My dashcam drained my battery..

[Nigel]

AGM batteries are the better type and will put up with more abuse than cheaper wet lead acid batteries

More important than putting up with abuse is that AGM batteries charge faster so get closer to being full, which is both better for recording time and better for the lifespan of the battery.

 

[HonestReview]

I have a 2 year old car with an A129 dashcam that I just got two days ago. I have the official Viofo hardwire kit with the voltage cutoff at the second to last switch from the left (The one that says 12v/24v). The second day the car started up perfectly with no issues, instant on. But when I went into my car today the camera was still on which seemed normal since it was on the first day but when I went to turn the car on it was just completely dead. Nothing. It had power to the lights and accessories, but when I went to turn on the ignition it just struggled just barely but couldn't push through for more than a second. The parking mode is on low bit rate recording and I also updated the software to v1.5 as per the Viofo website the day I got the cam.

I am 100% confident I installed the camera correctly. I had the ACC switch in a fuse that is on only with the car on and the battery cable plugged into a fuse with constant power. I also had an bare bolt in the fuse area perfect for a ground for the black cable. I also consulted with my friend who had a dashcam hardwired and said it was good.

I am getting a jump-start in the morning from my friend but I am not sure what happened! The battery is still pretty new only being 2 years old and this issue coincided with the dashcam install. Is something up with the hardwire kit? Has this happened to anyone else??

Ya no doubt it drained your battery...Because you never set the cutoff below 12.2! 50%....Anything lower and your car won't start.

 

[HonestReview]

Normally a 12.0v battery will start a car without difficulty, either the camera hadn't turned off until below 12.0v, or it was very cold, or the battery is faulty. Seems unlikely the battery is faulty, if it was then the camera probably wouldn't still have been recording.

We need some more information. What was the temperature, what was the actual battery voltage, and what type of battery is it?

You can measure battery voltage either with a multimeter, or with an OBD reader...

No way!

12.6 = 100% battery life / new battery
12.4 = 75%
12.2 = 50 %
12.0 = 25%

Anyone setting their cutoff below 12.2 is asking for trouble! Keeping battery at 25% is likely to leave you stranded.

 

[Nigel]

...Because you never set the cutoff below 12.2! 50%....Anything lower and your car won't start.

Rubbish, my car will start at 11.3V or above, has done many times, battery isn't actually empty until 11.0.

(Note: I do have an AGM battery and I don't recommend taking it below 11.8V, or a standard lead acid battery bellow 12.0, - not good for the life of the battery, but you definitely don't need 12.2 to start the car, unless the temperature is -40C or below!)

 

[quetzalquatl]

@HonestReview
Following your figures.
What for is the cut off 11.8V? Original 3 wire from Viofo.?

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[Regal]

My starter battery is a Varta 60aH. At the moment it's between 5 (at night) and 20 (day) degree celsius outside.
The A129 is now running in low bitrate parking mode and the battery goes from 12.8 or 12.7 (after driving) to 12.2 to 12.2. volt. I'm driving everyday for like 60 minutes and 30 kilometers.
What do you guys think will this damage the starter battery or shorten it's lifetime?

 

[Nigel]

My starter battery is a Varta 60aH. At the moment it's between 5 (at night) and 20 (day) degree celsius outside.
The A129 is now running in low bitrate parking mode and the battery goes from 12.8 or 12.7 (after driving) to 12.2 to 12.2. volt. I'm driving everyday for like 60 minutes and 30 kilometers.
What do you guys think will this damage the starter battery or shorten it's lifetime?

Yes, the lifetime will be shortened, but the extra cost of replacing it 1 year early is probably a lot less than the cost of installing a CellLink or equivalent powerbank specifically for parking mode, and of course any powerbank will also have it's life shortened by use!

 

[quetzalquatl]

I feel like here some persons have strange expectations from their cams. Correct me if I am wrong.
I buy a dash cam. I have two ways to power it. A separate power bank or car's battery. I choose battery. I even install a hardwire kit. My goal to record events around the car is achieved. Parking mode. Thrilled. But, wait a minute... This dash cam consume my battery. I'm concerned. What can I do? Stop the cam.


So... don't we already know that the cam will need power to run when we bought it? Now we are trying to see who, why, where, what consume the battery.... [emoji2371]. It is NORMAL to deplete the battery, isn't it?

Next question will be:
Is there a dash cam that can charge my car's battery?

Well, I'm happy with my cam. It will consume faster my battery? For sure. Am I concerned? Hell no. I bought it being aware of all this. Install the thing and let it run. As I said, hopefully never need to check the recordings.

