i1000 / F70 / X6 720P Dual Lens DVR Dash Camera

Considering all the different affordable 1080p offerings out there right now, I would not buy one of these today. I have one myself, but it's already almost 2 years old - i currently use the main unit by itself as a rear cam in my car but it will soon be replaced with an A118C just as soon as I get time to swap it out.

if you like this form factor for a front camera, consider buying an A118 instead. it's a little thicker, but it's not as wide, and it does TRUE 1080p, unlike this camera. no, it's not 2 channel, but having a rear camera isn't as important as having a good front cam that will actually pick up license plate numbers... AND actually produce halfway decent video at night - the f70/i1000 is garbage at night. check my youtube channel for sample videos to see what i mean.
 
Thanks
I'm using the rear cam for a better view low down out the back of my X5, I guess as the footage is recorded also it's a slight bonus as it's not the greatest like you mentioned.
Yes, the form factor is good, it's tucked nicely out of the way above the rear-view mirror.
I couldn't see many small dual camera versions out there with a screen.
 
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Long term update on my camera, ref post #23 DeeCee, Oct 25, 2012

Camera system has performed well over the past 2+ years.
Recently it was writing zero length files. This was tracked down to first startup in the day.
On checking the Lithium battery it was not holding a charge for more than a few hours.
Replaced battery with a Samsung E250 mobile phone battery... Genuine one. It has greater capacity 800mAH against original 680mAH.
Same physical size. I simply soldered the battery wire directly to the gold plated battery connections.

Camera operation back to normal..... Still very pleased with the camera
 
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Hi Forum,

I am new here and read the F70 thread.
Nice hints. I managed to remove the lipo and wire a steady 5volts input with a UBEC already.

Now I am struggling with another tricky problem:

My chip is the F20

The AV in is only displayed in a small window inside the main screen. I was wondering if it is possible to connect a composite signal (AV in) to the pins where the main camera is. But the camera has 24 pins, not just the usual video (yellow) and black (gnd)
There are pins for the infrared leds and some more.

Does anybody know which pins I must use? Can I check it with an oszilloscope?
I would be grateful for any tip.

I uploaded some photos of the pcb board and the camera.
IMG_20150522_135556.jpg

IMG_20150522_135040.jpg IMG_20150522_135018.jpg

best regards

Trigan :)
 
I thought you could switch the av in to full screen via a remote control on these but not on the camera itself.... see techmoan you tube video on these.

nice to see the internals and note a 24 pin lens extension cable can be fitted to these - could mount on headlining and give a left side /right side view (using front and rear)- cheap solution !
 
on mine, you can quickly tap the triangle button to cycle through the views - front, rear, PiP. you have to hold the button for about a second to lock a file, which i find really annoying.

also, the secondary video in comes in through one of the 3.5mm jacks on the side, and does not go through the ribbon cable at all. i don't know much about the signal, but i'd guess it's simple analog video since it's only got 3 conductors on the plug - likely +vcc, ground, and video signal.

i'm more interested in your mod to remove the battery. how does the camera react to a power cut when you shut off the car? does it properly close the last file? the battery in mine is slightly swollen but the camera seems to be working just fine otherwise, so this could be a good mod to keep using the camera, especially if it's cheap.
 
Hi there,

thanks for the hint about cycling the views. I will try it. Mine came without remote control though :(
I just checked the triangle switch. Problem is that I can only switch to the av in /rear camera when there is a videosignal on this channel. Whenever the video stops the screen jumps back to frontcam. An when there is no video in rear its impossible to switch to rear mode.

I did the battery mod because the lipo was flat and did not recharge anymore. message "lower power" all the time - nice chinese english by the way.
I haven thought about the shutdown interruption yet. I just checke it an yes - its an issue. Ìf the power cut the last recording is not on sd. I am not using it inside the car but for recording videos of my rc airplane therefore I don`t bother about the automatic start/stop function. I stop recording and then I switch it of. As a dashcam I would recommend to replace the lipo.

I connected the 5V UBEC to + and minus and connected the + as well to the + pin of the micro usb to simulate external power. The two outermost pins of the micro usb are gnd and plus.

