ECOFLOW and Viofo

SparksNation said:
GPak…. Need your help.
I have the thinkware U3000 and the Ecoflow river 3. Watching your video (thank you!) I’ve got it wired up as you instructed for the Viofo… power and black wire to the Ecoflow USB-C and then the accessory wire run to the appropriate ACC fuse location in the truck. Despite having confirmed good voltage coming off the ACC fuse with the truck turned on the U3000 enters parking mode as soon as a 30 second timer elapses. It’s as if the cam does not sense the ACC voltage for some reason. Have you by chance ever tested the U3000 with the Ecoflow set up? I’m currently at a loss as to what to do.
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Welcome to DCT @SparksNation

I only have and have tested Viofo dash cams, but I think, Thinkware uses the red wire for ACC and the yellow for constant power (unlike Viofo which is opposite).
Make sure the connections are correct, you may need to swap the red and yellow wires.

We previously discussed the Thinkware U3000, but the problem was that it wouldn't enter parking mode.
See the link below and @ankurthakurofficial's posts.

A

Post in thread 'ECOFLOW and Viofo'

GPak said:
There are a several ways how the River2 can be wired, with 12V out or 5V out to DashCam.
My preferred method would be 12V out like shown in attached diagram below.
In this case original HK4 can be used as is.

Use included Cig adapter/XT60 cable to charge River2 from car’s ACC activated Cig socket. (Make sure it is rated for 10A (the fuse is usually 20A for these sockets).
Splice yellow trigger wire (18-20AWG) with positive wire of the included Cig adapter/XT60 cable or use splitter like one in the link below, connect the included charging cable to one barrel and cut-off the other...
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Perhaps @ankurthakurofficial can help you with this issue.
 
Thank you! Yes, you are correct about the colors and I did doublecheck that. And I did read the thread about Ankur’s issue which makes me scratch my head even more. I ordered another hardware accessory kit and I’m going to try starting over to make sure it isn’t a bad hardwire kit. It seems that THINKWARE does not play nice with EcoFlow. Sometimes when I’m actively charging the EcoFlow (my truck has a standard 110v outlet) it stays out of parking mode. If you ever get a chance to test the U 3000 would love to see the results…
 
Hello everyone,

I'm new to this site and have been watching Vortex on YouTube and others and reading through the information here which is fantastic. I would like to ask for help with my install. I'm installing the Viofo A229 Pro with an EcoFlow River 3 Plus and I'm wondering if anyone has done this kind of installation that allows for an option to switch back and forth between power sources from vehicle power and power station. My vehicle is small and I travel and will need to use all of my trunk space from time to time for luggage etc. as I work at different locations around the country. I would greatly appreciate any insight anyone can offer!
 
Has anyone looked at the Bluetti Elite 30 V2 as an alternate to the Ecoflow R3 or R3+ ?
288Wh for a good price.

The Bluetti has ( 2 ) USB-C and ( 2 ) USB- A ports.
Main concern would be if the ports re-activate after a dead battery is charged.

Thanks.
 
I tested the old Bluetti EB3A, and it's not suitable for a dash cam.
Here's why.
GPak

Post in thread 'Parking Battery-Power Station, 3X capacity and 3X cheaper than dedicated options + extra functionality'

forcefed said:
Thinking of doing something similar, currently settled on the ecoflow river 2 power station, high quality and 5 year warranty. Looked at the anker 521, bluetti eb3a and allpowers r600, prices are somewhat similar but only costco carries the ecoflow, and ya'll know costcos great return policy lol.
Anker would be my second choise, bluetti has some reliability issues if you look at their forum and the allpowers screams junk if you read the reviews.
The 12v cig charger trick sounds great for those that don't want to touch the fusebox, unfortunately i don't have a 12v socket in the trunk...
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The new Bluetti Elite 30 V2 may be better, but it still seems to have a momentary on/off button for the USB ports, and very high selfe-discharge rate.
 
First of all, thank you to all that have provided tons of information (reviews, tests, q&a's, etc) on this forum. It has been a lot of reading but has been very helpful.

@GPak or anyone else that may be able to answer... I have my current setup with @GPak 's drawing. A329TC setup for the front powered by a River 3 Plus with EB600.
Would it be possible to add a second hardwire kit as shown in my ugly drawing? Specifically, the second yellow ACC cable? I am looking to add a single channel camera to the rear (undecided with E1 Pro or the upcoming A119M Pro).
Thanks in advance!
 

