---
title: 'How Dash Cameras Are Made (Turbo Del Sol Update)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=bJAhfvbU5IQ'
video_id: 'bJAhfvbU5IQ'
date: 2026-08-05
duration_sec: 1246
---

# How Dash Cameras Are Made (Turbo Del Sol Update)

> Source: [How Dash Cameras Are Made (Turbo Del Sol Update)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=bJAhfvbU5IQ)

## Summary

ChrisFix takes viewers inside the Vantrue factory in Shenzhen, China, to show the complete manufacturing process of a 4K dash camera, from plastic injection molding to final packaging. The video also includes a brief update on his turbocharged Del Sol project.

### Key Points

- **Intro and Del Sol Turbo Update** [00:02] — ChrisFix is installing a turbo into his Del Sol and plans to use a dash camera to record the process. He emphasizes the importance of having a camera rolling for safety.
- **Travel to Shenzhen, China** [00:27] — ChrisFix travels 24 hours from Florida to Shenzhen, China, the third largest city with over 17 million people. He contrasts its past as a small town with less than 30,000 people in the 1980s to its current status as a manufacturing hub for about 90% of the world's electronics.
- **Vantrue Factory Overview** [01:08] — The Vantrue factory employs over 130 people, including factory workers, engineers, project managers, and customer service representatives. The manufacturing process starts with CAD design, then molds are created, and finally the camera is assembled.
- **Five Main Steps of Manufacturing** [02:01] — The five main steps are: 1) making plastic parts, 2) making circuit boards, 3) assembling the camera, 4) testing, and 5) packaging. ChrisFix will walk through each step in detail.
- **Step 1: Injection Molding** [02:27] — Plastic parts are made using injection molding machines. The mold weighs over 300 lbs and requires a crane to move. A special flame retardant thermoplastic is used, which turns black when melted. The worker polishes the parts to ensure smooth surfaces.
- **Step 2: Circuit Board Manufacturing** [04:36] — The main board, LCD board, and camera sensor board are made. The process involves solder paste printing, pick and place machines, and reflow ovens. The pick and place machine can place 10 components per second (almost 40,000 per hour).
- **Sony 4K Sensor Highlight** [08:22] — The camera uses a special 4K sensor from Sony, which provides sharper images, better low-light performance, and high dynamic range. A comparison shows the Sony sensor is superior to a generic sensor, especially for reading license plates.
- **Lens Installation and Focus** [10:37] — After the sensor board is cut, the lens is screwed on with a specific torque. The lens is then focused using a jig that displays a sharpness indicator. UV glue is applied to lock the focus in place, and the camera is cured in a UV oven.
- **Super Capacitors Instead of Battery** [12:23] — The camera uses two super capacitors instead of a battery, which can fail in high heat. The capacitors are soldered by hand and allow the camera to function in temperatures from -4°F to over 140°F.
- **Assembly Line** [13:15] — About 60 workers assemble the camera in under 30 minutes. Steps include plastic welding buttons, adding Wi-Fi antenna, connecting ribbon cables, attaching heat sink, and installing the LCD display.
- **Testing and Quality Control** [15:57] — Cameras are tested for audio/video recording, parking mode, and Wi-Fi. They are also placed in a hot room (34°C/93°F) for at least 3 hours to simulate a hot car and ensure reliability.
- **Packaging** [17:44] — The camera is cleaned, placed in a box with accessories (power cable, foam, microfiber towel), and weighed to ensure all parts are included. An anti-tamper sticker is added, and the box is shrink-wrapped.
- **Conclusion and Del Sol Update** [19:32] — ChrisFix returns home and plans to install the dash camera in his Del Sol. He thanks Vantrue for hosting him and mentions his upcoming turbo install video.

### Conclusion

The video provides a comprehensive, behind-the-scenes look at how a high-quality dash camera is manufactured, highlighting the precision, testing, and quality control involved. It also serves as a promotional piece for Vantrue and a teaser for ChrisFix's upcoming turbo install project.

