I got a dashcam installed on my '18 Macan base powered by the arm rest compartment cigarette lighter. I never noticed until today that it doesn't turn off!

Backstory: Had several unusual DTCs, and at the recommendation of another Rennlister, I cleared the codes after the battery was charged up from a drive. As long as I drove the car often, the codes didn't come back. So, I got a Charge-O-Mat Pro (COMP) to keep the battery at full charge 24/7.

Plugged in the COMP this afternoon, and nearly 4 hours later, the dashcam is on!

Anyone experience this? This would explain why the COMP is still able to run through the cigarette lighter. Normally the car should cut the circuit to the cigarette lighter after turned off for some time, preventing the COMP to do its thing.

K

 

This is normal, if you have a charger plugged in the port is not turned off. You have a 10-15 minute window from when the car was on to hook up the charger, otherwise the port gets turned off. For the dash cam, you want to put it on another switched circuit or you could hook the battery charger directly to the battery.

 

That is a good thing! My dashcams would turn themselves off, but still sip a charge so they can reactivate in case there was a hard bump on the car.

 

Based on what was previously mentioned, it sounds like you'd have to get a hard bump within the first 10-15 minutes to reactivate.


I've heard of people splicing wires to connect dashcams to existing switched circuits. This will be a fun little project. Considering to line it to the headlight electronics or the dome light. Any tips?

 

The easiest one to tap would be the power to the PCM, there's switched power there. But you could just use a fuse tap in the fuse panel, and jumper off an existing circuit.