Parking mode setup

[mollydog]

on our daily drives we’ve been using our DVR’s connected to an ignition ON fuse in the fuse box , on my car I drive to Italy with I’ve had the DVR to come on with power to the lights as I drive it 100% of the time with lights on. day or night, never had it connected in parking mode like this:



when it comes to electrics I’m no expert but sort of know my way around, I’m in two minds whether I should have it set up in parking mode,

I had an idea (bad I know)

I have a small 12v battery something like this one (but not this exact one)



my thinking is/was to have this aux battery power the DVR when not driving, when driving/lights on, the car battery is going to power the DVR and also charging the aux battery with the use of a voltage sensitive relay, like shown in my diagram,



if someone with knowledge with car electrics can go over my diagram and see i’ve not missed anything out or in fact if I have it all wrong.

I know I could take the easy route and just buy a pre made parking mode connector but I’m one who likes to tinker (even though I might still get the pre made connector)

 

[Nigel]

It is a lot easier to use the car battery with a parking mode hardwire kit that will turn the camera off when the battery voltage is low. There is a Viofo parking mod hardwire kit specifically for this.

You can normally fit a larger car battery rather than second battery, or connect the two batteries together in parallel to effectively have a larger battery (although this approach does have a few issues if the batteries are not well matched).

In your diagram you have nothing to protect the 2nd battery from full discharge, which is very bad for a lead acid battery.

The other possibility, which may be good in your case, is to use a USB powerbank of around 20,000 mAh. These are far more durable than lead acid when frequently emptied, however they don't tend to charge fast enough to be charged while driving. Some people charge them overnight, or you can use a USB PD powerbank with high charge rate, there are a few available now that will charge at 45watts, but with a dual camera that uses 4.5 watts that is still a 1 hour charge for 10 hours parking coverage. A small 2nd lead acid battery will also have difficulty charging fast enough, another reason to go for a bigger main car battery, larger batteries charge faster.

 

[SawMaster]

All that's needed to switch from a car battery to a same-voltage auxillary power source is one DPDT switch or relay. The charging of the auxillary will occur when the car is running. There's a thread on this here somewhere explaining it. If you're anal about design you can use a buffering cap on the cam power side but in my experience there's no real need to do that as the switching time doesn't seem to affect cam operation.

AGM or SLA batteries are pretty much safe to charge directly from a properly functioning car alternator without any additional fussing about. The downside of them is their size and weight for a given capacity, of which a powerbank will beat them hands-down there. It's the charging of powerbanks that complicate life, but with a pair of them one can be in use while the other charges at home, then you swap them around night and morning. Not a big deal once you get used to it. It could be arranged to charge a powerbank in-car during driving but that complicates the needed circuitry. And you must drive enough for charging with this whichever battery type you choose.

In my experience, a single cam running overnight doesn't greatly affect car battery life, but more than this can become a major factor. After doing the math for my vehicle assuming a 20% shortened battery life, IIRC it worked out to $0.25 a day to run one cam continuously, which I'm quite happy with. If you can live with that then it is simpler and easier to just use a hardwire kit as most folks do. If you're concerned with it, many have low-voltage cut-off protection built in and some even have that being at selectable levels. I'm a firm believer in simplicity and that's about as simple as it gets.

Phil

 

[mollydog]

my thinking behind this plan was/is, I would still like to use the setup I have at present, in that I mean the DVR to come on with lights on instead of the usual/normal with ignition on

in the past I had thought about using the DVR I had then with parking mode on, but the issue of using my setup with parking mode put me off re thinking of a way round it

now I’ve got hold of the Viofo A129, I’ve been giving it some more thought to this and my plan was in parking mode to have the A129 film at 5fps and when lights on then switch to normal filming mode

if I went with the viola hard wire kit and still used my setup would my setup in this diagram work, in that lights on, normal filming, lights off and the A129 will be in parking mode at 5fps with the hard wired kit?

 

[Nigel]

I think you can connect your lights direct to the yellow on the hardwire kit, no need for the relay. The hardwire kit converts to 5v so you don't need a separate box, and given that you don't drive your weekend car every day, I would put a switch in so that you can turn off the main power when it is parked safely at home. I don't have this HW kit so I might be wrong.

 

[mollydog]

Nigel, something like this?



in the diagram I’ve kept the USB connector thats under the front bonnet, so I don’t have to re thread the USB cable to the DVR on the screen (unless I have to)

edited to add: I forgot to mention I’d be fitting an ON/OFF switch for the hard wire kit for when the car’s isn’t used for more than a day or two

 

[Nigel]

Nigel, something like this?

Yes, I think the yellow is just a signal, doesn't supply the power so that is fine.

Only issue I can see is that your current USB cable may not have the conductor for the parking mode signal, so you may need to replace it for this to work! Or maybe you use the 0906 parking mode? Which I guess uses the same pin on the USB connector.

As I said before, I don't have this hardwire kit so best to wait for someone else to confirm, we could have red and yellow the wrong way around for all I know!

 

[Nigel]

Sometimes it is quite easy to tape the new cable to the end of the old and just pull it through, but given your car maybe not!

