0806 Bugs

[Dez]

I'll perform an autopsy on the dead one I have to hopefully be able to help identify the reason for this current problem.

FIXED!!

I completely stripped my 0806 and found a dodgy solder joint on a transistor on the CPU/NAND/sensor/lens PCB.
When I had tried to power it on, while apart, only the green LED lit up very dimly and the CPU heatsink would get very warm.
The dimly lit green LED could not be seen when the 0806 was together.

Luckily there is SMD rework equipment where I work, so I was able to fix this and a few other minor problems very easily.
With a lot of care, a fine tipped soldering iron, magnifier, flux and fine desolder braid can possibly be used.
In the 1st instance, it would be much better to return under warranty before pulling a 0806 apart.

When the 0806 was back together, nothing worked when attempting to power up.
It would only be detected as an unknown USB device on a Windows PC. The drivers for DirectUSB didn't work.

Holding down both the "Up" and "Down" buttons, pressing and holding the power button and connecting to USB lit up the Red LED and allowed the 0806 to be correctly detected in Windows. "Init dram OK" came up once connected in DirectUSB.

I downloaded the elf file to the 0806 (instead of "upload" as in the un-brick guide). It successfully completed (green bar at 100% and leaving for several minutes)
I disconnected and restarted the 0806 with a microSD with the latest firmware.

The firmware loaded correctly........and I once again had a fully functional 0806.

From my experience, I believe the "Recover Bricked Mini 0806 Camera" guide is incorrect in parts and misleading. "Upload" would only always result in errors for me.
I don't know if it is correct for an earlier iteration of the 0806, but do know it isn't for my 2nd batch 0806.

For other people having major problems (a dead 0806), it might be worth trying the button sequence as per above with DirectUSB.
For those that can at least get a Red LED, hold down the "Up" button and connect the USB cable when using DirectUSB.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my earlier problem with GPS metadata overlay/subtitle, you are all correct.
I didn't have the same playback problem with Windows media players and was able to get it sorted on my Linux machines.

 

[Rayman.Chan]

great research, Dez!

 

[Dez]

Thanks Rayman.

The 0806 is excellent once a few minor bugs are sorted out. I will buy another for my wife's car from the next batch.

 

[Mega]

I like the camera, but I have a few issues, some might be firmware, some might be hardware, not sure:

1. GPS has never worked. I have it set to the green light, and the light has never turned on, and speed stamp is always 0 MPH. I meant to buy the GPS version, but I'm not sure how to tell. I read on here the mount is heavier, but it's already glued to my windshield. Here is what I ordered: http://www.dealsmachine.com/best_218793.html (GPS is in the description). The SKU sticker on my box has this one it:
   E-D14-B4-104
   116724501
   15.02.02()
   
   
2. Occasionally instead of powering on when I start the car, it will say "USB Connecting..." with a blue screen. All I can do is power it off and back on which fixes it. But if I don't notice that, it won't record anything.
   
   
3. This I'm pretty sure can be fixed in firmware: I have the motion sensor set pretty sensitive, so when I enter the car and shut the door, it starts up. If I start the car before it shuts back down, I'm usually fine, but if not, and it does the shut down sound around the time I'm starting the car, it will just stay off. So I'd say the firmware needs to understand if the camera has received power, it should turn on or stay on regardless of what state it's in.

 

[Nigel]

I like the camera, but I have a few issues, some might be firmware, some might be hardware, not sure:

1. GPS has never worked. I have it set to the green light, and the light has never turned on, and speed stamp is always 0 MPH. I meant to buy the GPS version, but I'm not sure how to tell. I read on here the mount is heavier, but it's already glued to my windshield. Here is what I ordered: http://www.dealsmachine.com/best_218793.html (GPS is in the description). The SKU sticker on my box has this one it:
   E-D14-B4-104
   116724501
   15.02.02()
   
   
2. Occasionally instead of powering on when I start the car, it will say "USB Connecting..." with a blue screen. All I can do is power it off and back on which fixes it. But if I don't notice that, it won't record anything.
   
   
3. This I'm pretty sure can be fixed in firmware: I have the motion sensor set pretty sensitive, so when I enter the car and shut the door, it starts up. If I start the car before it shuts back down, I'm usually fine, but if not, and it does the shut down sound around the time I'm starting the car, it will just stay off. So I'd say the firmware needs to understand if the camera has received power, it should turn on or stay on regardless of what state it's in.

1. With the base on the glass, it may still be possible to remove the screws and look inside to see if there is a GPS receiver, very fiddly though as they are very small screws when they are above your head! Probably best to warm the glue up with a hairdryer and very slowly pull the base off the glass and then weigh it. Don't overdo the heating in cold weather as you risk cracking the glass but a bit of extra warmth can make it reasonably easy to remove a recently applied base and the sticky pad is then fully reusable.

2. Someone else had that issue recently, I think they solved it by fitting a hardwire kit which they were going to do anyway. It was caused by the way the voltage dropped when the power was cut during starting, if you have an accessory socket which doesn't cut power when starting the engine then that will also sort the problem.

3. Are you running the latest firmware? I was having the same problem but not recently, although currently I've got my parking guard on medium so maybe it is that which fixed it.

 

[Mega]

1. With the base on the glass, it may still be possible to remove the screws and look inside to see if there is a GPS receiver, very fiddly though as they are very small screws when they are above your head! Probably best to warm the glue up with a hairdryer and very slowly pull the base off the glass and then weigh it. Don't overdo the heating in cold weather as you risk cracking the glass but a bit of extra warmth can make it reasonably easy to remove a recently applied base and the sticky pad is then fully reusable.

