Anyone elses A129 Pro turns off during parking mode?

So in the middle of a drive, your A129 Pro will completely shut down when power is connected directly to the camera (not the mount)?

When i drive camera sometimes restart (turn off and on). Camera is connected to new car acumulator using HK3 and plugged to mount or direct to camera no difference. Still restarts sometimes thro drive on parking mode catastrofy working 5-20 min and turning off.
 
The rear camera is still the same? (when you tried to swap A129P for A129)
Try to disconnect the rear camera and drive without it whether or not it'll turn-off.
 
The rear camera is still the same? (when you tried to swap A129P for A129)
Try to disconnect the rear camera and drive without it whether or not it'll turn-off.

I dont have time do tests anymore i buy product and i want IT working and tested. From past 5 months i have problemems with the camera. Never more viofo products.
 
The rear camera is still the same? (when you tried to swap A129P for A129)
Try to disconnect the rear camera and drive without it whether or not it'll turn-off.
I did not swap nothing and not going to.
 
Truth to be told, if the cam was be able to simply produce text debug log of what is going on, it would save a lot of frustration and pulled hair. For example it shuts down while in parking mode, then there would be a line in log stating: "time stamp": Shutting down due to temp, or due to low voltage, etc. This way you would immediately see what is the cause and you could take action without guessing for hours (at best).
 
I did not swap nothing and not going to.
I understand your frustrations and I myself is also frustrated. However you should not go angry with the users here as they are all willing helpers.

What you should do is to lodge a complain to Viofo itself, ask for a refund or perhaps start a petition to force Viofo do to something about this lousy A129 Pro. I'm trying the refund way but I bought it from a retail here in my country which does not entertaining refund after 7 days.

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Truth to be told, if the cam was be able to simply produce text debug log of what is going on, it would save a lot of frustration and pulled hair. For example it shuts down while in parking mode, then there would be a line in log stating: "time stamp": Shutting down due to temp, or due to low voltage, etc. This way you would immediately see what is the cause and you could take action without guessing for hours (at best).
Indeed. This would ease the user's pain in trying to explain what happened when reporting bug to Viofo. At least there should be an option to enable/disable DEBUG mode for the user to initiate logging mode when he want to report something.

This is the most common method programmers including me do when we need to figure out what's wrong with our code (or hardware) when there is no UI to tell us what exactly happened. I don't understand why Viofo which received tons of complaints with their products doesn't think of doing this.

I did email Viofo on this suggestion and let's see how it goes.

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I understand your frustrations and I myself is also frustrated. However you should not go angry with the users here as they are all willing helpers.

What you should do is to lodge a complain to Viofo itself, ask for a refund or perhaps start a petition to force Viofo do to something about this lousy A129 Pro. I'm trying the refund way but I bought it from a retail here in my country which does not entertaining refund after 7 days.

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I am not frustrated i am just giving the answer i did not switch and i am not going to because i using this pice of garbage for 5 months and viofo told me so many times switch this do that change that in end i spend allot of money changing microsd card, buying new hk3, buying new car acumulator... Refund from viofo? Lets be serious they will release the new model a129 plus or something else and give a damn about user that bought this heating crap.

Indeed. This would ease the user's pain in trying to explain what happened when reporting bug to Viofo. At least there should be an option to enable/disable DEBUG mode for the user to initiate logging mode when he want to report something.

This is the most common method programmers including me do when we need to figure out what's wrong with our code (or hardware) when there is no UI to tell us what exactly happened. I don't understand why Viofo which received tons of complaints with their products doesn't think of doing this.

I did email Viofo on this suggestion and let's see how it goes.

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Truth to be told, if the cam was be able to simply produce text debug log of what is going on, it would save a lot of frustration and pulled hair. For example it shuts down while in parking mode, then there would be a line in log stating: "time stamp": Shutting down due to temp, or due to low voltage, etc. This way you would immediately see what is the cause and you could take action without guessing for hours (at best).

I think they will not add this debug log know why? Because users will be sure the camera is defected hardware not software and then they will ask for refund. Now viofo can tell You check card or buy original one, did not helped? Well change car acumulator, or buy a new hk3... After that they maybe will get your camera fix it replace it or refund it. In other cases users will not give a damn i think 80% people think this is caused by some card, acumulator or hk3 and they not refund.
 