 

[mollydog]

I did have the 0906 in the car, but I didn’t use the hard wire kit with it

As I was testing the 0906 for Rayman and about to set off to my drive t Italy I thought it would be a good opportunity to put it through it’s pace, the captured results were great in all kinds of weather very pleased no complaints there, the only issues I had with it (apart from the fex mount) was that a week before setting off I discovered that it would cut off at random times, no warnings just cut out and no movie clips on the SD card, I thought this might of been the same issues I had with the 0806, bad microUSB connection so I went out and bought an Anker PowerLine and used that on my trip, all was fine while here at home, I had driven around 600 miles in to France when I pulled up for the night, in the hotel I took the card out and there was nothing on the card from the moment I took the tunnel at Dover (Folkestone)

so from the USB junction near the fuse box right up to where the 0906 was on the windscreen I have that Anker PowerLine, yes it has the microUSB at the end but a microUSB to USB B are easy to get hold of

(that was a bit long ) but back to the Viofo hardwire kit, I could mail Viofo for info on the red and yellow wires to be sure red is power and yellow is only a trigger,

if only it was as easy and using the existing cable to thread through the Viofo hard wire cable to the windscreen,, to get the cable to the back of the dash from the bonnet needs come out along here, from under the wiper motor (to the left of image)




getting the rear cable not showing, as there are no carpets on the floor and no trim panels on the sides the seats need taking out to thread the rear camera cable in the centre consul,




to get the cable from under the front bonnet to the back of the dash, it goes through a very small grommet



that is too small for the filter at the end of the Viofo cable end,



in fact even if I kept all the wiring behind the dash and only threaded the three (red,yellow and black) wires through to the fuse box, that filter at the end of the cable has also to pass though this non existing gap here at the side of the dash



to get the cable to the top windscreen



most of it is doable but getting the cable and filter passed the side dash to the windscreen is going to be the issue without damaging the side plate and as most things Elise S1 are no longer made a risk too much to take

so if I could just connect the USB B from the end of the Viofo hardwire kit to my already fitted cable under the front bonnet to the windscreen it will save me no end of time and aggravation

 

[Nigel]

It may be possible to remove the filter, it will just be two pieces of ferrite wrapped around the cable with a plastic coating over the top, some of them are clip on but that is probably moulded on, doesn't mean it can't be removed with a knife.

Just a suggestion, I'm not encouraging you to start on what might take a couple of weeks! If the current cable has enough conductors then wire cutters and a soldering iron looks a much quicker method.

 

[mollydog]

thank you Nigel for your help, I've also sent a message to Viofo and hope they can shine some light on the three wires, if a can take off the filter at the end of the cable then much as it's not a simple job it's very doable to thread the cable (from the hardwire kit) to the top of the windscreen

 

[mollydog]

I sent a PM to Viofo from here (DCT) and what must have been first thing in the morning in China I got a speedy reply asking for my email address as they would email me a PDF file in information,

sure enough a few moments later the PDF file was in my drop box, looks like on the Viofo 3 wire hardwire kit, it’s red to battery (permanent live at the fuse) and yellow is ACC (ignition ON fuse)








as I plan on testing the A129 out on one of our daily drives first, to see what settings would suits me, I wanted the flexibility to swap it from one car to another, so I bought this suction cup



from Flubit for just over £6.50:

Site Inactive

just a thought here, on these 3 wire hardwire kit’s, the wire that gets a feed from the ACC fuse, is this wire used only to get a plus for the hardwire kit or is this ACC wire actually suppling power to the hardwire kits when not in parking mode?

 

[Nigel]

...is this wire used only to get a plus for the hardwire kit or is this ACC wire actually suppling power to the hardwire kits when not in parking mode?

I would be surprised if the ACC wire is used to supply power, might have to use a multi-meter to find out for certain though.

Your suction cup will result in more vibration than you get with sticky pads, fine as a temporary solution, but not a permanent one for the Elise. If you want to keep it as a movable camera then get an extra proper mount for the Elise and maybe use the suction cup for the others.

 

[jokiin]

ACC is only a signal trigger, load is on the B+

 

[mollydog]

for sure on the Elise I’ll be mounting it to the windscreen with the GPS mount sticky pad, this suction cup is a temporary measure to allow me to swap it to the car thats being used so to get as much use before permanently fitting it to the Elise,

truth be told I’m not looking forward to fitting all the cabling in the Elise, but by now I do have a knack in dismantling the car

pleased to hear the ACC is only the signal trigger, when I get round to fitting the A129 with the hardwire kit in the Elise, I’ll be wiring it up like this (if I can open up the filter at the end of the cable)



on with lights on, parking mode with lights off

 

[Nigel]

(if I can open up the filter at the end of the cable)

You can always cut the cable just before the filter, it is only a power cable, 2 conductors, plus a steady state signal for the parking, 1 conductor, so any shielding is just to prevent radio interference to other devices, it is not going to be critical to its operation like with the cable to the rear camera carrying high speed video data (don't cut that), so it should be reasonably easy to solder back together with some heat shrink insulation to make it neat.

 

[mollydog]

thanks for that info Nigel,

I shan’t touch the back cable after running it to the back, I'll just plug it in and leave it alone

 

[kholdstare]

I have a viofo Hardwire kit and would like to use this for my K2s. Does anyone know what signal is active for parking mode:

as for the K2s it its:
Driving: GND/+5V, parking mode low
Parking: GND/+5V, parking mode +3-5V

Works the viofo hardwire kit the same way or do I have to invert the parking mode trigger signal (connected to ACC)?

 

[jokiin]

I have a viofo Hardwire kit and would like to use this for my K2s.

not compatible

 

[kamkar]

No you will need the original K2S hardwire kit for a K2S camera, i dont think they are inter compatible ( did not get a HW kit with my K2S test sample )