Peace [emoji1308]

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[skansen]

Fore some applications like @quetzalquatl 's powering from car battery is good.

For others applications, if car was suffering from low battery before/the car is on the guarantee or leased and hardwiring is prohibited/camera stops recording due to low battery/car is diesel and climate zone is cold/car is hybrid or electric and 12V battery is small etc. power bank will be good choice...

There is no universal answer on question what is better. It all depends on different factors..

So it's why in one of my installations I hardwired into car battery, and for other I decided to use dedicated power bank...

Power banks have two main disadvantages - price and limited time of powering in parking mode. For Cellink Neo6 / B-124 it's about 24 hours, can by extended up to 48hours by doubling the battery (and price). There is no problem of reducing lifespan - lifespan of LiFePO4 is 2000-3000 cycles.

 

[Regal]

@quetzalquatl
It seems like you completely misunderstood my question, or should I say misinterpretating it on purpose.

I just wanted to know if I damage my car battery fast, I don't know what I can expect for the battery life now. Other people on dashcamtalk are way more experienced, that's why I'm asking, that's what such a community is for by the way, so there is absolutely no reason to be such a smart ass.

If my starter battery, powering a dashcam lasts for let's say five years instead of ten years, which it would last without powering a dashcam, I'm fine. But if I have to buy a new starter battery every year because of the dashcam, I will try to find a better solution, simple as that.

 

[skansen]

My starter battery is a Varta 60aH. At the moment it's between 5 (at night) and 20 (day) degree celsius outside.
The A129 is now running in low bitrate parking mode and the battery goes from 12.8 or 12.7 (after driving) to 12.2 to 12.2. volt. I'm driving everyday for like 60 minutes and 30 kilometers.
What do you guys think will this damage the starter battery or shorten it's lifetime?

Assuming that you are driving 1 hour/day and required parking mode time is 23h/day hardwire from car battery will not destroy battery. Cut-off voltage set on 12V (or higher) should not cause problems with cranking.
However, in winter hardwire will cut-of power faster than in summer. So higher risk is risk of loosing opportunity of recording something important rather than technical problems...

 

[SawMaster]

I've got a rather large battery and my cam records 24/7. I do drive daily, the least being two 20 minute trips but usually 30 minutes or more each trip. As best I can tell being very familiar with my vehicle this practice will reduce my battery's service life about 20%. Doing the math it's under $0.25 per day and IMHO the protection is well worth that much. I've never checked the voltage so I can't offer specs, but if your starter's speed is noticeably reduced you are doing more harm to your battery than me, that could reduce it's life 50% or more, and that cost could be significant. Based on what I glean from others you should never drop below 12v, 12.2v is acceptable, and ideal is 12.4v.

The trade-off is in recording time which with 12.4v might not be 2 hours. 12.2v might give you 3-4 hours, and 12v won't get you much more time than that. Your cost will vary by the type of battery your car has. Mine is one of the more inexpensive sizes, but some kinds are expensive and that must always be a consideration. For longer recording times or the more expensive batteries using a powerbank will be the cheaper option, and has the added benefit of knowing your car will start when you need it to.

The choice is yours of how much cam protection time you want and how you'll pay for it. Nothing is free and only you can decide on something's value to you.

Phil

 

[HonestReview]

Rubbish, my car will start at 11.3V or above, has done many times, battery isn't actually empty until 11.0.

(Note: I do have an AGM battery and I don't recommend taking it below 11.8V, or a standard lead acid battery bellow 12.0, - not good for the life of the battery, but you definitely don't need 12.2 to start the car, unless the temperature is -40C or below!)

You clearly have NO IDEA what you're talking about man! 11.8 = DEAD......at 11.8 You're towing the car....

https://www.researchgate.net/post/what_is_the_minimum_voltage_needed_to_start_a_car

Here is the guideline for battery health report (in general) that also answers your question:

Battery Voltage Available charge
12.66v . . . . . . . . . . 100%
12.45v . . . . . . . . . . 75%
12.24v . . . . . . . . . . 50%
12.06v . . . . . . . . . . 25%
11.89v . . . . . . . . . . 0%

 

[Nigel]

You clearly have NO IDEA what you're talking about man! 11.8 = DEAD......at 11.8 You're towing the car....

https://www.researchgate.net/post/what_is_the_minimum_voltage_needed_to_start_a_car

Here is the guideline for battery health report (in general) that also answers your question:

Battery Voltage Available charge
12.66v . . . . . . . . . . 100%
12.45v . . . . . . . . . . 75%
12.24v . . . . . . . . . . 50%
12.06v . . . . . . . . . . 25%
11.89v . . . . . . . . . . 0%

I could give you a demonstration of my car starting on 11.3V if you came over the water...

