Cellink B beeps once, charge light comes on, beeps twice, goes off - repeats

DarkSky

Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
47
Reaction score
2
Country
Canada
Dash cam: Thinkware F770 with hardwire kit
Cellink B battery (the newer model, not the old one that charges off car battery)
Truck: 2007 Chevy Avalanche LTZ

I've located an accessory-only power space (pin) in a power distribution block under the dash. There's about 6 bare pins. Bottom left is only on while truck is on. Top right should be ground, according to my diagram.

Using a voltmeter, that power spade has power when the truck is on, none when the truck is off. So it's an accessory-only power supply (which is what I need).

I tried grounding the voltmeter to a ground bolt on the vehicle body and touching the power spade - 11.8V when truck is off (the door and dome lights are on), about 13.7V when the truck is running. Then, I contorted my body to get in and touched the black wire of the voltmeter to the ground spade while touching the accessory power spade - same thing: around 12V when truck is off, 13.7 V when it's running. So it looks like that is indeed the correct ground spade and correct accessory-power spade.

The dash cam runs ok off the battery, so my connection to/from Cellink <> dashcam seems to be good.

When I turn the truck on, the Cellink beeps once, the red CHARGE light comes on, then it beeps twice, and the light goes off (and the CHARGED green light doesn't come on either - both lights are off).

When I plug the Cellink into the cigarette lighter with the other cord it came with, it charges fine and has the green CHARGED light come on when it's charged.

What could be possible problems?

Video:

 
Last edited:
One plus two beeps is a fault condition.

"Top right should be ground" doesnt sound right or do you mean constant 12v+? Ground should be to the body of the car.

Can you show a vid of the hardwiring?
 
Last edited:
One plus two beeps is a fault condition.

"Top right should be ground" doesnt sound right or do you mean constant 12v+? Ground should be to the body of the car.

Can you show a vid of the hardwiring?

It's not a fuse that I'm connecting to - it's a power distribution block where harnesses plug in to (and obviously one of the connections a harness will need is ground, since all the wiring is in the harness).

They're called spade connectors. They're spade-shaped pins. And I have female spade connectors crimped to my ACC and BATT wires of the Cellink, which slide over the spades in the truck's power supply: http://images.oreillyauto.com/parts/img/large/cti/85552-007.jpg

Here's a diagram of it:
 

Attachments

  • temp.jpg
    temp.jpg
    90 KB · Views: 83
And here's my power block :
 

Attachments

  • 20161211_102124a.jpg
    20161211_102124a.jpg
    478 KB · Views: 13
Here's a photo of my hardwiring kit connected to the Cellink's wires.

BUT THESE SEEM TO BE FINE: the dash cam works perfectly when connected with them, and the Cellink is plugged into the cig. lighter of my battery booster pack. (and yes, the red connects to yellow, and yellow to red, because for some reason the people who made the hardwire kit decided to make them opposite, don't ask me why :) )
 

Attachments

  • hardwire.jpg
    hardwire.jpg
    244.1 KB · Views: 14
Ok i see...that block might be a polarity switching circuit like for a door lock.

Probe with the circuit ON and see if the polarity is correct.
 
When the cellink is beeping, pull the terminals off. Get your voltmeter and stick the red probe into the ACC pin and Black probe to Ground.

If it reads -12v then the polarity is reversed.

Any reason to why your using the junction block instead of the fuse box? Junction boxes can have control circuits in them making them unsuitable.

EDIT: Also on the forum that you linked you mentioned you are only getting 10.45v which is a bit low. Can you start the engine and retest the voltage?
 
Last edited:
When the cellink is beeping, pull the terminals off. Get your voltmeter and stick the red probe into the ACC pin and Black probe to Ground.

If it reads -12v then the polarity is reversed.

Any reason to why your using the junction block instead of the fuse box? Junction boxes can have control circuits in them making them unsuitable.

There's no ACC fuses in the fuse box in the truck cab - they're all always-on fuses (ie: BATTery fuses). The only actual fuses that are ACC are located in the fuse box that's under the hood in the engine compartment, and I really don't want to have to run a wire from there, across part of the compartment, drill through the firewall, etc.

EDIT: Also on the forum that you linked you mentioned you are only getting 10.45v which is a bit low. Can you start the engine and retest the voltage?

10.45V is when it's turned to ACC and the engine is off - there was a lot of draw on it. Dome lights, fan, car stereo DVD deck, 2 amps, 1 farad capacitor for subwoofer, etc.. Heck just running the power through the stereo components alone draws a lot. So the 12+ V of the battery drops down when it's running accessories off the battery alone without the alternator powering the system.
 
