B40 Out of focus issue

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boshunter

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Mine is also totally out of focus, at least when it has warmed up a few minutes. However, during warm-up my camera always changes its focus point from "30 feet" to "4 inches", whereas yours seems to be mostly focused too far, beyond infinity. My educated guess for the root cause is a bad or loose lens assembly. If one of the lenses doesn't sit quite where it should in the optics tube, the result will be a partially or totally blurry image. Changes in the operating temperature due to the hot electronics will change the dimensions of the optics parts, especially if there are loose lenses that can move and get distorted freely. You might also have an imaging sensor which isn't sitting quite straight, in other words one side of the sensor might be closer to the lens system as it should.

I ordered a replacement A118 and FoxOffer promised to give a refund for the defective one. But, they also indicated that the problem probably won't go away by exchanging the defective camera to another B40/A118. We'll see, I hope the manufacturer has managed to manufacture also good ones. But in any case this kind of behavior indicates very bad quality control and total lack of testing the optics during assembly.
 
Hobbymat said:
. But, they also indicated that the problem probably won't go away by exchanging the defective camera to another B40/A118. We'll see, I hope the manufacturer has managed to manufacture also good ones. But in any case this kind of behavior indicates very bad quality control and total lack of testing the optics during assembly.
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That's not good, maybe that means their whole stock/inventory is bad?

I'm not seeing this happen on the newer Street Guardian SG9665GM, and I've tested several units for the past week.
 
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i have no focus issues w/ the a118 i bought from spytec.

any device being manufactured will have a dud here and there. to keep costs down, QC may not check every single device, so a dud will slip through now and then.
 
I got a good A118 from Foxoffer not too long ago so it does sound like you've been unlucky here unfortunately.
 
I also got a good one from FoxOffer.
 
Got my A118/B40 today from foxoffer.
Also experiencing the same behavior, image turns blurry after a few minutes of use.
Will try to contact foxoffer and see what they say.
Did anyone manage to fix this?
 
Is there any chance a video could be uploaded of it going from clear to blurry so we can see if it's a sudden change or a gradual change please?
 
My second A118 camera arrived on Friday, and it's clearly a bit better than my first one. However, the image is slightly out of focus on the right side, just like in boshunter's cam. The blurriness gets worse when the camera has warmed up a few minutes.

I don't know if it's worth all the hassle to send my first camera (with a very bad focus problem) back to China for replacement or refund. Maybe I'll try to open the optics module and adjust the focus properly. And after that, I'll try to lock the objective threads properly with glue on multiple spots. My guess at this point is that the threads are locked with glue on only one spot, and that may cause uneven distortion in the optics when the camera warms up.

It seems that with 1080p video resolution, the camera optics and its quality is now the limiting factor and the biggest bottleneck of video quality. Good optics is never cheap, especially with a very wide field-of-view like in the case of A118.
 
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reverend said:
Is there any chance a video could be uploaded of it going from clear to blurry so we can see if it's a sudden change or a gradual change please?
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I don't have such footage at the present, but I'm 98% sure that it is gradually and not in "one shot".
I'm not sure how hot the camera is supposed to get, but when I touched it after about 30 min of work it was hot. Not to the point that I couldn't touch it, but hot enough.

I uploaded a sample of what it looks like after about 15-20 minutes of work. This was taken in 1080p.
 
I have to check the potential thermal issues with my two cameras and check if the "worse" camera is running hotter than the "better" one. Luckily I happen to have a thermal camera for this... ;)

@ofzil: your camera seems to be focused quite close when it's warm. Could you please do the following test with a "warmed-up" camera:
Write some text on white cardboard or paper with a thick felt pen. Then start the recording (outside, daytime) and hold that text in front of your windshield, very close to the camera. Gradually go further back: four inches, eight inches, etc. (or rather 10 cm, 20 cm, etc. if you use a metric system) until you are about three meters / ten feet from the camera. Check the footage, at which distance does your image start to get blurry?
 
Contacted foxoffer and sending the A118 back to be replaced with another unit.
Hope the replacement unit will be better...
 
I've now taken my "bad" camera totally apart (including the optics module) and I'll do some experiments soon. I have a feeling I've found the root cause of the "Creeping Focus During Warming Up" issue. Stay tuned for more information... :)
 
Unfortunately it appears I also am having this issue. Within about 10 minutes the quality goes from great to absolutely terrible. I'm debating if it is even worth sending this back to FoxOffer. Really frustrating. Below is a link to download a sample of what it looks like after warming up. The right side is particularly awful.

https://mega.co.nz/#!7oUgxICD!_8vUQ_J1Yq5Tc9rTIaY2MigT4r9NjQKgD9mhgZySy3o
 
I bought mine from Spytec on amazon and I am also unable to get in focus video. But it seems that it is only on the left half of the video the right is clear and the left is fuzzy.
 
I had an older cam in 2012 (el cheapo "720p" upscaled 480p cam I got from DX back in 2012) that had the left side of the image constantly out of focus. When I opened it up I saw that the lens assembly was not perfectly parallel to the image sensor. Unfortunately there was nothing I could do to fix it back then.
 
Hello. Im new to the forums and the dashcam community in general as I got my first B40/A118 last week :)

I was wondering if I could get a 2nd opinion on stills I have taken from footage taken on my camera at the same location, one just 5 minutes after starting driving and the other after a good hour of driving. I fear my camera might have the out of focus issue as well but I'm not sure.

Seller is estore009 on ebay

Appreciate your feedback!

vlcsnap-2015-02-19-14h51m23s65.png vlcsnap-2015-02-19-14h47m23s223.png
 
I have 2 x A118/B40 purchased in LAte November from Foxoffer and both have been fine.
 
Kurt Spiteri said:
Hello. Im new to the forums and the dashcam community in general as I got my first B40/A118 last week :)

I was wondering if I could get a 2nd opinion on stills I have taken from footage taken on my camera at the same location, one just 5 minutes after starting driving and the other after a good hour of driving. I fear my camera might have the out of focus issue as well but I'm not sure.

Seller is estore009 on ebay

Appreciate your feedback!

View attachment 11231 View attachment 11232
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looks good to me. in the second photo, you can easily make out "Michael" in the lower left corner. I"m assuming the white van was moving, so it's OK for it to be a little blurry. the main thing i notice is that one of them is dealing with glare from the sun, which will degrade quality on any camera, no matter how good it is.
 
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