More mileage, Same RON

The MyVi is known as a fuel sipper. And when you feather-foot and turn off the A/C, it would sound more like he's on a diet. Then for the last two tankful, I turned off the fan...

I always like to calculate VeeChai's fuel consumption as long as the records are there. The way he consumes fuel depended on my daily route and the types of Job I had. In some jobs, I had to drive throughout the day and on others, I would only drive without the Sun in the Sky.

How I wished I had all the data with me as it would be very interesting.

Anyway, in my current and last job, I only drove in the mornings and evenings, with the evening being a chore since I had to join the traffic jams. I only had to use the A/C when it rains.

The graph for me this time is quite interesting.

July:
This was the last month in my ex-Job where I used the Highway with minimal traffic jams in the evening.

September and October:
The rare chance I drove and this is just short distances in the City with the air-conditioner used occasionally. Man, that fuel consumption killed my wallet.

November:
New job. Morning highways were good but the evening traffic sucked monkey balls. This was also the time I tried various routes to overcome the jams.

December:
Holy guacamole! I am not sure if this is true or not!
Maybe the fuel injectors or the Flux Capacitor cleared itself or something. I got more mileage once I turned off the fan. The past year, it was the air conditioning being off and now, its the fan.

The. Freaking. Fan.

The one which blew outside air in (without the a/c). So, I'm going to test this again with a few more tanks to confirm if its correct. Or maybe, just that it's time for the 10,000Km service....

ADDKEY 7-inch 1080p Car DVR

Finally, after so many years of deliberation and what-ifs, I have decided to get a car DVR. And by coincidence, AliExpress hd their 11.11 sale. There are so much choices nowadays and it's not a simple matter of just picking one up and hope for the best. Some would have 4G (GPS and data transfer), WiFi (File Transfer), lane assist, etc. Then again, the more features you 'want', the more you would have to pay for it. And like any technology, the extra features would definitely fail during a critical moment.

You're basically paying for a simple recording device which has a few year's lifespan (unless the Malaysian Sun kills it prematurely when you park outdoors, whichever comes first.)

But for me, I just want a simple video recorder and nothing fancy. Unless I go nuts and go for those 'Industrial' and programmable vehicle DVRs.

My criteria
-Clear image recording even at night
-Reverse cam
-Collision sensor to lock the recording



OOTB REVIEW

Basically, what you'd get would be the DVR itself, the cigarette lighter plug, the reverse cam and two rubber bands

This is a unique way for the DVR to attach itself to the rear-view mirror but like all rubber products, it's going to fail soon. Therefore, I would need to make sure the car is always parked under a shade.

I don't have to worry about if the DVR is placed a little out and I can still adjust the camera.
This is not so critical as you don't really need the camera to be right in the middle of the car's windscreen

Well, yeah, the reverse cam. I just wonder how well it will see in the dark since the four LEDs are white and not infra-red as I was expecting it to be.

FIRST TRIAL

The screen does not whut off until after three minutes, which was the minimum time. Not only was it distracting, sometimes, you'd be confused thinking there was an oncoming traffic. I had to turn down the DVR's exposure setting as even at night, the details were washed out.

Ahem. Yeah, finally figured out why the screen was so blurry...

INSTALLING THE REVERSE CAM
The cable for the reverse cam looked worryingly short at first. For a small hatch, it would be OK but I would start to worry if this was for a large sedan. After a rough measuring exercise, I realised I would have a lot of 'excess' wires. In the end, I made the cable go through a longer route (pillars and roof) so that I would not end up with a bunch of unsightly coil on either ends.

Essentially, there are two connectors to the DVR.
The Left is the Micro-USB for power and the right is a 3.5mm audio jack for the reverse cam.

So, I started with pushing the wiring into the windscreen gap, then onto the space hidden by the rubber seals.
For this moment, I have not hidden the wires inside the pillar as I'm worried the tight fit might crimp on the wires. The can go into the gaps but right now, I can't wait to test the whole setup!

I unscrewed the metal part, reversed it to fit into my car's Third Brake Light housing but I know that later on, I would be fiddling more with it.

At the reverse camera's end, the wire splits into two where the red would be required to tap into the reverse light.
In the case of my car, I temporarily removed some parts, slipped the wire though the boot's rubber seal.

My car is very dirty and I attributed this to not being able to drive it for more than one and a half years, parked in front of a tree which sheds leave a lot. These are the stuff/gunk that accumulated from the Malaysian weather, more so, if there are trees nearby.

This is a T-tap connector as I do not know what else to call it.
There are no sticky electrical tapes involved and that's how I liked it. However, if there was the gel filled version, I would love it even more since this would prevent long term expose to the environment or on the rare occasion, arcing.

