MINI CAR KEYCHAIN CAMERA / VIDEO RECORDER



Mini Car Keychain Camera / Video Recorder, retail $11.90
Manufactured by (Unknown)
Last updated 12-11-14





This product does not emit light of its own, so the standard review format will not be used and the product will not be assigned a rating. This website is mostly about light-emitting products, but occasionally, you'll see non-light emitting products on it too if it's something I use regularly and/or really like (this camera meets the first of those two criteria!). It *DOES* have an LED in it, so it's at least a bit germane to the theme of this website.

The Mini Car Keychain Camera / Video Recorder is a small, rather "handy-dandy" digital camera that also functions as a video camera.

It is sized appropriately small that you can use it as a key fob, and it has a rechargeable battery so you never have to worry about purchasing disposable batteries for it.

It is small and light enough that you can use it for aerial videography on medium-sized or larger R/C airplanes and 400-size or larger R/C helis.


 Size of product w/hand to show scale SIZE



Charge the included battery first (see directly below), set up the unit (again see directly below -- you only need do this once) and THEN you can go shoot those mosquito wrigglers (larvae).

Turn the camera on by pressing & holding the second button down from the upper right of the camera's body for approx. three seconds; a yellow light will come on at this point.

Shoot a still photo by pressing & releasing the topmost button.

Record video by pressing & holding the topmost button for approx. three seconds; the yellow light will flash three times when it's time to release the button.

When you want to stop recording video, press & release that topmost button.



The Mini Car Keychain Camera / Video Recorder is rechargeable and does not need disposable batteries, so I don't have to you which part to remove, throw down a mouse hole so that the mice become uranated (pissed off) at it, and cover it in mouse pellets and then rather emphatically tell you not to.

To charge it, simply connect the small end of the furnished USB cable into the female receptacle for it on the left side of the camera's body near the front, and plug the larger end into any USB receptacle on your laptop or desktop computer.



To set up the camera on your computer (this only needs to be done once!), go to your computer's START menu, select MY COMPUTER from it, and look for a new disk drive -- the screen should show this camera as Removeable Drive (E:) {the "E:" could be any other letter after "C" depending on how your computer is set up}

Use a program like Notepad or other simple text editor to create a file called, 'INIT.TAG" with the following contents:


Type the date & time to match your local date & time of course. Save it to the camera's root directory as INIT.TAG; the camera should now appear on your computer as pictured below:



The camera will now do all of the driving as it were.
From this point forward, the camera will come up on your PC like this:



Your photos & videos will be located in the subdirectory (folder) labelled DCIM.



The Mini Car Keychain Camera / Video Recorder is designed to be used as a digital camera, not as flashlight meant to be carried around, thrashed, trashed, and abused; so I won't try to drown it in the toliet tank, bash it against a steel rod or against the concrete floor of a carport, let my mother's big dog's ghost, her cats, my sister's kitty cats, or my little furkid spring a leak (uranate) all over it, run over it with a 450lb Celebrity motorised wheelchair, stomp on it, use a medium or large ball peen hammer in order to bash it open to check it for candiosity, fire it from the cannoñata, drop it down the top of Mt. Erupto (I guess I've been watching the TV program "Viva Piñata" too much again - candiosity is usually checked with a laser-type device on a platform with a large readout (located at Piñata Central {aka. "Party Central"}), with a handheld wand that Langston Lickatoad uses, or with a pack-of-cards-sized device that Fergy Fudgehog uses; the cannoñata (also located at Piñata Central) is only used to shoot piñatas to piñata parties away from picturesque Piñata Island, and Mt. Erupto is an active volcano on Piñata Island), send it to the Daystrom Institute for additional analysis, or perform other indecencies on it that a flashlight might have to have performed on it. So this section of the Mini Car Keychain Camera / Video Recorder's web page will be ***SIGNIFICANTLY*** more bare than this section of the web page on a page about a flashlight.

In fact, the five photographs, three screen dumps, and one video on this web page may very well be "it".



Photograph taken outdoors (with the camera mounted to my Syma Armor F1 Single-Rotor R/C Helicopter (with Li:Poly battery while the heli was still on the ground).



Photo of the house across the street taken from my basement door.



This photo shows how I have the camera mounted to my Syma Armor F1 Single-Rotor R/C Helicopter (with Li:Poly battery for some aerial videography.
The four small chrome-colored "buttons" (with the packing tape covering them) are dummy buttons that do nothing, so it was perfectly kosher to tape over them.




Flight of my Syma Armor F1 Single-Rotor R/C Helicopter 12-01-14 taken with this camera.

Flight took place near my home on Ellinor Ave. in Shelton WA. USA on the afternoon of 12-01-14 (or, "2014 01 Dec." or even, "December 01, Twenty Stick-Pile-of-Crossed-Busted-Sticks if you prefer).

Weather conditions at flight time were clear, temperature of 32°F (0°C), and winds calm.

This video is 306.2863900014 megabytes (306,556,528 bytes) in length; dial-up users please be aware.
It will take no less than one thousand five hundred thirty one minutes (!) to load at 48.0Kbps.
This video is definitely NOT dial-up friendly!!!









TEST NOTES:
Product was purchased on Ebay.com on 11-26-14; and was received on 12-02-14.

I purchased it because I wanted to do a bit of aerial videography from my Syma Armor F1 Single-Rotor R/C Helicopter (with Li:Poly battery.


UPDATE: 00-00-00



PROS:
Great video & photo quality
for the price!
Speaking of "price", the price is most definitely right!


NEUTRAL:



CONS:
No display, so you really don't know if the camera is recording or not


    MANUFACTURER: Unknown
    PRODUCT TYPE: Keychain-sized digital video + still camera
    LAMP TYPE: Small amber LED
    No. OF LAMPS: 1
    BEAM TYPE: N/A
    REFLECTOR TYPE: N/A
    SWITCH TYPE: 2 pushbuttons
    CASE MATERIAL: Plastic
    BEZEL: N/A
    BATTERY: Internal 3.70 volts rechargeable battery
    CURRENT CONSUMPTION: Unknown/unable to measure
    WATER- AND URANATION-RESISTANT: Very light splatter-resistance at maximum
    SUBMERSIBLE: ¡¡¡UN NECRÓFAGO ATERRADOR GRANDE VA AL BAÑO EN UN CESTO PLÁSTICO RESIDUOS DE PAPEL, NO!!!
    ACCESSORIES: USB charging/data transfer cable, keychain attachment
    SIZE: 30mm L x 49mm W x 10mm T
    WEIGHT: 15g (0.529 oz.) without keychain
    COUNTRY OF MANUFACTURE: Unknown, though presumably China or Hong Kong
    WARRANTY: Unknown/not stated

    PRODUCT RATING:

    Product is not intended to be used as a light emitter,
    so the conventional "star" rating will not be used.





Mini Car Keychain Camera / Video Recorder *







Do you manufacture or sell an LED flashlight, task light, utility light, or module of some kind? Want to see it tested by a real person, under real working conditions? Do you then want to see how your light did? If you have a sample available for this type of real-world, real-time testing, please contact me at ledmuseum@gmail.com.

Please visit this web page for contact information.

Unsolicited flashlights, LEDs, and other products appearing in the mail are welcome, and it will automatically be assumed that you sent it in order to have it tested and evaluated for this site.
Be sure to include contact info or your company website's URL so visitors here will know where to purchase your product.









This page is a frame from a website.
If you arrived on this page through an outside link,you can get the "full meal deal" by clicking here.