70mai Dashcam Battery Pack - Unboxing & Review

daddoIta said:
Hello everyone, has anyone of you installed this battery pack with a no-70mai dashcam?
As next week I'll ask for a professional installment of this battery pack with my Viofo A329 2CH.
I uderstood the dascham can be connected in 2 different ways to the battery pack:

1. Via 5v USB-C port
2. Via 12v output port + the HK4 specific cable

Which is in your opinion the best approach?
Thanks in advance for the help🙂
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You have spent a fortune on a dash cam, yet you want to use a lower end $210 battery pack not optimally designed for the Viofo? I don't think this is wise. One of the risks is you won't know how long your dashcam lasts using parking sentinel mode. That's a headache!

The 70 Mai battery pack is a bare bones battery pack. You get 4 lights that indicate roughly percent power remaining. It is very crude. It is difficult to monitor power utilization unless paired with the corresponding 70 May dash cam software.

Spend the extra $150-$200 and use a recommended higher end battery pack with adjustable voltage regulation specifically tailored to work with the Viofo software. Thus, the higher end battery itself will display much more bluetooth monitoring information and can be used in concert with Viofo software. The installation guidelines will also be specific and easily followed by the installer. The installer likely won't the time it takes to train you.

Will it work with the Viofo, yes but you will never really know long your dashcam will last.

I use the 70 Mai battery pack with the Wolfbox Tripro. It works but I am never sure how long long the dash cam will last. I have figured out how to make it work but it took a lot of time. I use Wolfbox hardwire kit and the battery charged off my car alternator like most hardwired battery packs. Wolfbox lacks software to properly monitor power of the battery so it took awhile for me to feel comfortable.

If you decide to move ahead with this battery pack, get educated and on advise of experts, I hooked up the battery pack directly to the battery lead using a 20 amp fuse to prevent a potential fuse box load mismatch. That was best advise I received. Hope this helps you.

ujsc
 
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What do you mean about batteries designed for Viofos? Viofo is developing their own brand of battery, but it's not available yet and currently none of the batteries are "designed" for Viofos even though they otherwise work just fine with them. I've run Viofos off of BBMC, 70mai, Blackvue, and Cellink batteries, not to mention non-dashcam battery packs and battery stations.

Voltage cutoff isn't a big concern with dashcam batteries. That feature is primarily designed for when you're powering off your vehicle battery and you want to cut off the dashcam before you drain the car battery voltage too far so you prevent yourself from having a dead battery and not being able to restart your car next time. With dedicated batteries, that doesn't matter. They charge while you drive and then when you park, they supply as much power as possible to your dashcam.
 
Vortex Radar said:
What do you mean about batteries designed for Viofos? Viofo is developing their own brand of battery, but it's not available yet and currently none of the batteries are "designed" for Viofos even though they otherwise work just fine with them. I've run Viofos off of BBMC, 70mai, Blackvue, and Cellink batteries, not to mention non-dashcam battery packs and battery stations.

Voltage cutoff isn't a big concern with dashcam batteries. That feature is primarily designed for when you're powering off your vehicle battery and you want to cut off the dashcam before you drain the car battery voltage too far so you prevent yourself from having a dead battery and not being able to restart your car next time. With dedicated batteries, that doesn't matter. They charge while you drive and then when you park, they supply as much power as possible to your dashcam.
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I think you know what I mean. A battery with a larger capacity which is easier to monitor. The 70 Mai battery is difficult to monitor just as I said and you know it. My battery was drained after this time. I had to choose a higher voltage cutoff after that. It shouldn't have happened but I need to jump it my battery. It was installed correctly. It doesn't last as long as I hoped (less than 20h parking monitor)
 
ujsc said:
I think you know what I mean. A battery with a larger capacity which is easier to monitor. The 70 Mai battery is difficult to monitor just as I said and you know it. My battery was drained after this time. I had to choose a higher voltage cutoff after that. It shouldn't have happened but I need to jump it my battery. It was installed correctly. It doesn't last as long as I hoped (less than 20h parking monitor)
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Sorry, no, I don't know what you mean. It's true that having an app with more granular battery info, regardless of whether or not that info is accurate, can be helpful, but in no way does that make it work better in any other meaningful way. I'm not sure what voltage regulation, for example, has anything to do with monitoring the battery capacity remaining. Usually when we talk about voltage regulation, it has to do with shutting off a dashcam when the vehicle battery drops below a certain point. Are you referring to something else?
 
My battery dropped to a voltage low enough the car wouldn't start. I raised threshold voltage so the dash cam would shut off earlier
 
ujsc said:
My battery dropped to a voltage low enough the car wouldn't start. I raised threshold voltage so the dash cam would shut off earlier
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Your dashcam battery should only charge when the engine is on and it's being charged off the alternator and thus your car's starter battery is never being used to power the dashcam (or dashcam battery) while parked. That's the whole point.

