Ed Huntress wrote:

"Pete C." wrote in message
ter.com...

Lew Hartswick wrote:

Pete C. wrote:

I've been waiting for the spare funds and boredom to coincide for my to
buy one of the now common 12v powered 4 channel DVR security recorders
and adapt it into a "black box" for my truck. I've seen them down in
the
$250 range for a basic unit and a bit more for one with network
connectivity - think WiFi bridge to automatically download and archive
to DVD when you park in your garage so it's ready for morning. Perhaps
one of the cheap little video overlay boards, a microcontroller, a GPS
and an accelerometer to overlay additional data.

Do you think the recorder will survive the tempeatures in a trunk in
the summer sun? Or the camera in the green house? :-)
...lew...

They should if you package things properly. Certainly plenty of other
electronics survive in an automotive environment, the VCM in the engine
compartment getting the worst of it.

I made a gadget to protect my film and a camera in a hot trunk some years
ago. I made a cooler with a volume of one cubic foot (just a cube made of
2-inch-thick Styrofoam insulation) and put a single thermoelectic cell on
it, with a big power-transistor heat sink on the outside, and a smaller one
on the inside. I don't recall the voltage but I remember I had to put a big
resistor in series to run it off of the car battery. It dropped the
temperature around 25 deg. F or a little more.

Watch out, though. Those things draw more current (with the resistor, at
least) than you might think. It was no problem for 24 hours, but it drew the
battery down after that.

I wish I still had it. Somebody stole it when they broke into my car.

Thermoelectric coolers are readily available and inexpensive. Modify one
with a small thermostatic switch, and feed it from your auxiliary
battery (you have one right?) so you don't have to worry about running
down the main and you're all set.