Debugging wont help with most of the issues and that is because a lot of people install this, complain on forums that product is faulty but from what they write, they clearly don't have a clue what they are doing.
You should only, only install this of you know what you are doing. There are workshops that will install it for you, if you have complaints you can go see them.


The ACC wire is just a trigger wire that will communicate to the cam, i'm off or I'm on, this ONLY works if its connected directly to the cam, not the base/GPS =>this will just tell the cam parking mode or not parking mode
The 12V line always gives power to the unit, doesn't matter if the cam is on/of

If the led in the hardwire kit (not cam) is off then the kit has gotten a low voltage, it will require a high voltage before it will start feeding the cam again. The dashcam has nothing to do with this, is just plain electronics used as a safety.

If you have corrupted images or you are sure the dashcam remains on and the hardwire kit is still lit while not even touching the car and keeping the keys far away from the car (important)
check the flash memory SD card for corruption with some software that will write and read the card multiple times that it produces no errors.

Flash memory like SD cards do NOT like to be used in a dashcam, they are being written (never read) over and over and over again. Flash memory it's biggest weakness is that it gets destroyed fast when written, that's why modern SSD's have complex controllers and they should never be defragmented, to keep the writing low.

A normal SD card should NOT be used in a dashcam, they will get destroyed in a matter of weeks, 3 months if you have a good one.
You do need the long endurance versions but even so, continuous writing and operating between those heats, don't expect that SD card to live for years and years, it will wear out fast.

Also only and only buy them from a seller you are sure to trust without any doubt, the market is flooded with fake SD cards that are non disguisable from the real ones. Don't use Amazon or any other reseller.

And yes, that SD card will cost you a lot and yes it may cost more then the dash cam itself. Go buy a SD card for a security camera's, 64GB, it can set you back over a 1000$ but those will work for 5 years straight 24/24 7/7 without any issues and even if you buy that pricey long endurance SD card from a retailer, if it works 2 years 7/7 24/24 with 4k recording, consider it top quality if it breaks a day after.


For the hardwire kit that goes off, it means either power was cut completely or it dipped.

That sound pretty simple but it isn't,

- once the kit tripped it may require 13V or more to get it going again (its meant as a safety)

- your 12V battery will loose power when temperatures drop and gain power when it rises => the hardwire kit may trip during the night while in the morning you have sufficient power.

- While 12.8V is a fully loaded (normal) car battery and 11.8 is completely dead battery those numbers are ONLY truth if you are measuring DIRECTLY on the battery, not fuses, if something is drawing power on the circuit before you measure, that 12.8V may dip to 12.2V while the battery is still at 12.8V. That is also the reason you have the 11.8 option, that is not the select me if i'm stupid. No, you can use it but only if you are sure the battery is at 0.5V higher then where you are measuring. Unless you are on the main fuses but you should never use those.

- But it gets worse, modern cars do not turn off like they used to. It is even possible that a brand new car will not support the hardwire kit because it will power all fuses 24/24 7/7, 12V sigaret is starting to disappear. The onboard electronics will communicate and will go in power saving when they want and they will come out of power saving when they want. That also means that suddenly something may be turned on that will dip the circuit that my cause the hardwire to trip(if you are not directly on the battery) or suddenly your live fuse is not live any more. (cars that do this will often do this at a set time, 30 minutes after closing for example)

- But it gets even more worse, because all those electronics consume battery power and classic car battery's are not designed for cycling, you get dual battery cars where you have a very small lithium battery that is being used only to power onboard electronics when parked. The main 12V may be cut off. So what may be happening is that the small lithium battery is dropping, the hardwire safety trips and remains off, then the car activates the main 12V battery and you measure a good 12.7V directly on the battery.

-But it gets even more worse, yes indeed, now most new cars are at least mild hybrids having at least some sort of 48V system to recupurate energy from braking. These are not sold as hybrids because the don't run on electricity, it may just be use for turbo charging or to help a bit. Then you have hybrids with 400V battery's or even full ellectric vehicles that still have both 12V as 400V.
The issue is that now we have smart electronics that sleep and don't sleep as they choose, we also have multiple batteries, but now you also get a DC to DC converter in the car that will also communicate and turn off & on when it wants to change 48V/400V to 12V or the other way arournd.