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The River 3 Plus only has one USB-C port.
The port you want to use is the USB-A port.
It only outputs 5V and only works reliably at up to 7W-8W.
You can power the Mini2M using that port in a simple 5V system by removing the voltage regulator from the HK4.
However, in this case, you won't be able to use the existing 12V ACC with the 5V power, and you'll have to convert the 12V ACC to 5V, which will require more DIY work.

I'd rather try the following:

1. The EB600 has its own USB-C port.
You can use it to power the Mini2M, in which case you can split and use the existing 12V ACC wire.
(EB600 must be connected to R3 Plus)

2. Or simply split the existing USB-C/15V (+) and (-) wires, as well as the existing 12V ACC wire for connecting the additional camera.
(If I remember correctly, the USB-C/15V cable is rated for 3A = 45W at 15V)

Be sure to test this before routing the cables in a car.
Check thoroughly to ensure that both cameras function fully and consistently while driving and parking, without negatively affecting each other.
And please keep us updated on the results.
 
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@GPak Thank you for the very specific information! Most likely, I will end up using option 1. Seems to be the simplest option.

I will update once I decide on a camera & install it.
Btw, the a329tc is currently connected to a HK6 hw kit.
 
Hi all,
thanks for this topic, it's truly helpful.
I've read it and got some questions about setup.

I'm going to connect my Vofio A329S to River 3 through type-c to 15V wire and HK6 kit.
I will keep River 3 in trunk.
1)Can I use awg 18 wire to extend HK6? Different gauge?

2)The easiest way for connecting River 3 to the car is to use cigarette socket and such connector (https://www.amazon.com/gp/B09L62W679) to get Acc and then connect it to HK6' yellow wire to run parking mode.

What's the disadvantage if I connect XT60 long wire (https://www.amazon.com/gp/B0DNZ1ZKXR) to fusebox's acc socket?
My 11gen civic has one free and I use it right now for HK6 wiring.
Which fuse would I use, 10A? or 5A?

Thanks a lot.
 
@Berckyt - Welcome to DCT,

1. Yes, you can use 18AWG or 16AWG wire to extend the HK6 wires.
- Only extend the short side of the 12V input; do not extend the long side of the 5V output.

2. Yes, the cigarette lighter socket is the most convenient way to power the River 3, and the XT60 splitter is the easiest way to split the positive wire for the yellow ACC wire of the HK6.
- Make sure the CL socket is controlled by the ACC and without a delay when the ignition is turned off.
- Make sure the CL socket is rated for at least 10A.
- Make sure you have a good, secure connection at the cigarette lighter socket.

Connecting to the fuse box for power is always a risk of negatively affecting or even damaging something, especially for non-professionals.
We never know what size wires are or what else is behind the fuse box.
Also, I think there have been reports on this forum that in some cases and for some brands this may void your vehicle's warranty.

If you decide to go this route, you're better off finding a 20A ACC fuse slot that's not used at all or is used for something less important in the car.
You may use non-ACC fuse to power river 3, but this will require an ACC controlled relay.

Personally, I don't like tapping into the fuse box for power, just for ACC, if there is no other good source.
 
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GPak said:
Personally, I don't like tapping into the fuse box for power, just for ACC, if there is no other good source.
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Definitely this! Newer cars have all kinds of current draw monitoring that goes on with the fuseboxes and it's easy to "over draw" them and cause problems.
 
Contributing to an old thread but...

My current setup is is a viofo a229 pro in 3ch mode with LBR that I can typically get about 50-60 hours of parking mode in and recharges in about an hour.

The setup is as follows:

2x power taps
\\\///
2x Ugreen 150 watt car chargers (140 watt outputs)
\\\///
Anker Solix c300 DC (288 watt hours LFP)
\\\///
Zoupw 188 Wh LFP Battery
\\\///
USB C Trigger with adjustable voltage set to 12v
\\\///
HK4 hardwire kit w/ custom relay to car ACC
\\\///
Viofo A229 Pro

Overall, the setup works relatively well. The 2x power taps and chargers give a theoretical 280 watt charging capacity for the system, which means an hour of driving gives about 25 hours worth of run time (viofo a229 pro is not very efficient in LBR). A relay is needed with the HK4 kit to prevent cross talk between the car 12v system and the battery 12v system since it uses the same negative line across both.

