Drained battery. Broken 3-wire VIOFO hardwire kit or other issue ?

Jaqb

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Hi guys, this is my first post, here it goes:

My girlfriend has a Ford Fiesta from 2010 and recently I bought her the A129 Duo with 3-wire hardware kit because she wanted to have a dual dash cam with parking mode. I installed battery+ wire to the cigar lighter fuse and acc wire to ignition fuse ( see attached picture ). I have also set the cutoff voltage to 12.4v because I knew the car battery was worn out, it's an oem battery, so it is 10 years old almost, so I wanted to make sure it will not get drained by parking mode.

After I installed everything, the camera would go on when the ignition was turned on and it would switch to parking mode (set to 'event based' at the time, currently I'm testing low bitrate mode) when the ignition was turned off. I assumed that everything was working fine and that the car battery was apparently above 12.4v because the parking mode was turning on.

Couple of days after the install the car was parked for 24h with the parking mode on and I assumed the wire kit will cut off the power when the voltage would drop below 12.4. When I got into the car I was surprised the camera was still recording (rec and mic leds were on) but then I was even more surprised when the engine didn't start because of drained battery.

I have jump started the Fiesta, charged the battery by driving, and when I stopped the parking mode was still turning on normal. This time I checked the actual car battery voltage and it was 11.6v.

Am I missing something ? Why does the parking mode turn on when the voltage is this low ? Is there something wrong with the way I connected the wires ? Or maybe something in settings ?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

(also FYI I have ordered a new battery online, it will arrive tomorrow)
 

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Try switching the cables around. The yellow cable (acc) should be running to fuse 22 (Cigar lighter).
 
The hardwire kit should shut off voltage to you dash cam regardless of how you wired the acc or red hot lead to prevent your battery from over discharging. It doesn't go into parking mode due to low battery voltage. The acc should be connected to a source that only has power when key is on and the red hot wire connected to an always live source. You can check fuse blocks with you volt meter.
 
Hi guys, this is my first post, here it goes:

My girlfriend has a Ford Fiesta from 2010 and recently I bought her the A129 Duo with 3-wire hardware kit because she wanted to have a dual dash cam with parking mode. I installed battery+ wire to the cigar lighter fuse and acc wire to ignition fuse ( see attached picture ). I have also set the cutoff voltage to 12.4v because I knew the car battery was worn out, it's an oem battery, so it is 10 years old almost, so I wanted to make sure it will not get drained by parking mode.

After I installed everything, the camera would go on when the ignition was turned on and it would switch to parking mode (set to 'event based' at the time, currently I'm testing low bitrate mode) when the ignition was turned off. I assumed that everything was working fine and that the car battery was apparently above 12.4v because the parking mode was turning on.

Couple of days after the install the car was parked for 24h with the parking mode on and I assumed the wire kit will cut off the power when the voltage would drop below 12.4. When I got into the car I was surprised the camera was still recording (rec and mic leds were on) but then I was even more surprised when the engine didn't start because of drained battery.

I have jump started the Fiesta, charged the battery by driving, and when I stopped the parking mode was still turning on normal. This time I checked the actual car battery voltage and it was 11.6v.

Am I missing something ? Why does the parking mode turn on when the voltage is this low ? Is there something wrong with the way I connected the wires ? Or maybe something in settings ?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

(also FYI I have ordered a new battery online, it will arrive tomorrow)

Move the Battery wire to a constant power source.
To find a constant power source remove the key from the ignition and then check which fuses still have power. Use anyone that is still active.

The Dash cam uses so little power compared to other devices in the car that it can piggyback off other circuits without any problem. It uses at Max 1 Amp. More like 700 milliamps.

Remember one wire always must have power (Red). The other wire can only have power when the ignition is on (Yellow). The third wire goes to ground or chassis (same thing in this case) and is usually Black in colour. On the Viofo kits they are labelled.
 
Try switching the cables around. The yellow cable (acc) should be running to fuse 22 (Cigar lighter).
Move the Battery wire to a constant power source.
To find a constant power source remove the key from the ignition and then check which fuses still have power. Use anyone that is still active.

The Dash cam uses so little power compared to other devices in the car that it can piggyback off other circuits without any problem. It uses at Max 1 Amp. More like 700 milliamps.

Remember one wire always must have power (Red). The other wire can only have power when the ignition is on (Yellow). The third wire goes to ground or chassis (same thing in this case) and is usually Black in colour. On the Viofo kits they are labelled.
The acc should be connected to a source that only has power when key is on and the red hot wire connected to an always live source. You can check fuse blocks with you volt meter.

Guys I forgot to mention that I have already checked the fuses and that I'm 100% sure that the cigar lighter fuse stays always on and that ignition fuse only turns on when the ignition is turned on.
I'm 99,9% sure everything is correctly connected cause I have also tried other fuses (constant or ignition based), with always the same results.