To conclude it's very difficult to troubleshoot, they use electronics that control power because power is getting so complex these days in cars, those power controls may even simply detect an "illegal" draw and power cycle the circuit tripping the hardwire kit. Also getting close with a key without doing anything may wake up all kind of electronics. Using pre climate control, programmed or not will cause major changes in how and where power is coming from and in case of a hybrid/EV , it is possible that you don't have a classic car battery anymore. And to keep all that power clean and crispy, voltage regulators.


But if the dashcam itself just turns off while powered, then it crashed and it will either reboot and continue to record or it will keep dead until you remove power to force it to reboot.
 
Ok, sprankel is confusing me. He said that the HK3 when turned off, will requires 13V to turn back on. He also said that if it didn't get enough power, it will turn off. He also said that measuring from the fuse tells you the voltage that reached there, not the actual battery voltage which is higher. From all these, I conclude them as,
- When HK3 gets 13V, it get powered up, red light on
- No matter what's your battery current voltage is, if the HK3 detect the voltage that reach it (from fuse which may be lower) drop below the cut off setting you configured, it will turn off, red light off. It will never turn back on unless it get 13V which is when you next turn on your car again (from the alternator).

Ok, my problem is, during parking mode, at around 10.30am (from 9.00am), the dashcam turned off. HK3 red light is still on. So what's the problem here?


On the SSD and SD card and most "good" flash products, the controller will make sure that the actual physical area is used at an even distribution. Meaning, if you keep writing at offset 0 to 512 repeatedly, physically, you are not writing to the same actual offset. This is to make sure that all storage area are used evenly so that they wear out evenly. All flash product has number of write cycles it is guaranteed to have. If you are lucky, then your unit may surpass that value. That write cycles written on the product specifications is meant for all the cell in you product. So, if you write 1 bytes at offset 0 for 1000 times and your product has 1000 cells, then it only used 1 write cycle (not accurate but just so that you get the idea).

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- But it gets even more worse, because all those electronics consume battery power and classic car battery's are not designed for cycling, you get dual battery cars where you have a very small lithium battery that is being used only to power onboard electronics when parked. The main 12V may be cut off. So what may be happening is that the small lithium battery is dropping, the hardwire safety trips and remains off, then the car activates the main 12V battery and you measure a good 12.7V directly on the battery.

I connected a a129 pro duo directly to new bought 2020 car battery with HK3. On car battery i have 12.40 on end of HK3 i have 12,20 and its going down down down. Camera turn off when it goes to 11,80 :) But on car battery still 12.40. I have 2x HK3 its not possible 2x are defected.
 
I connected a a129 pro duo directly to new bought 2020 car battery with HK3. On car battery i have 12.40 on end of HK3 i have 12,20 and its going down down down. Camera turn off when it goes to 11,80 :) But on car battery still 12.40. I have 2x HK3 its not possible 2x are defected.


You are saying you have a battery, then you connect the HK3 directly on the pole of the battery yet the HK3 is getting less V then the battery.

Then you have 2 options:
- you are not connecting directly to the battery
- you have resistance on the ground or the battery is not properly connecting to the ground.


Ok, sprankel is confusing me. He said that the HK3 when turned off, will requires 13V to turn back on. He also said that if it didn't get enough power, it will turn off. He also said that measuring from the fuse tells you the voltage that reached there, not the actual battery voltage which is higher. From all these, I conclude them as,
- When HK3 gets 13V, it get powered up, red light on
- No matter what's your battery current voltage is, if the HK3 detect the voltage that reach it (from fuse which may be lower) drop below the cut off setting you configured, it will turn off, red light off. It will never turn back on unless it get 13V which is when you next turn on your car again (from the alternator).

Ok, my problem is, during parking mode, at around 10.30am (from 9.00am), the dashcam turned off. HK3 red light is still on. So what's the problem here?

If the HK3 is lit the dascham is on, is the dascham recording at that specific time when you observe the HK3?

If so, does the dascham always stops 1h30 later?

