Mobius support thread and Tech Guide (post all problems/help requests here) Read posts #1-8 first

Hello,
My mobius has recently stopped recording images. All I get is purple lines. I've tried changing/formatting the card and the various firmwares but it's still not working.
Does anyone recognise this? I've attached a screenshot.
 

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What does the rear led LED indicator near the SD card mean? I'm troubleshooting some intermittent recording problems, and the rear red led blinks in unison with the yellow main led. Sometimes it records, sometimes it doesn't.

The current card I'm using is a Sandisk 16gb class 4 card that I got with my Galaxy S2 in 2012. It's been a very reliable card, however I am awaiting delivery of a new class 10 64gb sandisk card which should arrive soon.
 
jokiin said:
have you opened it up or dropped it at anytime? Try reseating the CMOS sensor ribbon cable
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Hi Jokiin,
No I haven't opened or dropped it. It's around two years old and is used as a dashcam on a daily basis. I did noticed that shortly before it completely failed the footage would flick erratically between light and dark.
 
yoda said:
Hi Jokiin,
No I haven't opened or dropped it. It's around two years old and is used as a dashcam on a daily basis. I did noticed that shortly before it completely failed the footage would flick erratically between light and dark.
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do you have a battery or capacitors in it?
 
jokiin said:
do you have a battery or capacitors in it?
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it has a battery but runs off the car most of the time.
When turned on, either on battery or car power, it appears to be recording normally in that all the leds are blinking as expected.
 
yoda said:
it has a battery but runs off the car most of the time.
When turned on, either on battery or car power, it appears to be recording normally in that all the leds are blinking as expected.
Click to expand...

what sort of condition is the battery in, it's getting quite old
 
Hi Dashmellow
I take it from this conversation that it is better to have a super-capacitor than a battery in cold situations. I live in Scottish Lowland and it does get cold but very rarely will it go below say -5.
but just the same my mobius after I have fully charged it in the house will work fine for a few days but then although the red light flashes 3 times it doesn't always start recording. Even when I press the power button it will flash 3 times but not always start recording. I was thinking that that it must be the cold.
Willie
 
Hi William, and welcome to DCT!


William Small said:
Hi Dashmellow
I take it from this conversation that it is better to have a super-capacitor than a battery in cold situations. I live in Scottish Lowland and it does get cold but very rarely will it go below say -5.
but just the same my mobius after I have fully charged it in the house will work fine for a few days but then although the red light flashes 3 times it doesn't always start recording. Even when I press the power button it will flash 3 times but not always start recording. I was thinking that that it must be the cold.
Willie
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When you power the camera with external power it doesn't matter that much if there's a battery or a capacitor in it, because in that situation they only serve to power the camera long enough to save the last file after you cut the external power source and keep the time and date. Capacitors are better for hot weather countries/regions because they're not affected as much by the heat as batteries, which tend to degrade over time, even if they're used only for that last file saving purpose. In Scotland the battery will last much longer than, for instance, in Australia, South America, parts of the USA, Asia, etc.
Of course, if you're going to use it on its own power, you got to have the battery installed because capacitors don't have enough "juice" to power the camera in normal recording use.
 
William Small said:
Hi Dashmellow
I take it from this conversation that it is better to have a super-capacitor than a battery in cold situations. I live in Scottish Lowland and it does get cold but very rarely will it go below say -5.
but just the same my mobius after I have fully charged it in the house will work fine for a few days but then although the red light flashes 3 times it doesn't always start recording. Even when I press the power button it will flash 3 times but not always start recording. I was thinking that that it must be the cold.
Willie
Click to expand...

Hi @William Small. I'm aware that you are referring to my posts from a discussion we had on this topic almost exactly a year ago here on DCT when this question came up during last winter's cold weather.

As you may recall there are two separate issues at question.

Firstly, some people report that their Mobius cameras fail to start recording when the temperature is substantially below freezing. According to @Isoprop, the specs for the DSP rate the unit down to 15 degrees Fahrenheit. This corresponds closely with my experience with one of my Mobius cams. At around 15° F or below, the camera's rear red LED will blink three times when power is applied but then the camera will (usually) not begin recording. If I leave the camera plugged in and powered up for say another 30-60 seconds and then unplug and re-plug the power back in, it will then begin recording as expected and all is fine. The DSP simply needs to warm up a bit after having the power applied briefly and it then re-boots into normal start-up with no further issues. Curiously, another newer Mobius camera in my vehicle that was installed after last winter has much less of an issue with very cold temps. (I don't know why that is but I am still testing this out though as this winter proceeds.)

The other separate question is the use of and need for super-capacitors in very cold conditions. Many members here on DCT seem solely focused on the need for super-capacitors in dash cams during hot weather because of the issue of how extreme heat negatively effects lithium-polymer (lithium-ion) batteries. Most dash cam users seem unconcerned or unaware of the fact that super-capacitors are just as important in extreme cold environments as they are in extreme hot environments. The reason for this is that one should never charge a frozen lithium-ion battery because it will become damaged. In the same way heat will shorten the life of a lithium-ion battery and eventually lead to potential safety issues, extreme cold will do the same thing if these cells are charged while they are frozen.

(from Battery University.com ) : BU-410: Charging at High and Low Temperatures

"Many battery users are unaware that consumer-grade lithium-ion batteries cannot be charged below 0°C (32°F). Although the pack appears to be charging normally, plating of metallic lithium can occur on the anode during a subfreezing charge. The plating is permanent and cannot be removed with cycling. Batteries with lithium plating are more vulnerable to failure if exposed to vibration or other stressful conditions."