Like I said the camera switches to parking mode perfectly. It detects that the engine is switched off (no power from ignition fuse) and turns on the parking mode immediately.

The hardwire kit should shut off voltage to you dash cam regardless of how you wired the acc or red hot lead to prevent your battery from over discharging. It doesn't go into parking mode due to low battery voltage.

This is not the case with my hardwire kit. As you could read from my post it turned out that the battery is below 11.8v even if charged. When I did more testing, camera did turn on when connected to two always-on fuses, even though the voltage was below 11.8v and cutoff set to 12.4v.

I have two theories. One is that the hardwire kit is broken. Second is that it has a design flaw.

By design flaw I mean that I think it only cuts off the power only when there is enough voltage initially (over the selected limit) but when the voltage is low from the start it just doesn't cut off the power at all.

What do you guys think ?
 
By design flaw I mean that I think it only cuts off the power only when there is enough voltage initially (over the selected limit) but when the voltage is low from the start it just doesn't cut off the power at all.
you would have a charging system problem if that was the case, your voltage would be anything from around 13.8v (older cars) to 14.5v (newer cars) while running
 
Are you connecting the power to connector on the side of the camera or the gps base?
It might be worth trying the data-link connector fuse as your always live (red) as quite often the cigar lighter can be on a 10 minute timer.

I have a 2017 fiesta but my fuse box is the different type (double the number of fuses)
 
you would have a charging system problem if that was the case, your voltage would be anything from around 13.8v (older cars) to 14.5v (newer cars) while running

No problem at all. Like you said when the engine is running, the battery is charging,and the voltage is way above 12.4v so the power would never cut off. Which is normal operation of dashcams, no issues there.
 
Are you connecting the power to connector on the side of the camera or the gps base?
It might be worth trying the data-link connector fuse as your always live (red) as quite often the cigar lighter can be on a 10 minute timer.

I have a 2017 fiesta but my fuse box is the different type (double the number of fuses)
I tried both connections, same behaviour from both. I have tried other fuses as well, no changes there.

Also I want to be clear that my issue is that the camera stays always ON when in parking mode, not that it is turned off after a while.
 
No problem at all. Like you said when the engine is running, the battery is charging,and the voltage is way above 12.4v so the power would never cut off. Which is normal operation of dashcams, no issues there.
so then your earlier question is wrong, if the car has been running then the base voltage will always be above the cutoff point
 
so then your earlier question is wrong, if the car has been running then the base voltage will always be above the cutoff point

Which question are you referring to ? No, it's not true the the voltage will be above cutoff point. Like I said the battery is very old. It may be charging at 14v but when the ignition is turned off it has a maximum of 11.7 when fully charged.
 
Which question are you referring to ? No, it's not true the the voltage will be above cutoff point. Like I said the battery is very old. It may be charging at 14v but when the ignition is turned off it has a maximum of 11.7 when fully charged.
It will take at least 30 seconds to drop that low.
 
Which question are you referring to ? No, it's not true the the voltage will be above cutoff point. Like I said the battery is very old. It may be charging at 14v but when the ignition is turned off it has a maximum of 11.7 when fully charged.
if your battery is at 11.7v as soon as you turn the car off then your battery is the problem
 
It will take at least 30 seconds to drop that low.
I'll check how long it takes in reality. I'll let you know. But it's possible it drops this much before the camera is switching to the parking mode. There is a small delay when turning to parking mode, something around 3 to 5 seconds.

But if it will turned out it is above cutoff point for a short amount of time while in parking mode, are you saying my hardwire kit is defective ?
 
if your battery is at 11.7v as soon as you turn the car off then your battery is the problem
The battery is a separate problem and I have already ordered a new one. But if it's 11.7v immedietly and the hardwire kit is not cutting the power off then it's still kit's fault, don't you agree ?
 
The battery is a separate problem and I have already ordered a new one. But if it's 11.7v immedietly and the hardwire kit is not cutting the power off then it's still kit's fault, don't you agree ?
the firmware in their kit is different to ours so I'm not sure how it operates, see how you go once you replace the battery I guess, you have a problem there that needs sorting regardless
 
Using a 9V battery, and never charging it above 9V, I can get mine to start up, and then not shut down again. Using a 12.4V battery it works as expected.
So I guess your HK3 is normal, and it is your battery that is not.

Not sure why you are seeing the issue if you get it up at 13.8V while the engine is running though.
 
Using a 9V battery, and never charging it above 9V, I can get mine to start up, and then not shut down again. Using a 12.4V battery it works as expected.
So I guess your HK3 is normal, and it is your battery that is not.

Not sure why you are seeing the issue if you get it up at 13.8V while the engine is running though.
So what you are saying is that the hk3 did not cut off the power for you in parking mode when using 9v battery? You are confirming my suspicions about the design flaw with this. I'm not happy about this.

Im curious if the hardwire kit for street guardian works like this too. I bet both were never tested with initial voltages below the cutoff point.
 
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