Parking mode turns off after an hour

[Maple28]

I have the FineVu GX4K-2CH hardwired to my 2023 Mercedes. I’ve noticed that it only records motion detection for about an hour on parking mode after the car is turned off. I’ve taken it back to the place where I got it installed and they think that it’s working fine. The car is driven about 2-3 times a week - could this be affecting the charge of the battery? Or could they have potentially connected it to the wrong fuse? The low voltage setting is set to 12.0V/24.0V.

 

[kamkar]

G day
And welcome to the forum.

If it turn off after exactly 1 hour, that might be the car switching off circuits due to the smarts that creep into cars these days.
Since it is a 2023 car i doubt it is the low voltage cut off in the hard wire kit that do it, but if there is a option to do so you could try and set a even lower cut off voltage like the 11.8 Volts that many have ( not familiar with this brand )

Some systems also have a build in timer to terminate parking guard, but that should be set to off as default, i use that myself when i can and set to 3 hours as at home i have CCTV on my parked car, and at night the back yard are too dark for a dashcam to capture anything.

You could also try another parking guard mode, motion detect are often not good as every little thing moving will set it off.
Other modes could be G-sensor which will activate if the car is bumped ( use the highest sensitivity for that ) and my preferred one which is low bitrate, that mode record all the time though but at a lesser bitrate to prevent internal heat generation and it also generate smaller files so there is room for more on the memory card.

If you are not terrible familiar with dashcams / gadgets, only change 1 parameter at the time, so you can always go back to where you was.

Heat though it is the cold season in Australia now, could also be a factor, but it should kick in at variable times then depending on the heat of the day / t ime of the day.
But most will do that CUZ only so much temperature electronics can handle, before they have to shut down to protect them self.

If your parking guard sessions run longer after a substantial drive, i would assume it is the low voltage cut off that kick in, you do have to replenish the power you loose when parked with the camera on, and you can only do that by driving or charging the car battery.
A good 1 hour drive should see your car battery fully charged though, they co charge fairly fast

 

[kamkar]

O i forgot to say.
I personally use a 12.2 volt cut off value in my car, that is generally considered a 50 % depleted car battery.
Car lead / acid batteries are not really meant for deep discharging, like 11.8 volts would be, so low voltage will eat into the life of the battery.
you can use 11.8 volt to check if that entail a longer duration of parking guard, but you should not use that every day.

If you can you can also measure the voltage on the car battery before you start the car, some cars will even indicate that somewhere on the dash, if it is down to the 12 V you have set as cut off, that is the problem then.

If your weekly drives are just a short drive to the shop then that dont do much in regard to keep the voltage up on the car battery.
I do say to the people that run a lot of parking guard, like 8 hours while working and then 8 hours while they sleep, well they better have a good long commute to / from work to keep the charge up.

 

[Maple28]

O i forgot to say.
I personally use a 12.2 volt cut off value in my car, that is generally considered a 50 % depleted car battery.
Car lead / acid batteries are not really meant for deep discharging, like 11.8 volts would be, so low voltage will eat into the life of the battery.
you can use 11.8 volt to check if that entail a longer duration of parking guard, but you should not use that every day.

If you can you can also measure the voltage on the car battery before you start the car, some cars will even indicate that somewhere on the dash, if it is down to the 12 V you have set as cut off, that is the problem then.

If your weekly drives are just a short drive to the shop then that dont do much in regard to keep the voltage up on the car battery.
I do say to the people that run a lot of parking guard, like 8 hours while working and then 8 hours while they sleep, well they better have a good long commute to / from work to keep the charge up.

Thank you so much for your reply. That’s really good information! I only do maybe one 1hr drive and a couple of 15 minute drives a week so that’s probably the issue. Was hoping that it would record a full 8 hours while I’m at work but my commute to work is only 15 minutes. Would you recommend getting an external battery pack?

 

[Nigel]

Would you recommend getting an external battery pack?

The external battery pack is not going to get a full charge in 15 minutes, but you might get 6 hours.

I only do maybe one 1hr drive and a couple of 15 minute drives a week

That is not enough to charge the car battery anywhere near full, so this is the problem.
Like Kamkar said, you might do better with an 11.8V cutoff, if you have that option, might not be a good idea if you have a conventional car battery, but if it is an AGM battery then it should be fine.

It might be a good idea to put the car on a trickle charger once per month to get the battery properly full, if this is practical, then you should get longer parking modes for a while, and your battery should have a longer life, they don't like being empty most of the time without ever having a full charge.

 

[kamkar]

A dedicated dashcam power pack will see the same issue, you need to balance the discharge and charge,
Like mentioned you could put a trickle charger on the car at home, but that is of course a complication to a uncomplicated thing, you could also do a detour driving home from work and so extend the charge time.
If you use parking guard every time / place you park, you might also be able to cut down here a little, at home you could have a camera cover the parked car like i have, that way you dont need to do parking guard there.
Most cameras when you park and it change to parking guard mode, you can cancel that by long pressing the power button on the camera, the camera will then be back to normal after your next start.

Depending on your layout at home, your CCTV camera could just be one of those video doorbells, but there are also small cheap home CCTV cameras.
I personally have a network camera on my 2 floor balcony door, aimed at my car parked 20 - 25 M away, it is also Pan Tilt Zoom as i can not be sure to park in the same place every day.
Also the Zoom let me zoom in optical so i have a actual chance of identifying anyone near my car, a wide angle camera would just show a person near the car but you would hardly be able to tell if it is a male or female.

As a bonus the CCTV system have AI motion detect, this mean i only get a notification on my bedside tablet and phone if it is a human or vehicle shape near my car, cats - rats - birds and what not do not trigger a motion alert.
The camera i can also control from my PC where the pic above is captured, the pic is about 7 X optical zoom, the camera go all the way to 20 X zoom