Another dead 0806?

RobBrom

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I got an 0806 for Christmas.

On Christmas day I connected it to its' GPS base and then powered the base from my laptop using the supplied USB cable.
All was fine and I recorded several minutes of video.
After downloading the MOV files they played smoothly.
I then put it back in its' box.

Two weeks ago I took it out of the box set it upas before and tested it before installing it in my car.
This time only the red led came on when power was supplied and the buttons were inoperable.
The off button was inoperable and after removing power the red led continued to be lit until the battery was exhausted.

If power is supplied when the battery is flat the unit works for about 30 seconds and then dies.
 
I got an 0806 for Christmas.

On Christmas day I connected it to its' GPS base and then powered the base from my laptop using the supplied USB cable.
All was fine and I recorded several minutes of video.
After downloading the MOV files they played smoothly.
I then put it back in its' box.

Two weeks ago I took it out of the box set it upas before and tested it before installing it in my car.
This time only the red led came on when power was supplied and the buttons were inoperable.
The off button was inoperable and after removing power the red led continued to be lit until the battery was exhausted.

If power is supplied when the battery is flat the unit works for about 30 seconds and then dies.

try resetting it by holding down the power button for ~20 seconds. if that doesnt work, contact the person/vendor who sold it to you and ask for an exchange. If you are feeling brave you can troubleshoot the device yourself by opening it up. im sure there are a lot of diys on this forum for the mini 0806.
 
try resetting it by holding down the power button for ~20 seconds. if that doesnt work, contact the person/vendor who sold it to you and ask for an exchange. If you are feeling brave you can troubleshoot the device yourself by opening it up. im sure there are a lot of diys on this forum for the mini 0806.

Connecting the 0806 to a PC via the port in the body causes the unit to switch on, display the splash screen
for about a second and the screen shows USB connected. The red and blue LEDs are lit. No buttons are enable.
This is expected behaviour

I was then able to browse the SD card in the unit.
Files could be downloaded and uploaded.
For instance I downloaded the firmware.bin from the 12th May 2015 update.
Switching the unit on and off enabled me to successfully install this update then the unit shutdown normally
i.e. played the chimes displayed the splash screen then the unit switches off with no LEDs lit.
Repowered the unit and deleted the firmware.bin from the card.

Disconnected the unit from the PC and connected it to a 5V power supply.
Unit came on and started to record.
At the end of 4 hours the red LED was still flashing.

I reconnected the unit to the PC but there were no files recorded.
In the top level folder there are a bunch of files which look like they've been spawned by an error process.

Powering up the unit on it's own battery it plays the chimes, displays the splashscreen and then momentarily
flashes a low battery warning even though it's been connected to a power supply for 4 hours! After this the
red LED remains lit and can only be switched off by pressing the On button for 20 seconds i.e. resetting
it.

I'm assuming that the battery's dead and since this unit was bought from a vendor in China it's not worth
the trouble of sending it back.

Tonight I'm going to dismantle the unit and replace the battery
 
I've dismantled the 0806. Then end cap was difficult to get off but the rest was easy as I have a full set of watchmakers' screwdrivers.

The voltage across the battery was 0v.
So the problem appeared to be a dead battery.

The new battery had a voltage 0f 3.8V

The battery had been soldered in and then then the solder was enclosed in drops of epoxy.

I knew I didn't have the skill to desolder such fine wires so I cut the existing wires and soldered the new battery to them.

Powering up the unit with the new battery made no difference and putting the unit on a 5V power supply also made no difference.

The next morning the unit was completely dead and a check of the voltage across the new battery gave a reading of 0V.

Clearly something's draining the batteries.

Even if the new battery had cured the problem this got me thinking about the practicality of this unit.
Replacing the battery every 18 months or so is simply impractical and probably beyond the scope of the average motorist. You could pay someone to do it for you but I suspect it would be cheaper to buy a new unit and take the risk that it works. Therefore these units should be considered as disposable units.

Looks like mine's heading for the bin unless someone has a better idea?
 
better you ask where it came from and ask the vendor for an exchange.
 
I dismantled the unit after researching how to send the unit back to the seller in China and after reading many threads came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth it.

Besides this 0806 was a gift from my mother and having to tell my 81 year old mother that her gift was a dud would break her heart.

So what have I learnt from this episode?
a) If you want a dash cam then buy it from a seller in your own country to make it easier to return if it turns out to be faulty.
b) Battery powered dash cams should be regarded as dispoable items as once their battery runs out the average motorist stands no chance in replacing the battery.
c) Research on the internet shows that the Mini 0806 may be the most unreliable dash cam made so far. For example on this thread out of a bulk buy of 20 units 5 were returned as unfit for purpose and three others commented on their own faulty units:

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/342870-0806-mini-dashcam-group-buy-all-spaces-now-filled/

d) The internet, including this forum, is littered with comments by unhappy customers.

