked fine, but it wasn't ideal,
and then I had a dedicated dashcam battery for my dashcams parking feature. The dashcam battery is LiFePO4 so it doesn't like the cold and during winter season it gets fully discharged without the ability to recharge unless you bring it inside to warm up, or, you leave the truck running for hours. So - I deceided to put in my own backup system, which conists of a 30 Ah AGM battery and a DC/DC charger. There are less expensive chargers, but the Victron XS is nice compared to the TR series in that it's half the size AND most importantly, it allows you to limit the charge current. As if this setup isn't overkill already, I also use a smart shunt which allows you to read out actual use and get an accurate SoC level on the backup battery (to in turn control shut-down sequences).

Initially I had everything installed in the storage area under the seats but I had cables everywhere and having a 20lbs battery more or less unsecured felt, well, unsecure, in the event of an accident.
So I moved everything behind the seats, sacrificed the jack (which is useless anyway) as a battery holder, and everything is now tucked in and not really visible with the seats up plus all the storage is availible agin.

 

[kraxner]

Nice! Great (over)engineered solution - I approve!

When I saw the UniFi Industrial Router first released I was thinking about it for my Airstream since I also use UniFi gear but I couldn't find any good references or people showing the routing features. I may have to pick your brain later on it.

 

[branden]

I would love something like this - looks like this has similar functionality to what I'm used to with Tessie on my Teslas (which doesn't need any hardware and uses official APIs)

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