I ran into trouble with the anker solix battery with the trigger because for some reason at around 24 hours, it would flicker power to the usb c trigger causing the camera to shut off, but since it was in parking mode it would not turn back on until you restart the car. Putting an intermediary battery (ZOUPW) fixed this (but is more conversion losses).

The 150 watt chargers required m.2 heatsinks to keep cool as they would overheat from the power draw despite overall car power system voltage staying at 13.1. I also occasionally have issues with the dual input charging. At lower temperature with low charge state, the anker battery seems to limit to low current on one charger, and then on charge state greater than 85% it also shuts off the second charger.

Now that we approach winter, the biggest challenge is that in cold temperatures, I have to wait an extraordinarily long time for the batteries to start charging. I am working on building a temperature regulated heater with some insulation to try and keep the batteries warm.

All said and done, it does what I want it to do with some TLC, but definitely not care free.
 
halomstr said:
Now that we approach winter, the biggest challenge is that in cold temperatures, I have to wait an extraordinarily long time for the batteries to start charging. I am working on building a temperature regulated heater with some insulation to try and keep the batteries warm.
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Nice setup, @halomstr !
Cold weather charging and performance are the main drawbacks of LFP batteries.
It seems you're quite a hands-on DIYer; Check out this thread on DIY LTO batteries; it might inspire you:

https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threa...-battery-for-dash-cam-parking-mode-diy.50484/
 
@GPak

Hi, I've been following your fantastic diagrams and descriptions on wiring the River 2 to a car and dash cam for constant power, but I just realized I need some further clarification if you have a few mins to spare.

So what I'm doing is I opted not to use any 12v accessory sockets and instead power everything via fuse tap (to make it cleaner and faster charging), and I'm going the USB C route from the River battery to my dash cam. All of this (the fuse box and the River 2) is in my BMW X5's trunk, then I will run a wire up to the dash.

I began wiring some of it today and I feel like I'm messing it up. I think that my fuse hardwire kit also reverses the yellow/red wires from what the HK4 kit does so that's probably adding to my confusion (I'm also attaching a pic of that wiring diagram).

1000014991.webp


So in the below photo the fuse on the left is constant power going to the yellow wire, and fuse on the right is ignition switched ACC going to red, black from my hardwire kit is going to ground. There is a USBC on the left that I'm pretty sure I worked incorrectly, that is meant to come out of the River 2's front. The USBC on the right is my hardwire kit, meant to run all the way up to my dashcam.

1000014989.webp


First off, your diagram shows the XT60's red power connecting to the fuse box (that should be an ignition switched acc fuse I believe), but you mentioned it should be wired with heavier gauge wire so I bought some 12awg that I will use. Should I pull apart my add-a-fuse connection and wire the 12awg directly to it? As in, that thicker red wire coming out of the right fuse, should I just replace that whole section with 12awg?

Secondly, it only just occurred to me that the mine and the HK4 swapped yellow/red so that's why I think my left USBC for the River is incorrect, and should be connected to yellow in my case not red, so that the River 2 delivers power while the car is off. If I'm correct about that now can I just swap it to yellow right there similar to how I currently have it? I thought that maybe I'd need to splice it to yellow after the hardwire kit's little converter box of it's converting DC to AC.

If I know the answer to those 2 questions I think I'll be set unless you have any further advice. Thanks in advance for everything.
 
afro_thunder said:
@GPak

Hi, I've been following your fantastic diagrams and descriptions on wiring the River 2 to a car and dash cam for constant power, but I just realized I need some further clarification if you have a few mins to spare.

So what I'm doing is I opted not to use any 12v accessory sockets and instead power everything via fuse tap (to make it cleaner and faster charging), and I'm going the USB C route from the River battery to my dash cam. All of this (the fuse box and the River 2) is in my BMW X5's trunk, then I will run a wire up to the dash.

I began wiring some of it today and I feel like I'm messing it up. I think that my fuse hardwire kit also reverses the yellow/red wires from what the HK4 kit does so that's probably adding to my confusion (I'm also attaching a pic of that wiring diagram).

View attachment 90034

So in the below photo the fuse on the left is constant power going to the yellow wire, and fuse on the right is ignition switched ACC going to red, black from my hardwire kit is going to ground. There is a USBC on the left that I'm pretty sure I worked incorrectly, that is meant to come out of the River 2's front. The USBC on the right is my hardwire kit, meant to run all the way up to my dashcam.