What did I get out of this exercise?
a) I got the rest of the kit that came with the camera i.e. some cables, a hardwire kit and a CPL
b) Knowledge of the state of the dash cam industry
c) Two 32Gb Samsung Evo class 10 SD cards

The mini 0806 looks good on paper but due to the awesomely poor reliability of the product I won't be buying a replacement from the Mini series, that includes any new models such as the 0826, and I won't be recommending them to anybody,
 
1. Good luck on the Evo cards - mine failed immediately with the infamous 'three beeps'
2. I looked at many others and came back to the 0806 based on my personal criteria. If you have something else in mind, I would sure like to know since I have not seen anything else within say $150 that is that small and can provide GPS and high quality video.
 
Last week I bought a basic A118C, no GPS, hardwire kit or CPL.

I've used a burn in procedure I'd normally use at work when receiving new kit.In this case I used one of the 32 Gb Samsung cards mentioned above, connected the camera to a 5V power supply. There were no 3 beeps and out as I read about with other cameras. I let it record for 5 hours. After this period I examined the card and found that the camera had recorded all 5 hours in 1 minute segments.

Next I let it continue recording for another 3 hours and made sure that the earliest files were overwritten by the latest files.

Then I put in the other Samsung card mentioned above and repeated the procedure. Same results.

Then came the road tests. My drive to work starts around 4:45am takes about 70 minutes and involves town driving, country driving and motorways. My return journey starts around 15:30 and takes about 75 minutes. Thus the camera experienced street lighting, extreme dark, dawn and full daylight.
I did this for a couple of days when the weather varied from bright sunshine to heavy rain. At the end of two days the card was almost full and I examined what it had recorded.

The night time video wasn't the best but then I haven't experimented with the settings and I shall be asking the A118C boys their advice on this. The dawn and daylight videos were much better but with a 170 degree lens the resolution wasn't as good as it would have been with say a 130 degree lens.

Since then I've used the camera daily for a week and have recorded over 14 more hours. The camera hasn't missed a beat.

It's too early to tell the long term reliabilty of the camera as only time will tell but at the moment I'm impressed

The cost - £50.
 
I've dismantled the 0806. Then end cap was difficult to get off but the rest was easy as I have a full set of watchmakers' screwdrivers.

The voltage across the battery was 0v.
So the problem appeared to be a dead battery.

The new battery had a voltage 0f 3.8V

The battery had been soldered in and then then the solder was enclosed in drops of epoxy.

I knew I didn't have the skill to desolder such fine wires so I cut the existing wires and soldered the new battery to them.

Powering up the unit with the new battery made no difference and putting the unit on a 5V power supply also made no difference.

The next morning the unit was completely dead and a check of the voltage across the new battery gave a reading of 0V.

Clearly something's draining the batteries.

Even if the new battery had cured the problem this got me thinking about the practicality of this unit.
Replacing the battery every 18 months or so is simply impractical and probably beyond the scope of the average motorist. You could pay someone to do it for you but I suspect it would be cheaper to buy a new unit and take the risk that it works. Therefore these units should be considered as disposable units.

Looks like mine's heading for the bin unless someone has a better idea?

Very interesting - exactly my experience after replacing the battery, except i haven't tested the voltage yet. I even twisted the wires of the new battery to the old wiring and then soldered like you! We have exactly the same issues and it would be great to get to the bottom of what caused it. Maybe the replacement battery was a dud of course..... The one difference is that my own 0806 worked fine for a few months until i hardwired it, so i have suspected the hardwire kit damaged the unit but note that you don't seem to have hardwired yours in. Here's the thread for my own post: https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/mini-0806-bricked-is-the-0805-any-better.18691/#post-242452
 
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Sorry to hear that another punter has been taken by the poor quality of the 806.

I've been using the A118C forover a month now with at least two journeys every day and it hasn't missed a beat.

My 806 is now gracing a landfill somewhere in Southern England.
 
It's a pity this unit doesn't come with GPS because i really like that feature on the 0806 (although not essential i guess). I'm guessing it doesn't have LDWS either? The CPL filter isn't that important imo, mine kept getting displaced on the 0806 so i stopped using it. I'm also guessing that you could hardwire the A118C in if you wanted to, using a female aux socket wired into the fusebox (using a simple piggyback fuseholder) as jokiin has suggested on my 0806 thread.
 
There is provision to use external GPS with this unit but I haven't bothered.

I hardwired a female power socket into my car using a piggyback on the existing cigarette lighter fuse and then used the cable thar came with the A118C.
I was wary of hardwire kits after having read many horror stories about them.
 
There is provision to use external GPS with this unit but I haven't bothered.

I hardwired a female power socket into my car using a piggyback on the existing cigarette lighter fuse and then used the cable thar came with the A118C.
I was wary of hardwire kits after having read many horror stories about them.

Yeah, i wish i'd done the same and i might still have a working camera! Never again. The cost of a piggyback connector and a female aux socket is cheaper than a hardwire kit too.
 
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