Windscreen inner 'mesh' removal?

Hi all,

After reading advice here and elsewhere about dashcams we have bought daughter a (hopefully) reasonable / starter one. It's primary role will be in her 01 Transit Connect and that has what I assume is just a sun visor / mesh on the inside (no heated screen), between the sun visors and coming down about as far as the sun visors when lowered.

Because she has a bulkhead in the van she doesn't have a rear view mirror so the ideal place for the dashcam would be up there, but what of this 'mesh'?

The camera (the Viofo A119) came with a GPS-mount and assuming this mesh is just a non conductive paint, shouldn't affect the GPS but if the camera is positioned low enough to look under the mesh, it's getting close to her line of sight (road signs / traffic lights etc) not helped by her being fairly tall.

So, rather than putting the camera either side of the centre / mesh, would anyone know if it would be possible to remove said mesh with say a razor blade tool, at least to make a little 'window' for the camera lens itself? Then it could be mounted as high as possible and as near the centre as possible (for what different the latter makes, other than not fouling or being fouled by the sun visors).

I haven't tried to do so yet as I thought I might ask here first (but I might give it a look tomorrow as she / the van are about).

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m
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In message , T i m writes

Both my vehicles have a small patch of this spotty mesh in the middle of the screen, but I've mounted the cameras just to the left of this behind the mirror and haven't had any problems with visors or field of view. The sucker mount on the cheap camera has sucked at the mesh without falling off in the last 6 months, so the mesh must be fairly smooth and well attached.

The problem with my posher camera (ddPai) is the software, which requires guesswork to degree level and is Android/iOS rather than native Windows/Linux.

Reply to
Bill

I think the difference here then is your use of the word small. On the Connect the spotty mesh is probably about half the width of the windscreen (so you only have 1/4" the width of the screen clear either side)! It's also as deep as the visors, not leaving much room below for the camera without it obscuring the view. ;-(

This mesh feels a bit thicker than yours then, so much so that I'm not sure how well even double sided tape will stick.

Something like that can bring a good thing down. For me the 'test' is can you use all the key features without resorting to the handbook.

Sort of a 'Norman door' test. ;-)

As an aside the screen on daughters Connect has a small crack that we are sure become a big one sooner or later so we aren't really bothered if our experiments damage anything. It's just I wasn't sure if the mesh would come of easily, if it was etched into the glass somehow and so be a waste of time trying to remove some of it for the camera to look through.

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

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