View attachment 90035

First off, your diagram shows the XT60's red power connecting to the fuse box (that should be an ignition switched acc fuse I believe), but you mentioned it should be wired with heavier gauge wire so I bought some 12awg that I will use. Should I pull apart my add-a-fuse connection and wire the 12awg directly to it? As in, that thicker red wire coming out of the right fuse, should I just replace that whole section with 12awg?

Secondly, it only just occurred to me that the mine and the HK4 swapped yellow/red so that's why I think my left USBC for the River is incorrect, and should be connected to yellow in my case not red, so that the River 2 delivers power while the car is off. If I'm correct about that now can I just swap it to yellow right there similar to how I currently have it? I thought that maybe I'd need to splice it to yellow after the hardwire kit's little converter box of it's converting DC to AC.

If I know the answer to those 2 questions I think I'll be set unless you have any further advice. Thanks in advance for everything.
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Edit: I just saw @EricSan post about how you really shouldn't charge the River 2 from fuse tap, so I think I'm going to go with his recommendation and come straight from the car battery with a relay. But I could still use some input if anyone is able to answer the questions I had.
 
@afro_thunder - from the diagram that you provided, it looks like the color scheme of your wires are indeed reversed from Viofo's HK4 hardwire kit. It's probably worthwhile to test the wiring arrangement before installing the hardwire kit into your car. Troubleshooting outside of the car is WAAAY easier than after you've secured all of the wires in the car.

I would definitely recommend charging the EcoFlow directly from the car battery with a 40A ACC switched relay in the middle of your +12V connection to the battery. Be sure to pick up a relay harness that has 12g wires attached. Lots of the relay harnesses are wired with wire that is too thin (18g or 16g) to handle significant battery charging currents. I posted a diagram around here somewhere, if you need it, just let me know and I'll repost it.

For your wiring, it is probably best to ignore the wire colors and test everything yourself so you know what works, then add little wire tags with masking tape so you don't get things mixed up.
 
EricSan said:
@afro_thunder - from the diagram that you provided, it looks like the color scheme of your wires are indeed reversed from Viofo's HK4 hardwire kit. It's probably worthwhile to test the wiring arrangement before installing the hardwire kit into your car. Troubleshooting outside of the car is WAAAY easier than after you've secured all of the wires in the car.

I would definitely recommend charging the EcoFlow directly from the car battery with a 40A ACC switched relay in the middle of your +12V connection to the battery. Be sure to pick up a relay harness that has 12g wires attached. Lots of the relay harnesses are wired with wire that is too thin (18g or 16g) to handle significant battery charging currents. I posted a diagram around here somewhere, if you need it, just let me know and I'll repost it.

For your wiring, it is probably best to ignore the wire colors and test everything yourself so you know what works, then add little wire tags with masking tape so you don't get things mixed up.
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Thanks, I already ordered the things from your shopping list to do the relay setup from battery the way you described in that other post. That's a good call, I'll let you know if I have any trouble once everything comes in.
 
@afro_thunder
Charging the EcoFlow directly from the car battery using a relay, as shown in @EricSan post #223, is definitely the right decision.
To make it easier to understand how to integrate EcoFlow, I've updated Eric's diagrams, replacing the LTO battery with an EcoFlow >> Redsia HardWire Kit >> Redsia Dashcam.
It is a good suggestion to test your setup before final installation in the vehicle.
Make sure the ACC source immediately shuts off when the ignition is turned off (some ACC sources may remain active for some time after the ignition is turned off).
 

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GPak said:
@afro_thunder
Charging the EcoFlow directly from the car battery using a relay, as shown in @EricSan post #223, is definitely the right decision.
To make it easier to understand how to integrate EcoFlow, I've updated Eric's diagrams, replacing the LTO battery with an EcoFlow >> Redsia HardWire Kit >> Redsia Dashcam.
It is a good suggestion to test your setup before final installation in the vehicle.
Make sure the ACC source immediately shuts off when the ignition is turned off (some ACC sources may remain active for some time after the ignition is turned off).
Click to expand...
Wow that's perfect, thank you both champs. My BMW feel like it keeps all the trunk fuses active for like 5mins, unfortunately. I could search for other fuse boxes though maybe something else loses power instantly.
 
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