In normal use, with nothing draining your battery overnight, 11.89V would indicate that a standard car battery has reached the end of it's life and has insufficient capacity left, or alternatively that the alternator is dead. But a battery that has not reached the end of its life is not empty at 11.8V. How empty it is depends on what type of battery it is and what condition it is in, and whether it will start the car or not also depends on how much power is required to turn the engine - a 300Kg diesel engine using ultra high pressure direct injection and compression ignition takes considerably more power than my 89Kg petrol engine using spark ignition.

The Viofo hardwire kit has different voltage settings for good reasons, one of them being that an AGM battery starting a small petrol engine will have no problem with 11.8V, while a old fashioned lead acid battery will struggle to start a big diesel in -30°C temperatures at 12.2V.

 

[Nigel]

@quetzalquatl
It seems like you completely misunderstood my question, or should I say misinterpretating it on purpose.

I just wanted to know if I damage my car battery fast, I don't know what I can expect for the battery life now. Other people on dashcamtalk are way more experienced, that's why I'm asking, that's what such a community is for by the way, so there is absolutely no reason to be such a smart ass.

If my starter battery, powering a dashcam lasts for let's say five years instead of ten years, which it would last without powering a dashcam, I'm fine. But if I have to buy a new starter battery every year because of the dashcam, I will try to find a better solution, simple as that.

If you are going to use your car battery, you should make sure that it gets filled to 100.00% full at least once every 3 months, then it should still have a long life. To get to 100.00% full may require over 6 hours of charging since the last bit is very slow, so if you don't make any long journeys it is worth investing in a decent battery charger to give your battery a service every 2 months or so. Battery life in normal use seems to be quite random anyway, there is no guarantee that a battery will last 10 years, it may only last 5 years or last 15 years, it's not uncommon for them to only last 3 years and be replaced under warrentee!

 

[quetzalquatl]

@quetzalquatl
It seems like...

@Regal
As I said, correct me if I am wrong.
Anyway, to have some rough data about depleting time process of your battery now is way to soon. An average battery hold well for let's say 5 years. This dash cam is on market since... IDK... last year autumn, let's say? There are not too many users/data that could give us precise info about battery type, usage period, parking settings... etc. Now is just an open discution where each of us came with some info crumbles but nothing serious (I mean documented data). We can do some math, we can assume this and that but in the end it will be different results to each one of us.
Guess the bottom line is the battery will be depleted faster than usual but this depend to a lot of individual factors.

My undocumented / non scientific opinion is that the cam will shortener the battery lifespan with +/- one year. And I'm ok with it.
And again, peace [emoji1308].

Sent from my [emoji637] [emoji809] [emoji642] using Tapatalk Pro

 

[SawMaster]

Guess the bottom line is the battery will be depleted faster than usual but this depend to a lot of individual factors.

My undocumented / non scientific opinion is that the cam will shorten the battery lifespan with +/- one year. And I'm ok with it. And again, peace [emoji1308]

I'm in agreement with this. There are a lot of factors involved so there can be no "blanket statement" which covers everything any better than this.

Based on everything I've seen I think that using the average dashcam in parking mode will reduce your average cars starting battery life 10% to 25% if you're beginning with a new battery. Based on your battery type that may be cheap like I feel it is with me, or expensive if you've got a very model-specific battery like some cars now use. The only way to avoid this kind of loss it to use another power source for parking mode and deal with any inconveniences it may cause. If you're concerned about it, you either need to learn about the battery you've got and how to not excessively strain it, or to use a powerbank- those are certainly cheap enough these days even for quality models.

FWIW, my statements about my workvan are based on being involved with this model for it's entire 16 year production run, and with older models of it that used the exact same engine, starting system, battery, and charging system for a total of 23 years. So basically my experience with these began around 1975, and while this didn't involve dashcams back then, it did include radios and other devices which produced a similar constant low-level load as a dashcam would. Among that were vans from one company which had punchcard time clocks in them which would leave you with a no-start if they sat idle for two days without charging. IIRC those clocks had a 1A draw, roughly equal to having 3 average cams running. While my "evidence" is empirical only it is certainly enough to be valid for this vehicle. And I've got lots of experience with cars using very similar systems, as V8 Fords made in the USA used basically the same system in all it's cars from the early 60's until some time in the 90's or later.

