HOW TO: Change the GPS battery in the DR500GW-HD when date is 1970

Good advice Hillbilly. I have soldered a little bit before and I understand the basics: you want to minimize the amount of heat you get into the components, which are all somewhat heat sensitive.

However, I just now upgraded to the latest software on it, and it now works! GPS works and speed now displays properly. Only thing that doesn't work is the time, which keeps displaying at April 24, 2014. Anyone have suggestions about that?

I'm going to read some instructions. Maybe I need to re-set the whole thing to factory default.

Looking at the videos from this I am reminded, it really does a good job as a camera.

And just today, as I was driving home, it caught someone shoplifting from a news stand. I alerted the owner, who chased the guy and recovered the magazine, and then we called the police. I told them I had caught most of the incident on a dash cam. They didn't need it because I don't think they take homeless issues very seriously here, but if they ever did want to charge him, it's cool to have video.
 
Thanks Alex. It ran pretty easily. I had to do:

winetricks mfc42

to get it to run. I did that and it created a file BlackVue/config/settime.bin which contains binary data, which I assume is the current time.

But I don't understand why I would need to set the time. It has access to GPS. Shouldn't it always get current time data from GPS? It makes no sense. Thanks
 
show me the contents of the file BlackVue/config/settime.bin
 
I attempted this repair on my DR500GW and I have soldering experience and even with that experience, I wound up having a hard time without a successful repair.

Before attempting this repair, I knew full-well what I was getting myself into. What I didn't account for was how small the tolerances were when Pittasoft designed this thing.

The existing solder holding the worn out battery was thick, and would not melt easily. When it did, I was able to successfully remove it using a hand-held, spring-loaded solder sucker. I cleaned the contacts and applied new solder to the contact plates, which kept creating solder bridges since the contacts are so close to each other.

After getting that sorted out, dropping in the new battery was very difficult. The unit does not lay flat, so you are constantly dealing with a surface that rocks side-to-side and moves. I had a friend help keep it steady but since the tolerances are so tight, margin of error was small. I wound up heating the contact plate too much which lifted up the trace. It got worse and eventually the trace ended up soldering to the tiny resistors/diodes right near the battery. Trying to clean that up resulted in the one of them lifting up and the trace being obliterated.

The good news is the camera still works. Battery/clock retention is completely gone as well as it should be.

My advice to anyone who tries this is don't unless you are willing to except that when you're done, you were probably better off never attempting it. Like any job, things can go badly. This repair is very challenging because the margin of error is small, and the fact the replacement battery has to be placed on a layer of uncured solder.
 
this is a design flaw. The battery shouldn't be soldered on like that. it should be removable. Like held on by a clip.
 
these types of batteries are soldered on, have never seen these in a clip
I also have seen them only soldered.
I wonder what is the reason behind being soldered and not easily removable / replacable.
 
I also have seen them only soldered.
I wonder what is the reason behind being soldered and not easily removable / replacable.

I'd strongly suspect the practicalities of mounting it have a lot to do with it
 
I realise that this thread is exactly 4 years old, but looking to change my battery.
After getting that sorted out, dropping in the new battery was very difficult. The unit does not lay flat, so you are constantly dealing with a surface that rocks side-to-side and moves
Simple fix for this problem is to use some blue tack to hold it steady.
 
I will update the necro thread too, i have replaced my battery 3 times now, these things are just not durable. I don't drive my car much, it spends sometimes 2 to 3 weeks in a garage without starting, maybe it is the deep cycling of that battery which is poor too (along with great impact) ? Shame the camera couldn't recognise the bad date when it gets to this state and alter to the correct date when it picks up a good GPS lock (even if that means the first recording ends up with a bad date but subsequent recordings are ok).

Sent from my SM-N975F using Tapatalk
 
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