Alpha – Side Camera and Display Component Source?

[Alex Vanturion]

It’s probably a bit of a long shot, but I was hoping that someone on the forum would be able to tell me where Aptera sourced their side-view cameras and displays from?

I modified my van a while back to accept small side-view cameras and A-pillar displays, but the performance and clarity is pretty sub-standard at 480P/VGA with the cheap hardware I sourced from Ali-express. I’d love to upgrade if I knew where I could get compatible 12V components…

(I wasn’t having any luck with the photo upload so hopefully document pic attachment works)

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[Vernon Michael Gardner]

Really cool idea. Modern day cameras are so much better than what you had to choose from when you build yours. Depending on how much you want to spend you can get up to 4K at 60 frames a second fairly common now. It may take some digging to match your cameras with your monitors, but it’s all out there right now. I’m building a 4K set up with security and visibility in mind to go on my wife’s car. I have about $350 into it. The catch is at this time I’ve only got 48 hours worth of memory for all four screens at 4K. I would like to extend that to about a week’s worth of recording.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by  Vernon Michael Gardner.

[Alex Vanturion]

Thanks. That’s cool you’ll have such a high resolution and recording capability. For my setup, I use these as active displays only and run a splitter to a slightly larger panel in the van’s living area, but some of the constraints limit what components I could select.

Basically I needed both the cameras and displays to be 12V compatible, the displays to be easy to adapt to for mounting, and most importantly, the cameras to have some 360 degree adjust-ability for initial aiming as I wasn’t confident I could get them aimed being hard-mounted to the the 3D-printed housing in one go. I ended up with these 140 deg cameras, but now that I can be confident with the mounting angle, I could do without 360 adjustment capability (and fisheye effect).

Looking at the cameras and displays used in the Alpha, from just a glance anyway, looks like the components they selected would work great for adapting to my use. Plus, I’m figuring they probably used 1080P components or better which would be perfect. I’m assuming they’re 12V as well. Aptera engineering, please DM? 🙂

[Gabriel Kemeny]

Whatever answer you get today may change soon thereafter. Aptera went away from the Alpha design and will no longer have those displays by the mirrors like you have. Also, not sure the camera/mirror combo they will eventually have, has been finalized, nor if the supplier will entertain individual sales. As well, with the “assembly” approach Aptera is using, the door supplier may be the source of the parts, not Aptera. All that will have to wait several months as we get closer to production.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by  Gabriel Kemeny.

[Alex Vanturion]

That’s OK if they’re not going to be used in the production model, I’m just looking to chase down the supplier they used for the Alpha components as those look like they’d be a great fit for my application.

You’re probably right about that, the supplier probably wouldn’t be interested in retail or individual sales, but at least I could try and chase down if those components have been used in any other applications and maybe those applications have a repair department who I could source from. I would think Aptera used something off-the-shelf for their prototype and I doubt these cameras and displays were made bespoke just for them…

• This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by  Alex Vanturion.

[Peter Jorgensen]

Alex,

Daniel from Aptera says the alpha cameras are “pretty terrible”. Keep that in mind. Probably just the screen is too small and too far away.

https://youtu.be/gSyJMwbTJCI

[Alex Vanturion]

Interesting, they can’t be worse than mine though and I still find mine usable at 480P and 5-inch screens! Where my screens get into trouble though is with low-light conditions at night, with rain, and especially with fog. It is in these conditions that they are approaching useless. However, with better and larger camera sensors and perhaps even some IR illumination for night I’m thinking some of this could be alleviated.

Like I said, it’d be very helpful to know what they went with as what they used look like they might be a good improvement over what I currently have.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by  Alex Vanturion.