Mini 0806. Not as expected. Quite a disappointment.

[Spoks]

I found this place after bought Mini 0806.
I'm not sure if I didn't choose to buy this cam first time after reading about problems of it, because
everyone hopes that his purchase will be without defects.
Despite of all this, however, I am quite disappointed with this product because it feels raw.
Raw from aspect of usability and firmware stability.
I have not opened it to see if there are no pure mounted parts inside, because I am no sure that I will not have to send it back.

Playing with my Mini 0806 around a week, purchased from GearBest.
As I understand from posts here, I have second batch camera with latest FW in old style package. First impression of received box was very good ... seemed no to be a cheep Chinese crap, but solid product.

Video quality is what I was expected better. IT is average inspite of famous Ambarella chip. At lest in my opinion it is in average, if compare to videos from other, even cheaper camera reviews. As I read here, it is even not as good as from very first old 0801.

I don't have GPS and/or power issues. At least yet.
But I have problems with functionality of camera. It just hangs-up or freeze time by time. After freezing it gets warm.
One of freezing reason which I can repeat at any time is ridiculous - camera freezes just by going through it Settings mode and checking settings. In settings mode, if I go upward then it freeze after "G-sensor sensitivity". If downward - after "LDWS Calibration".
It hangs-up also when recording and if I would like to Mute microphone or take a picture (not always, but picture taking doesn't work in record mode anyway). It just hangs-up and nothing happens any more until hard reset or empty battery. After that I have to change settings again and do it very carefully or it will freeze again

 

[Sharky]

Just out of curiosity what type of microSD card are you using? Perhaps your card if slow is causing problems. Have you tried it with another (class 6 or better)?

 

[Spoks]

It shouldn't be memory card. I am using 64GB Samsung Evo clas 10 micro SD card.
After same time of hesitation, I opened body of camera.
Well, exactly as WalterBiH wrote in this thread, I found broken wire from TX contact.
I do not know will this help, but will check after soldering.

 

[superwario]

Please keep us update, Spoks. I hope everything turns out well for you after soldering.

 

[budster]

It seems there are many reports of broken solder joints inside the camera. Makes me really nervous to buy a 0806 as I've been holding off until the product seems more mature. Did prior mini models have such widespread problems with disconnected wires? I wonder if the problem is due to bad soldering, use of poor quality solder, or the design of the camera is causing wires to get pulled off the circuit board when rotating it.

By the way, I'm wondering if opening up the camera will void its warranty. If I end up buying this camera, experience a similar problem, and open up the camera to check for disconnected wires, I don't want to get accused by the seller or manufacturer of breaking the camera and causing the problem myself. Unfortunately, I don't have soldering equipment or skills so I would need to do a warranty return if I ran into such a problem.

 

[Nigel]

It seems there are many reports of broken solder joints inside the camera. Makes me really nervous to buy a 0806 as I've been holding off until the product seems more mature. Did prior mini models have such widespread problems with disconnected wires? I wonder if the problem is due to bad soldering, use of poor quality solder, or the design of the camera is causing wires to get pulled off the circuit board when rotating it.

Previous mini cameras could only rotate 90 degrees, the mini 0806 can rotate 180 degrees so that it can be mounted upside down so there is a reason for these teething problems.

The connection does appear to work fine if it is correctly assembled but clearly some have not been correctly assembled, might just be one assembly worker who has been doing it wrong and it's probably already been sorted out, time will tell.

 

[Spoks]

Well, I know how to make soldering an I have equipment too, at least to solder wires
As I already thought, this wire was not a root of camera freezing problems. It rather could make GPS problems, as it comes from foot connectors, but there was everything ok with GPS.
What I didn't mentioned before, that Up and Down buttons do not work very well.
I took a look on switches. I am not sure, but seems there could be bad soldering too. See attached picture (sorry about not a good one).

Just before to resolder them I'd like to know, that I will not loose a warranty (if I still have it after opening a body). But how to know that ?

 

[jokiin]

Self repairs gone wrong will likely cause you warranty issues, better talk to the seller first

 

[Spoks]

The connection does appear to work fine if it is correctly assembled but clearly some have not been correctly assembled, might just be one assembly worker who has been doing it wrong and it's probably already been sorted out, time will tell.

The sad thing about it is that we are paying our money just for "time will tell".

 

[Spoks]

Sorry for late update
After kind permission of Rayman I fixed wire and button contacts by myself.
But seems, there are problems for camera to work with Samsung memory cards.
It is just freezing randomly while in Record mode, or in Settings mode at G-sensor or LDW part.
Also Picture taking while in Record mode doesn't work.
Well only hope is that engineers of Mini0806 will find a bug.