Cam current draw, battery quality, driving habits, battery age, battery type, battery maintenance, ambient temperatures and yearly climate, other battery loads, and charging system condition all play a part in this, so naturally everyone's experience will vary. Just be nice to your car's battery and then hopefully it will give you your money's worth in return

Phil

 

[HonestReview]

I could give you a demonstration of my car starting on 11.3V if you came over the water...

In normal use, with nothing draining your battery overnight, 11.89V would indicate that a standard car battery has reached the end of it's life and has insufficient capacity left, or alternatively that the alternator is dead. But a battery that has not reached the end of its life is not empty at 11.8V. How empty it is depends on what type of battery it is and what condition it is in, and whether it will start the car or not also depends on how much power is required to turn the engine - a 300Kg diesel engine using ultra high pressure direct injection and compression ignition takes considerably more power than my 89Kg petrol engine using spark ignition.

The Viofo hardwire kit has different voltage settings for good reasons, one of them being that an AGM battery starting a small petrol engine will have no problem with 11.8V, while a old fashioned lead acid battery will struggle to start a big diesel in -30°C temperatures at 12.2V.

1. Not everyone uses diesel and lead acid batteries are very common in cars using petrol / gasoline.
2. There's voltage cutoffs for a reason....Because the Camera is Parasitic. Using the system battery to stay active.
3. Telling people 11.8 or 12 is safe is not recommended...Because even in your isolated circumstance, assuming what you say is accurate, it doesn't apply to a lot of people.

 

[HonestReview]

@Regal
As I said, correct me if I am wrong.
Anyway, to have some rough data about depleting time process of your battery now is way to soon. An average battery hold well for let's say 5 years. This dash cam is on market since... IDK... last year autumn, let's say? There are not too many users/data that could give us precise info about battery type, usage period, parking settings... etc. Now is just an open discution where each of us came with some info crumbles but nothing serious (I mean documented data). We can do some math, we can assume this and that but in the end it will be different results to each one of us.
Guess the bottom line is the battery will be depleted faster than usual but this depend to a lot of individual factors.

My undocumented / non scientific opinion is that the cam will shortener the battery lifespan with +/- one year. And I'm ok with it.
And again, peace [emoji1308].

Sent from my [emoji637] [emoji809] [emoji642] using Tapatalk Pro

Depleting the battery prematurely is worth the added protection. Let's say your battery under normal use gets 5 years of life. I'd gladly take the trade off of depleting its life to 4 years, in order to record daily driving and parking. Because if an accident were ever to occur, you aren't going to give one iota about the car battery. You'll just be very happy to have a recording that PROVES what happened!

 

[HonestReview]

I'm in agreement with this. There are a lot of factors involved so there can be no "blanket statement" which covers everything any better than this.

Based on everything I've seen I think that using the average dashcam in parking mode will reduce your average cars starting battery life 10% to 25% if you're beginning with a new battery. Based on your battery type that may be cheap like I feel it is with me, or expensive if you've got a very model-specific battery like some cars now use. The only way to avoid this kind of loss it to use another power source for parking mode and deal with any inconveniences it may cause. If you're concerned about it, you either need to learn about the battery you've got and how to not excessively strain it, or to use a powerbank- those are certainly cheap enough these days even for quality models.

FWIW, my statements about my workvan are based on being involved with this model for it's entire 16 year production run, and with older models of it that used the exact same engine, starting system, battery, and charging system for a total of 23 years. So basically my experience with these began around 1975, and while this didn't involve dashcams back then, it did include radios and other devices which produced a similar constant low-level load as a dashcam would. Among that were vans from one company which had punchcard time clocks in them which would leave you with a no-start if they sat idle for two days without charging. IIRC those clocks had a 1A draw, roughly equal to having 3 average cams running. While my "evidence" is empirical only it is certainly enough to be valid for this vehicle. And I've got lots of experience with cars using very similar systems, as V8 Fords made in the USA used basically the same system in all it's cars from the early 60's until some time in the 90's or later.

Cam current draw, battery quality, driving habits, battery age, battery type, battery maintenance, ambient temperatures and yearly climate, other battery loads, and charging system condition all play a part in this, so naturally everyone's experience will vary. Just be nice to your car's battery and then hopefully it will give you your money's worth in return

Phil

End of the day, what would you rather have. A 5 year lifespan on a battery or video proof of an accident / event? I can't fathom that most people buying Dash Cameras are doing so because they want cool piece of electronics to brag about in their window. Instead it's a CYA situation (Cover Your Ass).

Individuals worried about battery drain can invest in a battery pack.....