If both answers are yes, I suspect the low voltage isn't being tripped and it never went into safety. You are connected to a delayed fuse meaning the car shuts that fuse of after a given time parked and you get 0V. That won't trip the safety itself, that requires the voltage to be lower then required but for a sustained time, voltages can sometimes drop for a brief moment because a high power consumer turns on and the alternator needs time to react. (you don't want that safety to trip all the time)

Then when you come to the car i suspect you open the car with a key, that you cannot observe the HK3 without interacting with the car (bringing a key in proximity of the car is enough), then that delayed fuse comes on, the HK3 is lit and the dashcam is powered back on before you can look at it.

It's very helpfull for troubleshooting that you can observe the HK3 in the morning from outside the car without waking anything up. Just to be sure, also keep phones and other electronics away, these days you also have Bluetooth low energy mode, as those car electronics don't shut off completly anymore, it is possible the car bluetooth is still active in a very low energy standby mode. Your phones tries to connect to it and suddenly the onboard electronics may come out of sleeping state.
 
You are saying you have a battery, then you connect the HK3 directly on the pole of the battery yet the HK3 is getting less V then the battery.

Then you have 2 options:
- you are not connecting directly to the battery
- you have resistance on the ground or the battery is not properly connecting to the ground.




If the HK3 is lit the dascham is on, is the dascham recording at that specific time when you observe the HK3?

If so, does the dascham always stops 1h30 later?

If both answers are yes, I suspect the low voltage isn't being tripped and it never went into safety. You are connected to a delayed fuse meaning the car shuts that fuse of after a given time parked and you get 0V. That won't trip the safety itself, that requires the voltage to be lower then required but for a sustained time, voltages can sometimes drop for a brief moment because a high power consumer turns on and the alternator needs time to react. (you don't want that safety to trip all the time)

Then when you come to the car i suspect you open the car with a key, that you cannot observe the HK3 without interacting with the car (bringing a key in proximity of the car is enough), then that delayed fuse comes on, the HK3 is lit and the dashcam is powered back on before you can look at it.

It's very helpfull for troubleshooting that you can observe the HK3 in the morning from outside the car without waking anything up. Just to be sure, also keep phones and other electronics away, these days you also have Bluetooth low energy mode, as those car electronics don't shut off completly anymore, it is possible the car bluetooth is still active in a very low energy standby mode. Your phones tries to connect to it and suddenly the onboard electronics may come out of sleeping state.
At night, it runs for about 10 hours (around 8pm to 6am) until the HK3 cut off at 12.2V. during the day, HK3 still on, but dashcam turned off around 10:30am to 1:30pm. It happens every single day.

Temperature here is as attached. Well, more or less.
8b65e51e29ba8c8af2cf5136d2a0cd19.jpg


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Temperatures in cars are more related to direct sun light then ambiant temperature and they can get high very fast and more then sufficiant enough to kill any human if they are still in the car. So if you can verify the temperature inside the car, just lay a thermometer at the dash, that may cause the dashcam to overheat.

As the sun moves like the clock goes, if the car is always parked on the same spot, does it get direct sun light from 10h30 am to 1h30 pm?

If you are sure heat is the issue:
You may try to lower the resolution or lower framerate to get less heat. Perhaps the dashcam itself is still going but the SD card is so hot it refuses to operate, i'm not sure if the controllers on SD card have such a function.
Or you may try to shield the dashcam itself from direct sunlight without blocking the camera lens, do use proper material and nothing that reflects light, otherwise you may concentrate sun lights (that may cause burn spots or even worse)

However this is unrelated to the cutting of due to voltage drop at night.
 
You are saying you have a battery, then you connect the HK3 directly on the pole of the battery yet the HK3 is getting less V then the battery.

Then you have 2 options:
- you are not connecting directly to the battery
- you have resistance on the ground or the battery is not properly connecting to the ground.

I am connecting HK3 directly to battery + for + and ground for battery -.
There is no way it is not properly connected to ground xD
 
I am connecting HK3 directly to battery + for + and ground for battery -.
There is no way it is not properly connected to ground xD

Ill give you some very good and honest advice, disconnect the HK3 completly and never wire to a negative battery, not with a starter cable and definitly not with a HK3 and leave it to a pro.