 

[Nigel]

Sorry for late update
After kind permission of Rayman I fixed wire and button contacts by myself.
But seems, there are problems for camera to work with Samsung memoru cards.
It is just freezing randomly while in Record mode, or in Settings mode at G-sensor or LDW part.
Also Picture taking while in Record mode doesn't work.
Well only hope is that engineers of Mini0806 will find a bug.

Picture taking in record mode doesn't work with the higher resolutions, that is a known feature. The video frames seem to be so good that it is hardly necessary though...

Samsung memory cards are normally good, are you sure it is only Samsung cards that are causing your problem?
If you haven't done so then check it is a real card with ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/h2testw_1.4.zip , although a fake card shouldn't cause all the problems you describe.

Maybe the soldering process didn't work properly and there is another bad joint on the PCB?

 

[Spoks]

Picture taking in record mode doesn't work with the higher resolutions, that is a known feature. The video frames seem to be so good that it is hardly necessary though...

Ohhh ... didn't know that! Rayman haven't say about it too. It should be written to manual.

Samsung memory cards are normally good, are you sure it is only Samsung cards that are causing your problem?
If you haven't done so then check it is a real card with ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/h2testw_1.4.zip , although a fake card shouldn't cause all the problems you describe.

Maybe the soldering process didn't work properly and there is another bad joint on the PCB?

I am not sure that Samsung cards are causing problem (do not have other to try), but from discussions with Rayman it seems so. Doing h2testw right now, but it takes long time for 64Gb card.

Your version about another bad joint sounds reasonable.

 

[Nigel]

Ohhh ... didn't know that! Rayman haven't say about it too. It should be written to manual.

Rayman does know about it, I think it was on the list of bugs to be fixed so wasn't put in the manual but the problem is with Ambarella so can't be fixed unless Ambarella make some changes which means it is unlikely to happen soon which means it is now a feature. In Registrator Viewer you can do a "Save current video frame" to get a still image, that is what I do and the results are normally good.

I am not sure that Samsung cards are causing problem (do not have other to try), but from discussions with Rayman it seems so. Doing h2testw right now, but it takes long time for 64Gb card.

Yes, it takes a long time but it does it thoroughly so you can trust the result. A pass doesn't mean that there isn't a compatibility issue with the camera but there are a lot of people using Samsung cards with the mini 0806 without problems, including me.

 

[yawut]

Hi, Spoks. You're correct, this does in fact appear to be the same problem I was having: https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/up-button-not-responding.10106/#post-130903

When I had mine apart the solder on the down button looked weak too, but I left it alone since it was working fine. After adding some solder to the up button it works exactly as it did before.

Re the memory cards: I've tried both Samsung (32 GB, class 6) and SanDisk(32 GB, class 10) cards. The only time I had an issue with freezing was when I had them both inserted at the same time. Now I run the samsung card in the B-slot (A-slot is empty) and it's been great.

 

[JooVuu]

This is just one of the reasons JooVuu currently is not stocking the 0806.

Kind regards,

JooVuu

 

[jokiin]

Enthusiasts might be ok with being beta testers, as a retailer though that's something that's very hard to be in middle of

 

[V8Rocks]

So, the 0801 is the one to beat. Very sad progression of the brand.

 

[CheckYourLights]

So, the 0801 is the one to beat.

My 0805 and 0803 work fine. Also aside from my GPS not working which I think is a mount issue my 0806 has been pretty good so far. It sucks some are having issue though

I don't think I would go all the way back to the 01

 

[JooVuu.allen]

Picture taking in record mode doesn't work with the higher resolutions, that is a known feature. The video frames seem to be so good that it is hardly necessary though...

Samsung memory cards are normally good, are you sure it is only Samsung cards that are causing your problem?
If you haven't done so then check it is a real card with ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/h2testw_1.4.zip , although a fake card shouldn't cause all the problems you describe.

Maybe the soldering process didn't work properly and there is another bad joint on the PCB?

@JooVuu , I doubt that they may have adopted second hand PCBA

 

[Spoks]

@@JooVuu , I doubt that they may have adopted second hand PCBA

What do you mean with "second hand PCBA"? Used ones?

I have two Samsung Evo 64Gb microSD cards tested with my camera. All described problems are with each of cards (using one of two at time). Tried to use slot B instead of A.
All the same.
Now I am waiting for a 32Gb Kingston card from my friend. Will make tests with it.