I bought an extension cable for my other cam, a moebius. It has 26 pins - almost fits.

http://www.ebay.de/itm/281651638984?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

but I am sure You can find it out there.
b
 
My i1000 is still making troubles after the battery mod. It crashes frequently, sometimes it wants to boot but gets stuck repeating the welcome screen again and again. Sometimes it remains dark until I unplug the AV in plug. When it looses the signal it stops recording every time so that I have about 15 videos each about 2-15 seconds long and the display jumps back to front camera every time. I disconnected the speaker as well to get rid of that nuisance ding dong sound.
The lipo is flat after about 6 months and I was not using it very often. Bottom line for me is I will rather spend some more money for a better camera.
As a dashcam some of those issues are maybe not a problem. If You just want to record in a car with power on and don`t bother about a large number of short videos instead of one continous video then go for it. I had some cam crashes as well in the car and sometimes I had to remove the tf card and format is manually because it was full and somehow did not delete the old videos but with 32gb there is plenty of space.

I am aware that I most probably have bought a fake (no remote control and other indicators) and the real camera might not have all these issues.
 
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One other factor is your battery mod. The lipo battery did not output 5v. It puts out something like 3.2v. So you may be damaging the camera by feeding it too much voltage.
 
I am quite sure that 5volts is fine.
The lipo supplies less thats right but I think the charging circuit supplies not enough voltage to load the lipo. thats why it dies so quickly.
I connected an external power source and slowly increased voltage starting from around 3.2. You can see that the battery symbol in the display shows almost empty at 3.2 volts. When You increase voltage by the time You reach 5 volts the battery symbol finally shows full battery.
I have also read this from other sources eg here:
The 5 volts is definitely too much for the lipo so I removed it. There are lipo charging circuits available so it is possible to replace that too if You want.

http://www.ebay.de/itm/A61-TP4056-1...45?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_77&hash=item3aa4d58a39
 
Just an FYI for anyone interested in buying the F70/i1000, Amazon has it for $30 for a generic version. I ordered one a while back and it's the same cam you get anywhere else. The only thing was that mine came with the bullet-style rear camera instead of the one in the pics. https://www.amazon.com/gp/B00BTVTA0U
 
I ordered this: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/B00N77S90G
Arrived today and I started playing around with the settings. Ended up factory resetting the device. Now everything is in Chinese and there seems to be absolutely no way of switching it back to English. Can anybody help?

From what I can tell this is the firmware version: 4 Chinese characters 1.1 RC1_20150127
 
when this happened to me on the old 027 DVR, attack me some time but found and remembered the Chinese characters for language and then one by one scroll down and entering each one till English popped up again,

What I have found now,which is a simple but very good idea, and that is have the language name, in the language its related to, so English write in English and Greek in greek and so one, I’m sure not too many people outside China can read Chinese
 
Even when I was going through the settings in english, there wasn't a "languages" option in the first place. I'll be returning it for sure.
 
if it had English before it will still be there now, there's generally more than one menu level and usually some icons that are indicative of which section you're in, if you're not sure post some pics of the menu screens and maybe we can point you in the right direction

when all is said and done these aren't really a great camera
 
Hello all, this is my first time posting but I've had this dashcam for awhile now. I recently fried it by messing up when trying to hardwire it. My buddy took the cam apart and thinks this part circled in red is fried. Does anyone know what that part this is (to be replaced) or does anyone have the board schematics by any chance??
IMG_20150716_192323.jpg
 
considering that you can get a whole new one of these for about $25-30 on amazon and ebay, i wouldn't bother fixing it. either get a new f70 or spend a little more for a true 1080p unit like a g1w or a118.

and get one of the ~$8 hardwire kits that properly steps it down from 12v to 5v usb.
 
Well if I'm going to buy a new dash cam it wouldn't be the same one, but a better, more expensive one around $60-80 (like A118c)
If this one can somehow be fixed with a $5 part that my buddy can help weld in, I'd rather that.

And you're right, I have very little knowledge of electrical stuff...I cut the female cigarette plug right off and wired it directly and it fried as soon as I put the key in LOL hard lesson learned.
 
soldering teeny little surface-mount devices (SMD) like that isn't easy without specialized tools. and finding the right one is very unlikely - most SMDs aren't labeled becuase they're too small to even have a label. instead, the label is on the tape or the spool that they're shipped on by the thousand. so without a schematic, your odds of finding the right part are pretty much nil.

but hey, at least you learned from it, and it wasn't TOO expensive. :)

on the plus side, the usb hardwire kits are pretty universal. only a few different ones like some of the newer mini080x use microusb like android phones - almost all other USB-powered dashcams use miniusb, like the f70 (and a118). in fact, i am using the same hardwire adapter that i installed for my f70 on my a118 since both use miniusb.
 
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Yeah I knew it was a long shot but was worth the try before I moved on. I guess a schematic is not available at all?
 
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