When the cellink is beeping, pull the terminals off. Get your voltmeter and stick the red probe into the ACC pin and Black probe to Ground.

If it reads -12v then the polarity is reversed.

Ok, but if I pull the power terminals of the Cellink off the truck's power, the beeping will stop because the Cellink will have no power connection. The Cellink WILL NOT power the dash cam without a input power connected to it. I have the Cellink and dashcam down here on the work table with me. If I plug in the dash cam to the Cellink output without input power to the Cellink battery, it will not start recording. But as soon as I plug in the cig. lighter input power to a 12V output source (like my battery booster here which has a 12V socket), the Cellink beeps and the Charge light comes on AND the dash cam powers up and starts recording. If I unplug the input power from the Cellink, the dash cam will keep recording. It will just not turn on the dash cam until input power is connected to the Cellink battery. In other words, the Cellink will power the dashcam fine even if input power is unplugged, but it will not turn on the dash cam until input power is connected.

And I have put the red contact of the voltmeter to the hot source in the truck (the spade/pin on the power block) and the black wire on a truck ground bolt, and like I said, it reads around 11V with truck off, keys turned to ACC, and about 13.5/13.7V with the truck running. (again, 11V being low when the engine isn't running, because of other electronics drawing from the system)

??
 
And I have put the red contact of the voltmeter to the hot source in the truck (the spade/pin on the power block) and the black wire on a truck ground bolt

Yeap pulling off the cellink is just for testing purposes. So do you have the black contact to the ground pin in the block?

Btw theres rubber grommets in the firewall you can run the wire through.
 
Yeap pulling off the cellink is just for testing purposes. So do you have the black contact to the ground pin in the block?

Yes - in that block, the pin at the bottom row, far left, is powered when key is in ACCessory position (or truck running), no power when off. The pin in the top row, far right, should be ground, according to diagram (there's no power running through it at any time - although IT DID show something like 0.3V for a flash when I first connected the voltmeter to it). So, on that block, bottom left corner pin is ACC, top right corner pin is (should be) ground.

Btw theres rubber grommets in the firewall you can run the wire through.

Yah, there's a big bundle of wires going through one grommet but they're so tightly packed I dont' think I'd be able to squeeze anything more in there.

I think I'm going to try attaching the Cellink input power back up to the truck but use a ground BOLT instead of that pin in the power block. The power pin seems to be fine.
 
Last edited:
Problem possibly fixed? (I don't want to jinx myself) :

If you look at this diagram below (which I was using), it has the BOTTOM LEFT terminal marked as accessory. So I was just using that. As I said in this thread, it just makes the Cellink battery beep once then twice, pause, repeat.

Just for the hell of it I tried connecting to the TOP LEFT terminal, which is marked "IGNITION" in the diagram. Viola: the Cellink powered up when I turned on the truck, went to the red CHARGE light for a second, then switched over to the green CHARGED light and stayed there (I had fully charged the Cellink inside the house a few hours earlier).

So it looks like TOP left terminal is my power source, not bottom left.

But they both show in the range of 13.7V when the truck is running, and 0V when the truck is not. Why would one work with the Cellink and one not???

Oh yah.. and to scare the hell out of me, I noticed a big glaring red ((!)) lit up on my dash. I'm figuring I've fried the whole electrical system. Turns out it was to tell me my parking brake was on , which I pushed the pedal down on yesterday to make more room for working in that area. SHEESH!

So, 2 terminals that have the same power, both only when the truck is running. Only one of them works properly with the Cellink. Ideas why?

temp-jpg.28029
 
IT'S WORKING!

Here's the install. I have the Cellink B battery mounted on top of the power distribution box cover with 3M tape/velcro. I have all the extra wire stuffed into my side fuse box.

Battery comes on when truck is turned on, dash cam powers up, starts continuous recording. Battery goes from red charge light, to green charged.

Turning off truck turns off battery lights, dash cam says "Parking mode recording started" after about 30 seconds of truck being off.

FINGERS CROSSED! :D :D

dashcam-001-jpg.28082


dashcam-002-jpg.28083


dashcam-003-jpg.28084
 

Attachments

  • dashcam-001.jpg
    dashcam-001.jpg
    234.1 KB · Views: 73
  • dashcam-002.jpg
    dashcam-002.jpg
    100.9 KB · Views: 73
  • dashcam-003.jpg
    dashcam-003.jpg
    133.4 KB · Views: 75
Back
Top