So, you just line the cable up, use a pair of pliers to squeeze it close.
And for the MyVi, the Brake Light's signal cable here is blue.
Do not tap to the Black cable as it is a Ground cable.
It's very easy to figure it out since the black cable were connected to both lamps.

Then crimp the red cable and push it into the T-Tap and you're done!
Sorry for the slightly crimped cable as I did not have a proper Crimper. Heh

Turn the keys on Stand-by and put the gear on Reverse.
Once the DVR gets the signal from the reverse light, the screen would change to the reverse Cam.
If this does not work, you will have to check your wiring and connections again. Luckily you did not close everything up, right? Right?

This is the Normal view when you're driving and after 3 minutes, the screen would turn itself off.
Unfortunately, there is no 1 minute option and so, it's kinda distracting when you're driving at night. And oh, the screen would not help you if there are bright glares from the car behind you.

TESTING
After a few days road, I can say that having a screen that double up as a rear-view mirror which turns off after 3 minutes is a very, very bad idea. It is very obvious in the evenings or at night where momentarily, you'd get confused with the moving images of 'rushing' roads or lights, thinking there are cars trying to pass you from behind.

Recognising a max capacity of 32GB makes this model quite limited. I haven't done any calculations but when 32GB yields 40 5-minute files, this means I have about 100 minutes of recording, which is slightly less than my daily trip to the office. Bear in mind, the device is recording both front and rear cameras.

I really hate microSD cards. If I am not accidentally destroying them, I am not getting any data. When the card was first inserted, I formatted it with the DVR. At first, I could view the files through the PC and now, it refused to even be recognised. Thinking it was burnt, I put it back to the DVR and it worked. Just that I could not view the files anymore.

 
FINE-TUNING [25.01.2019]
OK, after more than a month, I guess the DVR is working as it should be AFTER I got a new microSD card. The card was a 16GB version which allowed me to store about a set of 10 front and rear recordings at 5 minute intervals on a compromised resolution. Initially, the first card I had was a 32GB but out of all 40-50 or so recordings (eventually it;s storage capacity degraded), only a small number can be played while the rest were just enormous files of.. unrecognisable nothings. Either the microSD card was too slow to be written or, the system could not recognise the capacity.

I had to set the g-sensor to a minimum as it was so sensitive, all the 20 video files were locked and it could not perform any continuous loop recording.

THINGS YET TO BE DONE
1. Reposition the rear camera
- It's bright white lights keep shining on the rear glass's dried up water stains 

- Final location might be slightly above the rear license plate ala Peugeot cars but I'm worried it might be blurred due to the water back-spray thrown up by the rear tires during the rain
 - OK, maybe it's time to have another set of rally mud-flaps too....

2. IR LEDS
- Once the they are in, I might want to experiment with them as well, to create some IR lamps for reversing.
- Digital Cameras are very sensitive to them but they give you a black and white images

07022018 Y U no drink?

On the left, we have Mr. Jolly coming in at RM1.49 and on the right, its Mr. Anglia at RM1.79. Who will win?

In all my Life, I don't really consume alcohol much and in fact, in our household, we just don't drink. So, once in a while, if I really need to, it would be in small quantities. It's not that I don't like the stuff but I am quite annoyed with their side effects.

You know, pink faces, headaches, loud heartbeats, and the more serious repercussion: Gout.

Anyway, maybe it's due to age but tonight, I find that I can handle the 1% Shandies better without the normal side-effects. When I was small, drinking Anglia Shandy was like entering a new World. It tasted so unlike Coke, Root Beer or even Sarsi and yeah, that woozy feeling.

Is VeeChai Sipping or Guzzling?

So, how does this car of mine fared after all these years? It's a nimble little guy who can twist and turn in most Urban spaces, has the power when I needed it and most importantly, is quite economical to run.

The MyVi has already taught me to be a light-footer and use slopes to my advantage too. Maintenance so far, to me, is quite reasonable despite what others may say and its always by Perodua (well, 98% or the time). After more than five years, there would be some serious maintenance going its way soon.

What I love about the MyVi is that it does help save petrol on the condition that you know what you're doing. Here's a summary of what I am trying to say, or at last could recall:

Normal urban driving with Aircond on: 14.5Km/L
Highway driving with the Aircond on: 16Km/L
Highway driving with no Aircon but with OD: 18Km/L

Yeah, you got that right. It's due to the new driving style where I don't use the Aircond much. I drive to work in the morning, and return in the evening, where everything is cool, unless it rains. Then I need to switch the Aircond on to make sure the windows don't fog up.

Let's take the latest data. Last week, I pumped in RM50.00 worth of go-go juice which at RM2.30 per litre, gives me 21.74 litres in the tank, giving me 394.7Km of tarmac. That puts me at 18.15Km/Litres.

Just as long as I don't keep turning the OverDrive off. The BUTTON which you need to PRESS to turn it OFF for more TORQUE.

But acceleration is so much fun...