Now because we all want to learn, the issue with connecting to a negative battery is creating a false ground. Imagine that the cable isolation gives away, the heat of the engine will do that as that cable is nowhere meant to be used next to a burning hot engine. Or the cable gets damaged any other way, or the dascam itself makes contact to the chassis.

Then any current that normally flows trough the chassis with very thick grounding cables to the negative of the battery may suddenly choose that tiny little cable to flow to the negative lead of the battery. Thats how you start a car fire and even if you used a fuse on the positive, won't do anything to stop it.


If you use the positive side directly of the battery, make sure you have a good quality wire with an inline fuse, do not connect anything without an inline fuse to a positive battery, don't go soldering fuses and definitly dont go without a fuse. If that positive cable can make contact with the chasis before a fuse you will short the battery and most likely also end up with a car going up in flames.
 
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Temperatures in cars are more related to direct sun light then ambiant temperature and they can get high very fast and more then sufficiant enough to kill any human if they are still in the car. So if you can verify the temperature inside the car, just lay a thermometer at the dash, that may cause the dashcam to overheat.

As the sun moves like the clock goes, if the car is always parked on the same spot, does it get direct sun light from 10h30 am to 1h30 pm?

If you are sure heat is the issue:
You may try to lower the resolution or lower framerate to get less heat. Perhaps the dashcam itself is still going but the SD card is so hot it refuses to operate, i'm not sure if the controllers on SD card have such a function.
Or you may try to shield the dashcam itself from direct sunlight without blocking the camera lens, do use proper material and nothing that reflects light, otherwise you may concentrate sun lights (that may cause burn spots or even worse)

However this is unrelated to the cutting of due to voltage drop at night.
Just now, I parked under a tree. Car thermometer shows 32°C. Dashcam has already turned off on its own.

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Ill give you some very good and honest advice, disconnect the HK3 completly and never wire to a negative battery, not with a starter cable and definitly not with a HK3 and leave it to a pro.

Now because we all want to learn, the issue with connecting to a negative battery is creating a false ground. Imagine that the cable isolation gives away, the heat of the engine will do that as that cable is nowhere meant to be used next to a burning hot engine. Or the cable gets damaged any other way, or the dascam itself makes contact to the chassis.

Then any current that normally flows trough the chassis with very thick grounding cables to the negative of the battery may suddenly choose that tiny little cable to flow to the negative lead of the battery. Thats how you start a car fire and even if you used a fuse on the positive, won't do anything to stop it.


If you use the positive side directly of the battery, make sure you have a good quality wire with an inline fuse, do not connect anything without an inline fuse to a positive battery, don't go soldering fuses and definitly dont go without a fuse. If that positive cable can make contact with the chasis before a fuse you will short the battery and most likely also end up with a car going up in flames.

I use this connection to test the camera and eliminate bad ground in car, fuses problem, etc.
My original connection i have + to + fuses and - to car ground.

No advice needed but thx.
 
Just now, I parked under a tree. Car thermometer shows 32°C. Dashcam has already turned off on its own.

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thats only 90 degrees F.. thats crazy.. crazy broken :(

its liable to reach 90 degrees F just by sitting in the window (in direct sun) with the AC on while driving.. i dont understand how that is acceptable by viofo at all
 
Several of the newer cams with overheat protection shut down at nearly this same level. Most of the cams with this "feature" are pushing the processor and card hard for Hi-Q vids, multiple channel support, or both. I dislike this function because as Murphy's Law tells us, the cam will likely have shut itself down when you need it the most :eek: Perhaps it should be called an "anti-feature". Even Siberia has seen 38C/100F temps this year, so why build a dashcam like this when there's no place on Earth where it will always work reliably? :mad: It just doesn't make sense to me.

Anyone using any cam with overheat shutdown would be wise to have a reliable cam sitting next to it even if that other cam has crappy vids, because you will then at least have something when you need it, which is a lot better than having a Hi-Q multi-channel nothing to prove you've done no wrong in a crash. Just because you can build a 4K or multi-channel cam using this kind of hardware is not in itself enough reason to do that. Reliability is paramount in any dashcam.

/close rant/
Phil
 
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