You may have a wiring issue if your dashcam battery is draining the car battery to a point where your engine isn't starting. It may be a good idea to doublecheck things and ensure that the dashcam battery is not drawing power from your car battery while parked.
 
Vortex Radar said:
Your dashcam battery should only charge when the engine is on and it's being charged off the alternator and thus your car's starter battery is never being used to power the dashcam (or dashcam battery) while parked. That's the whole point.

You may have a wiring issue if your dashcam battery is draining the car battery to a point where your engine isn't starting. It may be a good idea to doublecheck things and ensure that the dashcam battery is not drawing power from your car battery while parked.
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Will check. Thank you
 
ujsc said:
Will check. Thank you
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Battery hooked up correctly. You were right about voltage regulation setting as I misinterpreted how main battery lost power. I corrected my post to prevent misinformation and to promote clarity. Drain came from elsewhere. My battery died from a light left on so this agrees with what you said. Minor issue.

I saw your video today. You said many of the same things I did here. On 70 Mai no Bluetooth monitoring of power usage. Just four blinking lights. Many higher end battery packs do. My 20+ hours agrees with your 23.5 hours before dash cam dies. I have been using 70 Mai battery pack on Tripro for 2-3 months.

I noticed that both you and I used hardwire cable and don't use USBC port on 70 Mai. Can that USBC port be used for anything?
 
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ujsc said:
Battery hooked up correctly. You were right about voltage regulation setting as I misinterpreted how main battery lost power. Drain came from elsewhere. My battery died from a light left on so this agrees with what you said. Minor issue.
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Glad you got that figured out!
ujsc said:
I saw your video today. You said many of the same things I did here. On 70 Mai no Bluetooth monitoring of power usage. Just four blinking lights. Many higher end battery packs do.
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They also cost more too, lol
ujsc said:
My 20+ hours agrees with your 23.5 hours before dash cam dies. I have been using 70 Mai battery pack on Tripro for 2-3 months.
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Oh interesting. I hadn't done any measurements on the TriPro so I'm glad to hear your numbers.
ujsc said:
I noticed that both you and I used hardwire cable and don't use USBC port on 70 Mai. Can that USBC port be used for anything?
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I've only used it for 70mai dashcams since I'm always concerned about different communication protocols being used between brands and thus some brands of dashcams many not properly switch between driving and parking mode, so I tend to prefer the 3-wire parking mode option.

I haven't done any testing to see if it'll output to both the 12v 3-wire cable and the USB port simultaneously in case you wanna do something like a separate USB powered WiFi hotspot or something, but it'd be easy enough for anyone to try and see.
 
Vortex Radar said:
Glad you got that figured out!

They also cost more too, lol

Oh interesting. I hadn't done any measurements on the TriPro so I'm glad to hear your numbers.

I've only used it for 70mai dashcams since I'm always concerned about different communication protocols being used between brands and thus some brands of dashcams many not properly switch between driving and parking mode, so I tend to prefer the 3-wire parking mode option.

I haven't done any testing to see if it'll output to both the 12v 3-wire cable and the USB port simultaneously in case you wanna do something like a separate USB powered WiFi hotspot or something, but it'd be easy enough for anyone to try and see.
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Please test and find out. Love your videos. Very tech savvy!
 
ujsc said:
Please test and find out. Love your videos. Very tech savvy!
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I’m leaving on a trip shortly and focused on finishing up high priority items. This is fairly trivial to test, and if it’s important to you, you can take the initiative to share and help the rest of us out too.
 
The 70mai battery pack has been in use since April.
I'm happy to report that it has not once caused unexpected behavior.
Even with high temperatures reaching 38°C, it happily keeps on running.
Hardwire and 12V socket both will work just fine and switch the camera into parking mode, once the ignition or 12V socket is off.

I'm very happy with it.
 
I have tested it at higher temp than 38C. It does have issues above that temp. I put it on a laptop chiller during summer months. I have had it installed since early June with no issues with the chiller installed.
 
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ujsc said:
I have tested it at higher temp than 38C. It does have issues above that temp. I put it on a laptop chiller during summer months. I have had it installed since early June with no issues with the chiller installed.
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What issues did you encounter?
 
Lose power to dash cam. Battery has trouble keeping its charge. With the chiller, there have been no issues since
 
TonyM said:
Where did you buy your battery pack from? When I change the currency on 70mai's website to GBP I no longer see an option to buy it
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The only place I found was German Amazon. I've ordered one, hasn't arrived yet but can update when it does.
 
ujsc said:
Make sure you don't expose it to high temp
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I don't think there's much risk of that in the UK. Its LiFePo4 and has protections built in though, is there a specific reason why you mention it?

Edit: just read your previous posts

Thanks
 
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