HK3 hard wire kit - terrible voltage regulation

[bobcat]

Seems that the horrible title of a good product was used for promoting a personal product which finally failed as a project.
Again: good means that is not creating problems to the dashcams or to the cars and RMA, DOA, returns are minimal.
If my HK3 hardwire kit from Viofo is working as expected, not creating problems even it is used for more than 5 years I don't see a reason to buy another product more expensive from an unknow seller. But maybe other people could buy your hardwire kit just because you will present it as made with quality components. Some people can be happy to know that they have the best from the market even the result is the same.

Good luck with your new idea but I hope to present it as an idea and not to blame a good product just to promote your idea.

For now I will replace the old HK3 even it is working like in the first day with the new version of HK3 which was showed in my previous post. I hope the new version to be durable as the first version and last it for another 5 years. If not, I will mount the old HK3 again. I will keep it as backup because never failed on me. I am sure the new HK3 version and the HK5 are better than previous versions, the PCB is looking better.

If you go back to the original posts on my project of a custom hk kit, it was never intended to be sold to masses, to you, or anyone else. Those posts are publicly available and anyone can read it for themselves. I've done it for myself and shared the progress along the journey. I've tested it all in my personal cars, as I would never try to sell anything that I would not be comfortable with myself. (Besides, hell, I'd never afford CE and UL certification costs for these). More over I'm pretty sure I've done more tests on these hk kits and modern car alternators charge behaviors then most users of this forum. I did express curiosity if anyone else would be interested in chiming in to the project. But, I've never promoted or sold a single piece of my hardware to anyone, although I've spent over 500$ in the process of developing prototypes.

So, while being sharp languaged, the point you're trying to make is unclear to me.

I've started that journey purely because 3 (or 4, I don't remember by now) of HK3 kits have failed on me, and I wanted to create something more reliable and something under my control - because I could, and in the process figured out I can make it more smart, and shared my progress.

If you have any more claims to make, I'd be happy to respond.

Cheers.

 

[Mtz]

I've started that journey purely because 3 (or 4, I don't remember by now) of HK3 kits have failed on me

I still don't believe this. It is almost impossible Viofo to send you 3 or 4 hardwire kits and all of them to be broken. Maybe Viofo can have 3 or 4 bad units at 1000pcs.?
Just imagine that Viofo sent 3 or 4 bad hardwire kits exactly to a person who knows how to make such product. They not sent 3 or 4 bad products to average Joe, but to a specialist. Maybe you are the most unlucky person from the world.

And just looking at the thread title, maybe Viofo dashcams have no problems to work with a hardwire kit which has ``terrible voltage regulation``, in your opinion. Maybe that voltage is OK for their dashcam. Maybe for a NASA dashcam is not OK that voltage regulation.

 

[bobcat]

I still don't believe this. It is almost impossible Viofo to send you 3 or 4 hardwire kits and all of them to be broken. Maybe Viofo can have 3 or 4 bad units at 1000pcs.?
Just imagine that Viofo sent 3 or 4 bad hardwire kits exactly to a person who knows how to make such product. They not sent 3 or 4 bad products to average Joe, but to a specialist. Maybe you are the most unlucky person from the world.

And just looking at the thread title, maybe Viofo dashcams have no problems to work with a hardwire kit which has ``terrible voltage regulation``, in your opinion. Maybe that voltage is OK for their dashcam. Maybe for a NASA dashcam is not OK that voltage regulation.

They had a bad batch of these made during covid time. There were plenty of comments and posts about hk kit randomly failing on this forum around the same timeframe. There was even a comment from Viofo later on mentioning they had issues with these.

You've been on this forum long enough, should have known, unless you preferred to ignore it.

So yes, my replacement units as well as purchased separately all came from the same bad batch.

Not sure what makes you so uneasy with the thread name, but I did not create this thread, and it was not my comment. But I do agree with it and experienced some of those issues myself.

 

[v81]

I still don't believe this. It is almost impossible Viofo to send you 3 or 4 hardwire kits and all of them to be broken. Maybe Viofo can have 3 or 4 bad units at 1000pcs.?
Just imagine that Viofo sent 3 or 4 bad hardwire kits exactly to a person who knows how to make such product. They not sent 3 or 4 bad products to average Joe, but to a specialist. Maybe you are the most unlucky person from the world.

And just looking at the thread title, maybe Viofo dashcams have no problems to work with a hardwire kit which has ``terrible voltage regulation``, in your opinion. Maybe that voltage is OK for their dashcam. Maybe for a NASA dashcam is not OK that voltage regulation.

