hardwire kit never power off 0906

@Veckle DashCam , I don't mean to be condescending, but the hardward kit was install on four different car. One installer have over 15 years of doing audio/visua/alarms/GPS etc., basically every possible accessories related to car. And not just on simple car, from 60's classic car up to $150K super cars like Ferrari and Lamborghini. The second installer have over 20 years of experience and owns his own shop.

So the chance of the installers making a mistake on the CONSTANT and ACC connection four different kit on four different car is very slim.

So here's what I believe should happens:
1) The parking guard mode is OFF
2) The motion detect is OFF
3) At this point, the CAM should just function as a simple CAM, that is, when the engine turns on, the CAM turns on. When the engine turns off, the engine turn off.

Now from your drawing, what you are saying is that if the parking guard is OFF, the motion detect is OFF, and the engine is turn OFF, the CAM will stay power on?
 
Now from your drawing, what you are saying is that if the parking guard is OFF, the motion detect is OFF, and the engine is turn OFF, the CAM will stay power on?

yes there is still power provided to camera in your situatin.
if yu want the camera power off when engine stop, please connect the RED cable to ACC and ignore the YELLOW cable, to cut off power supply when engine stop.

if wire RED to CONSTANT and YELLOW to ACC, this installation will let the camera work in Parking Guard (no power off)
 
So, base on this scenario, I can either have the parking guard or the auto power off with the engine, but not both.

Having the parking guard always on is not ideal for me. Since, 1) I don't drive the car everyday, 2) have the cam constantly draining the battery is not a good idea, 3) constantly writing to the SD card without every stopping cannot be good for the life of the SD card.

I'm just going yank the hardwire kit out of the cars and just connect to a USB charger.
 
for a normal 45Ah Acid accumulator, which can power the cameras at least 100 hours.
it need around 1.5 hours to do a full re-charge to the Acid accumulator
so in theory if you drive more than half hour everyday, the Acid accumulator will never be drain.
 
The kit was installed on two car, a commuter and a weekend car. The commuter car is driven during the weekdays, with a minimum of two hours of driving. But the weekend car, is only driven during the weekend. On the weekend car, with the cam install and always on, then yes, it will definitely go through a drain cycle.

And, as an accidental find, with the kit set to the 12.2V, the CAM can do a continuous recording of up to 13hrs before the trip voltage is hit and the CAM power down.
 
So, base on this scenario, I can either have the parking guard or the auto power off with the engine, but not both.

Having the parking guard always on is not ideal for me. Since, 1) I don't drive the car everyday, 2) have the cam constantly draining the battery is not a good idea, 3) constantly writing to the SD card without every stopping cannot be good for the life of the SD card.

I'm just going yank the hardwire kit out of the cars and just connect to a USB charger.

Same here that why I have added a dpdt mini toggle switch to hardwire kit. The red and yellow from power module are connected to the centre pins then on one side of switch the red and yellow connect to power and acc as normal and on the other side red plus yellow connect to Acc so it acts like cigar lighter and powers camera off when Acc circuit powers down about 3 minutes after I lock the car. I park in my own garage at night so no need to have camera recoding in parking mode. In the morning I just flick the toggle switch over and I have parking guard ON. The toggle is tiny and mounted under the dash below steering wheel o easy to reach and much easier to switch than accessing camera menu when camera is on passenger side behind rear view mirror
 
Same here that why I have added a dpdt mini toggle switch to hardwire kit. The red and yellow from power module are connected to the centre pins then on one side of switch the red and yellow connect to power and acc as normal and on the other side red plus yellow connect to Acc so it acts like cigar lighter and powers camera off when Acc circuit powers down about 3 minutes after I lock the car. I park in my own garage at night so no need to have camera recoding in parking mode. In the morning I just flick the toggle switch over and I have parking guard ON. The toggle is tiny and mounted under the dash below steering wheel o easy to reach and much easier to switch than accessing camera menu when camera is on passenger side behind rear view mirror

Would it possible you draw a wiring diagrams? I would like to add the same dpdt toggle, but confused by the wiring.
 
Yes will post one tomorrow. You actually on need a single pole double throw switch as you just toggle the red cable between power and acc. I used a double pole switch as I had a couple and it is convenient to terminate yellow cable and then join red to it on one side of the switch.
 
2nd day with new October firmware and all seems ok. Drive 106 miles yesterday evening then parked for 3 hours. Parking Guard ran for 10 minutes and then it looks as if battery protection kicked in with camera recording every 30 mins for 2.01 minutes then 30 min gap then another 2.01 recording. The file members are sequential so looks like power is switching off until battery recovers. Protection is currently server 12.4v so I will drop it to 12.2v when I get a chance. Car is 2 year old BMW X5 so battery should still be in reasonable condition.
 
0.2v rise to turn back on is perhaps a little bit low

need to consider the max band setting and tolerance and different generators.
when set to 12.4V, maximize the ciruit tolerance 0.2V, assume the recover rising to 0.4V,
if the old generator give a 12.9V........ then there will be trouble.
12.4+0.2+0.4>12.9, so the camera will not be waken up.
 
not too many vehicles around these days that would run at such low voltage, generally 13.8v minimum or higher, a 0.2v rise can happen just by removing the load as speuk seems to be experiencing
 
Agreed and BMW circuits are heavily managed so do not always behave as expected. I will experiment with protection levels over the next few days and see if I can get a compromise between cut off and recording in parking mode without ending up with no recovery if that makes any sense?
 
Today's update....

Drove 3.5 miles to station and parked all day for about 11 hours and then drove 3.5 miles home. Perfect operation, continuous recording of short 720p parking guard files and battery protection did not kick in once. Strange given short drive compared to yesterday's 106 mile drive and then battery protection kicking in. Recorded in 1080p as soon as car eas unlocked activating the acc circuits. Oh well I will continue to test.
 
2 more days of testing and all is well. Yesterday drive 120 miles and paked for 3 hours and drove 120 miles home. All recordings prefect. A few short 5 to 10 minute periods when battery protection had kicked in.

Today short drive to station and 8 hours parked at station and drive 3.5 miles home. Parking Guard operated for 8 hours with only a few very short 3 to 10 minutes periods when battery protection had kicked in .

All tests so far with protection set at 12.4v. I will drop protection to 12.2v tomorrow and see if that allows all day parking guard recording without battery protection kicking in and without triggering any low battery warnings from bmw system.
 
Agreed and BMW circuits are heavily managed so do not always behave as expected. I will experiment with protection levels over the next few days and see if I can get a compromise between cut off and recording in parking mode without ending up with no recovery if that makes any sense?

yeah when you're talking about a BMW the car can turn the circuit off also, not just the power supply, unfortunately it would be difficult to determine which it was
 
we will set the battery increase limit to 0.5V in hardwire kit MCU in next batch. currect it is 0.2V
 
we will set the battery increase limit to 0.5V in hardwire kit MCU in next batch. currect it is 0.2V

This is a double edge sword. It will provide better battery protection but may result in longer periods of camera without power as it may require an engine start to trigger wake up. In my case as bmw is not reporting any low battery warnings I am happy for camera to come back on after a few minutes. Bmw systems are usually very quick to flag battery warnings even on brand new cars. If I operate the powered tailgate numerous times with engine off it sometimes triggers a warning. The system also records battery issues which do not result in a visible warning and these are read when the car goes in for a service. Mine is due for a service so I will ask for a report.
 
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