## Transcript

out. I'm in the process of installing the turbo into the Del Sol, and it's coming out absolutely incredible. Now, before I go and start up this engine, it's very, very, very important that I have a camera rolling at all times, you
know, just in case. So, I'm going to install one of these 4K dash cameras. to show you the process. I have an entire in-depth video on that. Instead, I'm doing something way cooler. I'm going to show you how dash cameras are
factory. We're going to take all these parts and make it into this, one of the world's best-selling 4K dash cameras, the Vantrue E1 Pro. So, before we go start this engine up, let me show you how dash cameras are made. And to do
that, I traveled for 24 hours from Florida to Shenzhen, China, which is China's third largest city with over 17 million people, but it wasn't always really cool. My parents visited Shenzhen in the 1980s, and here's some photos my
then, Shenzhen was nothing more than some dirt roads, farmland, and a tiny town with less than 30,000 people. Fast forward to today, and about 90% of the world's electronics are manufactured in this city. And in this unsuspecting
building right here, well, this is where Vantrue dash cameras are made. Now, the company employs over 130 people, from factory workers to engineers and project managers to customer service representatives, which you can actually
where it all starts. A design's laid out on the computer in CAD, which allows the brand to organize all the components and make sure everything fits in the new printed to see how the design looks in
layout, and overall size. Once that design is approved, the molds and camera is manufactured into this real finished product that you can actually buy. So, let's see how this is made. Actually, real quickly, in China, it's a
tradition for the guest to sit down, drink tea, and then do business. This one of the founders of the company prepared some tea, and we drank. Ganbei. And that's cheers in Chinese. All right, so here the five main steps on how a
to see how all the plastic parts are made, like the outside of the camera. circuit boards are made. Then, we'll see how the special 4K sensor from Sony is see how all these pieces are put together on the assembly line to give us
the final product, our dash camera. And finally, the camera accessories and instruction manual are packed away in the box, sealed up, ready to be shipped out. So, those are the five steps to making a dash camera, and let's get
started with step number one, making the plastic pieces. And that's done here in the injection molding facility. Each of these white machines is an injection day, every day to keep up with demand.
all the holes for the memory card, the buttons and vents and stuff like that requires this mold right here. And when you look at it closely, you can see the this plastic piece its square shape. Okay, so now that we have the correct
get it to the injection molding machine. And this mold is very heavy, weighing And this mold is very heavy, weighing over 300 lb. So, a crane is necessary to transport it to the injection molding machine. At the machine, the mold is
machine, then it's brought across, and then carefully lowered into the chamber where it's mounted. Last thing to do is bolt down each side securely, and finally, the access door is closed
and the machine is warmed up. Now, as that warms up, this here is a special blend of flame retardant thermoplastics that needs to be added to the machine. melted and injected, it'll turn black. And just to show you the importance of
the left you have your normal ABS plastic, which as you can see, can catch fire and continue to burn. And on the right, we have the flame retardant catch fire. This will contain any fires just in case there's some extreme
safe. So, now the worker's filling up the hopper with flame retardant machine's about to make thousands of units. And now with everything warmed up, the mold is pressed together, then the
cavities of the mold, and after a few separate the mold, and an arm comes down, grabs the newly formed plastic part, lifts it out, and brings it over to the conveyor belt so the worker could
grab it. Now, a worker's necessary here because the plastic doesn't come out of the mold perfectly. So, the worker uses a polishing file to polish the surfaces from the injection molding process. That way, it looks and feels nice and smooth.
Then the dust is blown off, and it's placed into the tray, and these pieces room for the final assembly, which you'll see at the end of the video. So, the plastic components that go into the camera. Next, we need to make the
main boards that allows the dash camera to function. This board is for the Sony 4K camera sensor, and then the lens attaches right here like that. This board is what makes the LCD display function properly. This board is the
up. And finally, this board is the main board, which is the brain of the dash the process to making all these different boards is pretty much the same, so let me show you how the main board is made. Now, before you can enter