When you grossly and blatantly dismiss actual evidence in this thread, i mean evidence too, not hearsay, oscilliscope traces and actual user reports... How can your opinion now be of any value?
Have you ever submitted any evidence? Where are your scope traces?
Where are your efficiency measurements? Have you got any evidence other than anecdotal that you can report?
I actually would be interested to see your efficiency measurements maybe you can link some of your previous work if any exists?
Mine are on page 2 - https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threa...e-voltage-regulation.44244/page-2#post-541436
Or maybe you have nothing useful to add, and your test bed consists of plugging it in, snacking the car on the roof and guessing at efficiency?

Not sure what makes you so uneasy with the thread name, but I did not create this thread, and it was not my comment. But I do agree with it and experienced some of those issues myself.

I am the thread creator.

A summary...
As a reminder I created it as a result of having a failed unit, that was replaced by a second failed unit.
I have a home lab with Rigol scope and Linear PSU, a DC load and a few multimeters.
Seemed sensible to pop open the failed units and see what was going on, and I posted the results here.
I collected information and posted my findings with evidence. More it seems than @Mtz has ever done here, yet they still want to claim this is all made up.
I put out a call on several local forums mentioning i'd had a few failed units and a unit putting out too much voltage, and offered to test peoples units if there were interested or having any kind of issue.
A few people sent units over a period of months, not all made it into the summary i previously posted.
At some point a 3rd failed unit was sent to me for testing along with 2 other working samples.

My real intention of this thread is that i might find legitimately curious minds to share my findings with.
None of this is or was any kind or rage bait or to reflect any kind of negativity against Viofo.
Maybe a little hurry up when their Aussie distributor failed to respond to me, sure.
But other users made out as if i was mounting some kind of evil campaign against Viofo.
I'm here for the electronics, the science and the evidence, yet continue to be pulled into drama.

Anyone that can not accept the evidence i have posted as actual failures has no useful place in this thread.
That is not a moderation threat, it's simply a reminder i can block individuals and withdraw my participation at any time.
Anyone that continues to appear as if they want to be emotionally involved in defending Viofo against an attack that I'm not making and they have just brewed in their minds can have a block from me.
Since being online since 1995 I've never blocked anyone online for anything other than spam before, yet i already have 2 in this one forum / thread.
I think this says something about their behaviour rather than mine.

 

[v81]

Hey, thanks for acknowledging my efforts on this! I see there is still a lot of interest around a good hardwiring kit and that's encouraging!
I am happy to share my view on the topic, and why I sort of dropped out from further development (although I have some new ideas for a board that can "do it all").

The main reasons why I've halted the development of my project:
1. Such a board, if using high quality components, let's say from TI for power handling, makes it much more expensive to produce in low numbers.
2. Chinese manufacturers/ assembly shops often don't have access to these components, so some parts would have to be added manually after the main assembly.
3. Adding more features and different parts from the original hk3/4 would require custom enclosure (3d printed in low volumes in my vision). Although doable, but very time consuming.
4. While I can offer to the market a custom regulator board, the peripherals, such as wiring from the car to pcb and from pcb to the camera would have to be arranged by potential customers (which means soldering by the customer). Offering a "plug and pay" solution is impossible in lower volumes. And low volumes would mean hundreds of these boards.
5. Each board would have to be programmed and QCd manually.

I do know there are a lot of enthusiasts on this forum, but even if every single one of you bought such a board from me, I'd probably just break even, after spending hundreds of hours of developing and assembling it. Lower volumes would mean I'd do all that at my own loss (mainly time). Now that being said, I'm exploring a new idea I have in mind, mainly for enthusiasts and without commercial aim and if I manage to find the parts needed to make it happen, I'll be making a new update on this project soon.

I too have started down this path.
And am now replying to this as my parents unit, now a few years old is intermittently failing.
I have also had an email from another HK3 user whose kit i tested and they are having a similar problem.
I have an idea in mind, even had an MPS chip in mind that factored for current drop over the cable.
I shelved the idea in 2022 but am thinking of going into it again.
Problem is i do lack in the area of analogue design, but to compensate i was considering using a uC for low voltage and other general monitoring.
An ATtiny85 or something to sample the voltage once every 50 seconds and sleep inbetween.
But as already suggested, cost will be an issue as will manufacture.
I might knock together a prototype for Mum and Dad and leave it at that.