Convert to capacitors?

[Gibson99]

I know this is a pretty compact camera, but has anyone tried converting it to use supercaps instead of a lipo? apparently the lipo in mine died exactly 3 days ago (that's the date on the newest file on the SD card)... i found out when i pulled the card to get footage of a fender bender i was involved in tonight. tonight's footage had a timestamp of january 2 2018. glad i hit the lock button or else the files would have been overwritten - there's very few jan 2018 files and a ton of december 2019 files on my 128gb card, because it always overwrites the oldest files first.

i do have to wonder though - why doesn't it get the time/date from the GPS? it obviously had a good GPS fix since it was showing my speed and coordinates updating normally...

 

[jokiin]

for what it's worth I think you'd be better off sticking with a battery, getting them to run reliably with capacitors when the product wasn't designed for that can be very hit and miss

 

[Gibson99]

yeah after thinking about it more... it doesn't have an RTC battery so it'd be relying on the caps to keep time/date... which probably wouldn't work unless the caps were the size of the camera itself, especially since this vehicle doesn't get driven every day to keep them charged.

i've got some old ~200mah batteries from some toy drones that are still good and aren't puffy at all. can probably use one of those to replace this one.

 

[Dashmellow]

I tried to convert a battery powered dash cam to super-caps about five years ago and learned that basically it won't work unless the firmware is designed to work with super-capacitors. I did have some limited success, learned a lot and had a lot of interesting fun with it. The problems were random corrupted files and last files that were not always saved at shutdown. Best thing to do is install a fresh battery or replace the camera.

https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/gt680w-super-capacitor-stealth-mod.5292/

 

[Mijant]

Y

I know this is a pretty compact camera, but has anyone tried converting it to use supercaps instead of a lipo? apparently the lipo in mine died exactly 3 days ago (that's the date on the newest file on the SD card)... i found out when i pulled the card to get footage of a fender bender i was involved in tonight. tonight's footage had a timestamp of january 2 2018. glad i hit the lock button or else the files would have been overwritten - there's very few jan 2018 files and a ton of december 2019 files on my 128gb card, because it always overwrites the oldest files first.

i do have to wonder though - why doesn't it get the time/date from the GPS? it obviously had a good GPS fix since it was showing my speed and coordinates updating normally...

View attachment 49955

There is good news for Van Users, N2 Pro will have its upgrade one on the market that is built-in supercapacitor instead of the lipo, Expecting!

 

[Gibson99]

Y
There is good news for Van Users, N2 Pro will have its upgrade one on the market that is built-in supercapacitor instead of the lipo, Expecting!

i'm cheap though. i mean i'll pay good money for a quality product up front, but if it breaks, i'll repair it for $10 instead of spending $200 on a whole new one. i know not everyone is like that though - i've always been mechanically inclined. we recently finished out some attic space to make a new room in the house, and i did all the electrical, laminate floors, trim and paint. I could have done the framing and sheetrock, but i know when i'm not good at something.

 

[SawMaster]

I got about 2 summers use from mine before the battery capacity loss became worrisome, and my summers are somewhat cooler than yours. If used every day mine still works properly, but after 2-3 days it loses the time setting now Mine doesn't have GPS.

Good that Vantrue is going to offer a supercap version; TBH that is a bit overdue as all of the better cams already switched to caps years ago. I think they would do a lot better if they put more effort into keeping their firmware and designs up-to-date in comparison with other cams; they do seem to have the rest right with their cams

Hope you have time to share what you encounter during the 'surgery', especially the battery size you find, so I can do a replacement with mine too.

Phil

 

[Gibson99]

A quick Google found a video on YouTube where someone replaced the battery on a regular n2. Looks like mine ought to be pretty much the same. Doesn't look complicated at all. But yes I'll take photos or maybe a video when I do it.