See also: BU-409: Charging Lithium-ion

BU.jpg




 
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I'm sure component quality would be as good as it gets but I wonder if things like the Tesla are affected by the extremes of temp, hot or cold, likewise their home storage battery solution?
 
jokiin said:
I'm sure component quality would be as good as it gets but I wonder if things like the Tesla are affected by the extremes of temp, hot or cold, likewise their home storage battery solution?
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Good questions! Someone should ask Tesla. I imagine the PowerWall solution would rarely if ever become frozen but a car in a cold climate surely would.
 
I guess they would have thought of these things and have some sort of solution for it, not sure what that might be though, our concerns over batteries that top out at 1000mAh or so don't really compare but the tech is always interesting
 
jokiin said:
I guess they would have thought of these things and have some sort of solution for it, not sure what that might be though, our concerns over batteries that top out at 1000mAh or so don't really compare but the tech is always interesting
Click to expand...

I think the Tesla has a battery pack heater that won't let the charge begin until the pack reaches a certain temperature but I don't know much about that. I know a guy who owns a Tesla here in town so I will ask next time I see him. Interestingly, last year they installed an eight bay Tesla charging station here at a local shopping center and there are usually a few Teslas out there charging. The charge stations are less than half a mile off a major interstate highway and it brings many Tesla travelers into town for shopping and a meal while they charge their vehicles. I should just hang around and ask some of the owners what they do to charge their cars while they are up here on ski trips this time of year.
 
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jokiin said:
yeah given the weather you get there they must be doing something right to have it working
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I know we're veering a bit off topic here but it just occurred to me that I had a recent capture of that Tesla charging station and I thought I'd post a screen shot.

tesla.png
 
Hi guys, yesterday my dash cam failed to auto-record. I changed the cards, same thing...Plugged it into power and just got a solid yellow light. Tried again, this time a blue light then solid yellow. I then powered it off manually and on, then hit record and it worked.

Today, it auto recorded fine.

Any ideas?
 
Dashmellow said:
(...) one should never charge a frozen lithium-ion battery because it will become damaged.
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The reason I quoted your post is to ask this:
When I had the Mobius here, the first time I connected it to a power source the blue light came on. I used it in the car for two days, so the battery was fully charged. After I took it out of the car it sat unused for a long time and everytime I connected it again to a power source the blue light never lit up, which indicated the battery wasn't being charged.
So, if the camera is left exposed to freezing temperatures overnight inside the car, turned off and with a fully charged battery, when you power it up the next day is the battery going to receive charge again? Is the Mobius battery always receiving charge, even when it's full, or the system only charges it when it detects the battery has lost voltage?
 
Module 79L said:
The reason I quoted your post is to ask this:
When I had the Mobius here, the first time I connected it to a power source the blue light came on. I used it in the car for two days, so the battery was fully charged. After I took it out of the car it sat unused for a long time and everytime I connected it again to a power source the blue light never lit up, which indicated the battery wasn't being charged.
So, if the camera is left exposed to freezing temperatures overnight inside the car, turned off and with a fully charged battery, when you power it up the next day is the battery going to receive charge again? Is the Mobius battery always receiving charge, even when it's full, or the system only charges it when it detects the battery has lost voltage?
Click to expand...

It is the green light that will indicate if the battery is being charged. It will turn off when the battery is fully charged.

When the battery is fully charged it shouldn't be receiving a charge but it is not a good idea to have a frozen battery in the camera anyway because sooner or later the battery's voltage will dip and it will begin receiving a charge. A frozen battery can take many hours to thaw out properly. A battery should thaw out slowly and evenly and if the heat generated by the DSP warms up the battery very quickly perhaps beginning on only one side it may cause a lot of physical stress to the electrolyte and the battery pack. The battery also gets at least a brief jolt of voltage when you first plug it in just so the camera can test its voltage.

As to whether applying power to a Mobius that has a frozen fully charged battery in it is causing harm, I don't really know but my feeling is that it's probably not a good thing to do every day. If it were me I would just install a super-capacitor. On the other hand, since the battery is so easy to replace in the Mobius, if it suffers a little damage from how you wish to use it and it ends up with a shorter lifespan, you can just replace it. I think it depends on just how cold out it gets where you live. Where I live it easily can go down to WAY below freezing often in the winter time so I avoid using battery powered cameras unless I can bring them indoors overnight. With super-capacitors in my cameras both summer and winter it is one less thing to even have to think about.
 
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Dashmellow said:
It is the green light that will indicate if the battery is being charged. It will turn off when the battery is fully charged.
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Or that. I didn't use it long enough to memorize the color codes. :)

Dashmellow said:
As to whether applying power to a Mobius that has a frozen fully charged battery in it is causing harm, I don't really know but my feeling is that it's probably not a good thing to do every day. If it were me I would just install a super-capacitor. On the other hand, since the battery is so easy to replace in the Mobius, if it suffers a little damage from how you wish to use it and it ends up with a shorter lifespan, you can just replace it. I think it depends on just how cold out it gets where you live. Where I live it easily can go down to WAY below freezing often in the winter time so I avoid using battery powered cameras unless I can bring them indoors overnight. With super-capacitors in my cameras both summer and winter it is one less thing to even have to think about.
Click to expand...
I was speaking in general terms because the information might be useful to other members reading this thread.
In my particular case it very rarely drops below 5ºC (41ºF) where I live and it's usually only overnight. By the time the camera starts working the temperature inside the car is always a lot warmer. But it's good to know these things. :)
 
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