the PCB manufacturing room, everyone has to wear special clothing that reduces you need to go through the air shower. In here, there are a bunch of jets that blow air at you to remove loose dirt and dust. And in the air shower, you need to
spin around to make sure the jets of air hit all around your entire body. Then this grounding post to make sure that your body has no static electricity, which could also damage the chips and circuitry.
All right, so now we're in the printed circuit board room, or PCB room, where cameras are made. And this right here is a bare PCB board with just the copper pathways, and by the end of this process, this is what we're going to
make, a fully loaded PCB board with resistors, diodes, transistors, and board. And so you can see this close up, this is what I mean by bare board. It then here's what a fully printed board looks like up close with all the chips,
on it. And it's pretty cool to see how the circuit boards are made, so let me show you the process. Okay, so this is the start of the PCB assembly line we're going to be going down. So first, the worker carefully places the bare boards
loaded into the solder paste screen printer. So one board makes its way sure it's in the correct orientation, then it moves up to the screen. Then the the stencil onto the board in one direction, then back in the opposite
this gives you a good look at how the stencil works. Pretty simple. Now the and you have a pretty good view here, so you can see how all the solder paste was added precisely to certain spots on the board. And to verify the solder paste
was applied properly, the board goes through a quality control machine, which and makes sure that it's in the correct location. And as you can see, our circuit board is good to go, so it moves onto the next step, the pick and place
printers. This is where all the chips, resistors, transistors, diodes, and the circuit board. The pick and place machine literally picks the component up and places it onto the board. And this machine is impressive. It accurately
places 10 components every second, which is almost 40,000 components an hour. Now see the fingers moving downwards placing the components into specific places on was from the first machine, and this board has to travel down the line
the PCB components placed on it. And once the board makes it to the end here, it moves onto the next quality control checkpoint. So the board is loaded in, and a camera makes sure that everything is where it should be, and there's no
passes quality control, so it moves onto the next step, which is about to get really hot. This right here is a 20-ft long convection oven that cooks the boards at 500° F, Fahrenheit, and it
go through from start to finish. And by the time the board comes out of the oven here, it's cool enough to touch by hand. And at the end here, the worker grabs inspection to look for any obvious defects, and as long as it looks good,
and the cart's brought over to one more inspection station. At this station, the connection to make sure that the heat in the oven fully melted that solder and made the connections that need to be made. You can see how smooth and uniform
after review, our circuit board has passed inspection. And the last thing to individual pieces, so it fits into the camera, and you're going to see that process later. Okay, so the main board is done, and the process to making the
need to go through each one, but I do want to show you how the camera board is because this is the heart and soul of the dash camera. It's a super important part. It's what gives you your video. Okay, so just like before, blank boards
into the trays, and then that's fed into the solder paste screen printing different from before, because in this case, the solder's being laid down for paste printed onto the board, it moves into the quality control scanner, and it
gets a pass. Now, this is where the magic happens, and why I wanted to show you this. The dash camera uses a special 4K sensor from Sony, and this is what sharp image with low noise, and it gives the ability to read license plates, see
in low light, and use high dynamic range. And just to give you a real-life you're looking through the lens of a generic 4K dash cam sensor. While it's same clarity as the Sony sensor, which we'll switch to right now. And check out
that difference. This is the 4K Sony sensor, and this is much better. And kind of obvious, the left side is the generic sensor, the right side is the the difference in quality. And one more very important example is this generic
4K sensor can't zoom in and see what the license plate is, but with the Sony made the same, and that's exactly why this company uses a Sony sensor. Now, these sensors are carefully packed in an airtight antistatic protective bag, and
prevent any moisture from getting in because moisture could cause problems worker carefully transports the new sensors by hand to the pick and place machine, and two trays of sensors are loaded into the machine, and this is
designed to fit perfectly side by side with no room to move so the machine With that loaded in, the cover is closed, and the process begins. This is machines that we just saw, but the only difference is there are way fewer
