Battery draining

[flattbattery]

Hi there,
I had front and rear cameras installed 3 weeks ago by a friend (works as an auto electrician but was the first time he'd put in a dash cam). Yesterday our 2 month old car battery went flat. It was replaced under warranty - they said it was a faulty battery but I'm worried the dash cam might have had something to do with it. It's hardwired and the green lights are solid all the time. Is there anything I can check to make sure the dashcam isn't draining the battery?

Thank!

 

[jokiin]

Does the camera continue to work when the car is off?

 

[flattbattery]

It’s not saving videos when it’s turned off but the wifi is on and when I open the app I can see what the camera sees.

 

[jokiin]

Then it's drawing power, did your auto electrician install any type of cutout device for low power, how has he connected it?

 

[flattbattery]

Thanks! He said it wouldn’t drain the battery so I assume he did. I’ll check with him.

 

[estore009]

Hi there,
I had front and rear cameras installed 3 weeks ago by a friend (works as an auto electrician but was the first time he'd put in a dash cam). Yesterday our 2 month old car battery went flat. It was replaced under warranty - they said it was a faulty battery but I'm worried the dash cam might have had something to do with it. It's hardwired and the green lights are solid all the time. Is there anything I can check to make sure the dashcam isn't draining the battery?

Thank!

If the camera works when your car off, it seems that your cigarette lighter is a 12v always-on socket, suggest that you plug it out manually without use!

 

[flattbattery]

If the camera works when your car off, it seems that your cigarette lighter is a 12v always-on socket, suggest that you plug it out manually without use!

It’s hardwired - not connected to the cigarette lighter.

 

[estore009]

How about the hardwire kit? with drain battery functions or not?

 

[SawMaster]

It's hardwired and the green lights are solid all the time.

The lights cannot be on without the cam receiving power, so either the hardwire kit has not been tapped in to the proper kind of power source (common) or the HWK is faulty (rare). Many newer cars have time-delayed circuits and computer-controlled power schemes which makes finding a true 'always hot' and/or a true 'hot only with switch on' circuit a lot tougher than with older cars. More troublesome is that each car model will do this differently so that you can speak of the matter only in the broadest general terms now. And with some cars, there are now no circuits at the fusebox which give the functions you need.

Your electrician has probably tapped into an improper fuse which behaves differently than they thought it would. Simply trying a different fuse or circuit until you find one that behaves as you want is the fix. Nothing to reflect badly on them, this has recently went from being a relatively simple matter to a very complex one which nobody can possibly be totally up-to-date with on every car.

Phil

 

[meyerovb]

If the WiFi is on then the camera is on and it’s using your cars battery, it will drain it completely. You can have it on all the time like this, wired directly to the battery, but only if you wire in something like a magic power pro between the camera and the battery. Otherwise have your friend rewire the cameras so when you turn the car off the cameras shut off too.

 

[Wallace666]

In ran in the same problem in two cars were I connected the camera directly to the interiour lights. Camera switched off but it looks like some ECU modules of the car don't go to sleep mode and drain the battery. Strange thing, but it happened.
Please check where the camera is connected. Best way is to connect it to cigarette lighter or a contact which will be switched off by ignition for sure.