Issue with dashcam power

[Bertiee]

Hello,

Apologies if this is the wrong forum, however it seemed closer to hardwiring and batteries than anything else!

Bit of an odd one but I can't figure this out. I have two cars, a VW Touran and a Seat Altea. Both have Nextbase dashcams powered through the cigarette lighter. The one in the Altea stopped coming on automatically, but was fine when I turned it on manually which I thought would be a power issue. I've checked the cigarette lighter using a tyre pump and that works, and I've checked the cable as it worked fine in the Touran. I've also tried switching the cable / camera from the Touran into the Altea and that doesn't work. I'd have thought perhaps a fuse issue, but the fact that the pump worked suggests that the cigarette lighter is working fine.

Hope that makes sense! Anyone got an ideas what the problem could be?

 

[Ralph2]

How are you turning it on manually? By pulling the male cigarette lighter plug and re-inserting it? Perhaps.. the plug is not making proper contact. Can you confirm with a meter that you have power at the camera end of the plug while you think it should have power.

 

[Bertiee]

How are you turning it on manually? By pulling the male cigarette lighter plug and re-inserting it? Perhaps.. the plug is not making proper contact. Can you confirm with a meter that you have power at the camera end of the plug while you think it should have power.

I can turn it on manually on the camera itself, however when you plug it in the camera should come on of it's own accord.

Unfortunately I can't confirm anything with a meter as I don't have one. It's all very odd - I've managed to get it working now with another cable (from a 15 year old sat nav!), but I still have no idea why the other ones don't work when they're absolutely fine in my car, particularly when the problem cable / camera has been working and stayed plugged in for months. There's also two cigarette lighter sockets in the car and the other one didn't work either, so I don't think it's a connection issue. All very strange

 

[Ralph2]

Is there a setting on the camera to turn on by default? Looking at some of the installation videos there is mention of an auto off, a setting that seems to vary if you have it hard wired or not. Just making wild guesses here..

 

[Bertiee]

I think the issue is with the car battery since that's now died!

 

[kamkar]

I had camera issues a few years ago, with a car battery from 2012 that in no way seemed to be dying as it showed fine voltages and was charged just fine, but putting in a new battery did fix that problem i had.
I still find it very strange as the battery was good / seemed good, and i tried things like boot delay which mean the camera come on a few seconds later when the car are up and running making +14 volts
But none of that worked, only a new battery.