components. The main components being placed here are the camera sensor, the small resistors to help regulate the voltage going to the camera sensor. And once all the sensors and components are done being placed onto the board, now
it's off to the oven to bake for just over 5 minutes at 500° F. from the oven, placed on the final quality control scanner, and it's scanned. And as you can see, our board passed,
inspection that makes sure that the solder on the ribbon connectors and just going to look overall for anything that might stand out. Perfect. So, the it is good to get cut into smaller boards. And all the boards are cut the
same way from the main board that we made before to the LCD board to this camera sensor board. Here, the worker's using a hydraulic cutters actuated by a along the seams to make individual camera boards. After everything's cut,
board, blasts it with compressed air to remove the dust, and peels off the plastic sensor cover. Then, the lens is installed onto the sensor, and that's goes to the next station. Here, the worker's job is to screw the lens onto
jig and uses an electric screwdriver that tightens the two screws to a specific torque. That way, the lens goes on straight. And now, it's ready for the next step. At this step, the lens is brought into focus. So, the worker
puts it into the jig, and for the first time ever, this camera is working and displaying an image. Although, it's a very blurry image, so she just turns the lens to focus it. That way, it goes from blurry to sharp. And at the top left
letting the worker know when the image is focused correctly. That way, it's not just done by eye. So, with the lens focused, the ribbon cable is removed, the gluing station. Here, a special UV glue is added right to where the lens
and barrel meet. That way, the focus is locked in place. And this jig works very glue in the perfect spot, but it's adding enough so it locks the focus in onto the board. Then, once the tray of cameras is full, it's loaded into the UV
light oven. And in the oven, ultraviolet lights cures the glue, so it's rock hard that, the glue is set, and all the cameras have a locked focus and are workers are testing the cameras to make sure there's no dead pixels and no dust
the screen. And this camera is looking great, so let's move on to the last step. And that is to add two super capacitors. Unlike some other dash doesn't use a battery because batteries could fail with the intense heat from
on your windshield. Instead, this uses two super capacitors, which provide camera is placed onto a jig, and then the capacitors are soldered by hand like so. Using these super capacitors is this brand's way of making sure the camera is
is tested to function in sustained temperatures between -4°F and over 140°F. So, with the capacitors all soldered in, all that's left is to clip the long metal terminals, that way it's flush to
the back of the board, and now we have officially finished making the camera. parts we made, here's all the circuit boards we made, and here's the final assemble all this together and make a
this is the assembly line where about 60 workers take the different parts, put it all together, and make a working dash camera in under 30 minutes. So, let me quickly show you the main steps. And the assembly line starts right here with
made at the beginning of the video. The first worker on the line is plastic the side of the camera, and this allows you to lock the video that way it can't next worker is plastic welding the buttons on the bottom of the camera that
way you could change the settings of the camera without having to get on the app. worker is adding the Wi-Fi antenna that way you can connect your phone and change the camera settings. And after the Wi-Fi antenna is added, this plastic
case is sent down the line and we'll get back to it shortly. In the meantime, the board and connects a ribbon cable. Then a spot of quick-dry glue is used on each of the ends of the ribbon connector, and then an insulating tape is put over the
tape is placed over that to prevent electromagnetic interference. Then the and this will end up being the front of the dash camera once it's all put together. Now, the worker attaches the main circuit board to the camera board
via the ribbon cable, and again the ribbon connector is covered with a metal to the back of the board and then a heat sink is placed on top of that, and this helps keep the main circuit board cool and also allows the camera to be used
placed into a jig and it's passed over to the next worker who screws it down into the board. And notice how he uses a crisscross pattern to tighten it down >> Okay. Okay.
>> So, now the entire assembly is moved to the next step, and that's to install the ribbon cable is connected to the main board, and then the board's pushed all a piece of insulating material is added over the heat sink, and then in the
mesh sponge is added which both flow through it. Now, the wires for the speaker could be plugged into the main board so that just snaps in right there. And then the front lens area of the