Honestly, I am pretty happy with the camera and the way I mounted it. So I'll prolly just keep it as-is regardless if I should or should not have the GPS feature. I can change the green light to "mic" and remove the MPH stamping, and then worst case, I paid a few extra dollars. But I got a good price. I was just hoping maybe someone would know based on the SKU number or if there was something dumb I was doing to disable the GPS.

2. Someone else had that issue recently, I think they solved it by fitting a hardwire kit which they were going to do anyway. It was caused by the way the voltage dropped when the power was cut during starting, if you have an accessory socket which doesn't cut power when starting the engine then that will also sort the problem.

It seemed to happen more the first week I had it. I haven't see this happen in over a week. Maybe the power cord extension I add will have an affect as it will be plugged into a different cigarette lighter receptacle.

3. Are you running the latest firmware? I was having the same problem but not recently, although currently I've got my parking guard on medium so maybe it is that which fixed it.

I do have the latest firmware. It happened again today, and this time I started the car right after I shut the door. Then after the car was running I heard the "shut down" sound. I reached over and powered it back on and it started to record. Annoying. I don't really need it to record when I slam the door, I just haven't bothered to try changing the sensitivity. So I'll set to medium and report back. But I still think this is a software issue that could be fixed.

Thanks Nigel for the reply. All that info was very helpful.

 

[Nigel]

I do have the latest firmware. It happened again today, and this time I started the car right after I shut the door. Then after the car was running I heard the "shut down" sound. I reached over and powered it back on and it started to record. Annoying. I don't really need it to record when I slam the door, I just haven't bothered to try changing the sensitivity. So I'll set to medium and report back. But I still think this is a software issue that could be fixed.

Yes, it is annoying and definitely it needs fixing, I did report it before the cameras were released and a couple of times since but I suspect the engineers might be working on getting things working with the new Parking Guard Mount instead, presumably that will have a similar issue and end up in the wrong mode unless they have worked out a solution.

If medium doesn't work, you can always just wait for the shutdown chime before starting your engine! That's not very satisfactory either but it does solve the problem.

 

[Mega]

Quick update. Medium works almost all the time. I think it's happened once since I changed it to medium (prolly cause I slammed the door a bit harder than normal). I wonder if I change it to high if it will not be sensitive enough to start recording if someone bumps my car... that was the reason I wanted this enabled in the first place.

The "USB Connecting..." problem has not happened in a long time, and I didn't even change anything. It happened a lot before I updated the firmware, but it's happened at least once since. I'm still hoping adding the extension and moving to a different outlet will fix this.

 

[Mega]

So, I'm not sure what's going on, but I set the motion detection to high so it would stop turning on when I shut the door (which would be fine if it didn't shut off after I start the car)... and for some odd reason it seems to turn on even more often when I shut the door than it did on medium or low. So, I just turned off motion. Kinda sad, but I'd rather it always record when I drive than have a small chance of recording a wreck or vandalism from the front while it's parked. I'll play with those settings again next time I update the firmware I guess.

 

[Nigel]

So, I'm not sure what's going on, but I set the motion detection to high so it would stop turning on when I shut the door (which would be fine if it didn't shut off after I start the car)... and for some odd reason it seems to turn on even more often when I shut the door than it did on medium or low. So, I just turned off motion. Kinda sad, but I'd rather it always record when I drive than have a small chance of recording a wreck or vandalism from the front while it's parked. I'll play with those settings again next time I update the firmware I guess.

Maybe high is high sensitivity?

I tried both high and low and couldn't work out which was the more sensitive so I asked Rayman to put the answer in the user manual. I find the sensitivity a bit random, sometimes it triggers on closing the door, sometimes it doesn't. It always responds to a sharp tap on the glass though.

If it does wake up then I wait for it to shut down again before starting the engine which solves the problem but it does need to be sorted, it seems to me like the biggest bug the 0806 has since it is the only reason the camera ever needs attention...

 

[Mega]

Maybe high is high sensitivity?...

I'm glad I'm not the only one baffled by this. Medium seemed less sensitive than High. But Low was where I started and it also seemed more sensitive than Medium. But anyway, I'm done messing with it, so OFF for now. I'll try again after the next firmware release. If the devs read this maybe we'll get a fix.

Here is my pseud-code for the fix hehe:

If unit receives power while powering on, don't start a shutdown timer.

If unit receives power while recording, cancel the shutdown timer that was started.

If unit receives power while shutting down, start back up again.

 

[Nigel]

Here is my pseud-code for the fix hehe:

If unit receives power while powering on, don't start a shutdown timer.

If unit receives power while recording, cancel the shutdown timer that was started.

If unit receives power while shutting down, start back up again.

I'm guessing they got stuck on the last one because that bit of code never runs!

They did sort the "If power was already on then stay on." for me, so if it shuts down after you start the engine you can just give it a tap to start it again, unfortunately that fix sometimes locks up and needs a reset. Even worse, you have to remove the camera from the mount before the reset will actually work and then be very careful not to trigger the parking guard again while putting it back on the mount!

Hopefully it will all be sorted when the parking guard mount arrives...

 

[nomen nescio]

TI don't know if this can be considered as a bug but when I use the mini 0806 and my very old TomTom Go (still with an SD card), the TomTom Go GPS receiver doesn't work. It can't find any satellites. I have to disconnect the power cable from the dashcam mount in order to make the TomTom Go make connections with the satellites.

Also, the GPS of the 0806 is very unreliable and unaccurate. The GPS only works from time to time and when it does, the speed fluctuates constantly, e.g. going from 50km/h to 73km/h and back to 62 km/h in a few seconds, while I'm driving at a constant speed. Also in the software, when watching a video clip and when the GPS is available, the location where I'm driving on the map is totally off, by miles, in comparison with where I'm driving at that moment.

Love my two 0806 though, ..... so far.