Video dash cameras

[StuartO]

John52 - 2021-08-15 10:54 AM

 

StuartO - 2021-08-15 10:18 AM

 

I suspect something was sprayed a bit too liberally on the camera.)

Yes I discovered you have to be careful what you spray on the dash. :$

I used spray dashboard cleaner/polish on the Ducato touchscreen radio and it went haywire. I only got it working again by disconnecting the van battery overnight and cleaning the touchscreen with meths.

 

The camera which failed on me didn’t have a touch screen and instead a row of buttons which could have allowed spray to penetrate. I took it to bits and the mechanical button connections were indirect to switches on what was effectively the motherboard but there were tiny surface-mounted contacts and clearly nothing I could do to clean or repair. These modern devices are not amenable to DIY repairs but at least they are getting cheaper! I decided that a rear-facing lens was not really necessary and so the simpler replacement Nextbase model cost under £80 compared with the £160 I paid for the one which failed.

[Bulletguy]

 

I've got a Mio MiVue 538 which has GPS. Picture clarity is superb, even night time or low light conditions. I run it from the cig lighter though I once forgot to disconnect it and it drained the battery within days. The hard wire kit avoids this happening and you can leave it running 24/7. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/312640342769

 

My only gripe is each time you disconnect the cam you need to reset time and date which is a bit of a faff and I imagine applies to all dvr cams.

[Deneb]

Bulletguy - 2021-08-15 2:15 PM

 

My only gripe is each time you disconnect the cam you need to reset time and date which is a bit of a faff and I imagine applies to all dvr cams.

No it doesn't. That's the reason many of them have an internal battery as mentioned above. It maintains the clock and other settings when the vehicle is parked and the camera is off/no vehicle power source. As long as you don't turn the camera on when running on internal battery power alone, it should maintain the settings for days or weeks, depending on the camera. The battery is recharged when the camera switches on under the vehicle power source. But as with all batteries that discharge and recharge, they can fail eventually.

 

Early Transcend dashcams had a capacitor in place of a battery, which would only maintain settings for a few days. Later models have a battery pack with soldered connections to the circuit board. I would imagine many others are similar, as replacement battery packs for a variety of dashcams can be sourced on ebay and similar sites.

[Bulletguy]

Deneb - 2021-08-15 2:39 PM

 

Bulletguy - 2021-08-15 2:15 PM

 

My only gripe is each time you disconnect the cam you need to reset time and date which is a bit of a faff and I imagine applies to all dvr cams.

No it doesn't. That's the reason many of them have an internal battery as mentioned above. It maintains the clock and other settings when the vehicle is parked and the camera is off/no vehicle power source.

My cam won't and it has an internal battery. If it's switched off overnight then the following day the clock will need resetting.

 

I see your cam is an entirely different make to mine.

[tonyishuk]

Most clocks related to sat nags reset to the correct time once the satellite signal is picked up?

 

The clock setting being a function of the time zone you are in, so maybe an hour out with BST.

 

Rgds

[Deneb]

Bulletguy - 2021-08-15 3:33 PM

 

My cam won't and it has an internal battery. If it's switched off overnight then the following day the clock will need resetting.

 

I see your cam is an entirely different make to mine.

Then the battery may not be holding a charge. Same symptoms happened on earlier versions of mine that used a capacitor, which only held power for a short time.