plastic case, and there should be two distinct clicks. That's one, and that's the other. And now this is starting to look like a dash camera. to the Wi-Fi antenna and then the board is mounted into the camera. Then the
plastic piece that the LCD screen mounts to is inserted into the case and that pattern and this holds all the internal parts into the case. >> Next, the connector for the windshield mount is installed on top of the camera
and that's also screwed into place in a crisscross pattern. Now the LCD display is connected to the display board. Then metal mesh tape is added over the ribbon connector and then the display is mounted into the camera.
needs to be tested so the display is held in temporarily with tape. Next, the the camera and then the camera is plugged in and turned on. And this as making sure the camera is recording audio and video and even making sure the
the table next to the camera. That way if your car is parked and gets hit, you start recording. So there's a lot of different tests being done here. Now at to make sure the Wi-Fi is working properly. So the lid is closed on this
special container which blocks all the outside Wi-Fi signals and that allows to be tested. Now once the dash cameras pass the Wi-Fi test, they're loaded up get done and I was actually very surprised they do this. All right, so
sealed up permanently is done in this room here. So a worker plugs in all the newly assembled dash cameras that way they could record video. And there are a lot of cameras in here and it is toasty. Check this out. If you look over here,
the thermometer says it's 34 Celsius which is about 93 Fahrenheit. So the idea of this room, it basically simulates the inside of a hot car. Now the [music] brand discovered that most of the dash camera failures happen in
to test every camera for at least 3 hours. And this is also a good place to test to make sure your voice commands work. Take a photo. Turn off screen. Turn on screen.
And that's really cool. Okay, so once the dash cameras are done with their testing, the last step is to get the display cover on and this is done in a amount of dust there is. So first the worker removes the clear plastic
backing of the double-sided tape and then the camera is blasted with air to the clear cover is placed over the back of the camera sealing everything in and this is the end of the assembly line. So with our screen installed, we have
officially built an entire dash camera. Now there's one thing left to do and can put it in a box and ship it to the customer. And that is done right here in the packaging room. So the packaging assembly line starts with the boxes and
this worker's job is to inspect each box to make sure it's not damaged and the window stickers are added to the box and the language all depends on which They also include a clear plastic film for mounting the camera to the
windshield and a microfiber towel. Next in this box are the power cable and some foam to safely hold the dash camera for shipping. And speaking of cameras, worker's job is to clean the screen to make sure there's no fingerprints or
protective plastic cover with the quick cameras are done, it's moved to the next step. Here the camera is placed into a then that's placed inside the foam in the box.
ChrisFix keychain in a few hundred of these boxes. So if you get one, let me know. Then a pamphlet, instruction manual, and app QR codes are added to the box and finally the box is closed and weighed. Each model camera has a
target weight, in this case 590 g. If it's too heavy, there might be something something's missing. So this is a great way to make sure there's no missing parts. Then the last thing to do is add an anti-tamper sticker. That way when
brand new sealed from the factory. And I also added one of my own stickers to mark the camera we made from start to finish. And finally the box goes through wrapped in plastic and then hot air shrinks it tight around the box. Then
make sure the packaging is complete and everything looks good. So, there you go. We just made a dash camera from start to finish. How cool is that? Now, let's head home and get this installed. And just like that, I am back home and now
you know how dash cameras are made. So, if you need a dash camera, I'll be sure description and top comment so you could easily find it. It's a great value and know what went into it, which I think is really cool. Now, I do want to thank
Vantrue very much for being an amazing host. This was my first ever time in China. I was definitely out of my comfort zone and they made it possible. assembly line was going and I had to take video and they stopped stuff that
could see how dash cameras are made. Now, I'm going to go get this installed installing the turbo and making the how to turbocharge your car video you've listening pleasure, here's a little taste after all these years. Let's rip
taste after all these years. Let's rip it.
hope you guys enjoyed it. If you did, remember to give it a thumbs up. And if modified, consider hitting that subscribe button. And finally, I'll link and in the top comment [music] that way you could easily find it.