Power Charging Kit (With Parking Guard Signal)

[Nigel]

I just received one of these, very nice

I have a problem though:
With just the power cable attached to the powerbank the camera is powered with ignition on and ignition off, as expected.
With both the power cable and charging cable attached to the powerbank, the powerbank charges and the camera is powered when the ignition is on, but when the ignition is turned off the powerbank turns off and there is no power to the camera.

Possibly the problem is that the 0 volts for the charging cable and 0v from the power cable are connected together inside the "power charging kit" and because the powerbank has a current sensor in the power cable 0v to detect when the phone it is charging is full so it can turn off, the current sensor is bypassed by the power charging kit and the powerbank sees no power being taken so it turns off?

My powerbank is a PowerAdd X7 20000mAh.

Anybody else got it working correctly yet?

 

[tatkeung]

I just got one today, and also have some questions. Do I need to have two power banks (2 x 10000 mah), or work just fine w/ one power bank (20000 mah)?

 

[Nigel]

I just got one today, and also have some questions. Do I need to have two power banks (2 x 10000 mah), or work just fine w/ one power bank (20000 mah)?

I'm fairly sure it should work with just one, however note that 2x 10000mAh banks will charge at twice the rate of 1x 20000 so will probably give you twice the record time.
Also, you could use one of the 28000mAh banks that has dual charging inputs, then it will also charge at twice the rate if you use both charging ports.

I'm still having the problem that if I connect both the charging and discharging cables then the powerbank turns off when not charging. Does yours work?

 

[tatkeung]

I'm fairly sure it should work with just one, however note that 2x 10000mAh banks will charge at twice the rate of 1x 20000 so will probably give you twice the record time.
Also, you could use one of the 28000mAh banks that has dual charging inputs, then it will also charge at twice the rate if you use both charging ports.

I'm still having the problem that if I connect both the charging and discharging cables then the powerbank turns off when not charging. Does yours work?

Sorry I haven't set it up yet. I have a 10000 mah power bank, so I think I will start with that. Unfortunately for installation, it means I have to use (and install) the USB cable from the power charging kit to the camera, I can't use the current cable that is already installed in my car (the other end is the cigarette plug). I will probably just letting the cable exposed and not install it permanently for the test...

 

[lacibaci]

Same here. Got it yesterday. The power bank indicates charging when 12V is on but as soon as I turn it off, everything just shuts down.

 

[Nigel]

Same here. Got it yesterday. The power bank indicates charging when 12V is on but as soon as I turn it off, everything just shuts down.
View attachment 39354

Still seems to work as long as you don't plug both charging and discharging cables into the same powerbank at the same time, the lights on my poweradd suggest that the powerbank then tries to charge from it's own power if there is no 12 volt supply!

Hope it can be fixed because it seems like a good idea, a considerably cheaper solution compared to something like a Cellink Neo.

 

[lacibaci]

Found some 18650s on sale at Walmart. Will try it later with supplied power bank.

 

[tatkeung]

Found some 18650s on sale at Walmart. Will try it later with supplied power bank.
View attachment 39603

oh wow! I didn't know these are available at Walmart! how much are they?

 

[lacibaci]

oh wow! I didn't know these are available at Walmart! how much are they?

About $14 for 4. In the solar lights section.

 

[Harsh]

Still seems to work as long as you don't plug both charging and discharging cables into the same powerbank at the same time, the lights on my poweradd suggest that the powerbank then tries to charge from it's own power if there is no 12 volt supply!

Same result here. Kind of defeats the purpose if the power bank doesn't continue powering the cameras when the car is turned off.

Also one needs charge only cables, ones with data pins induce mass storage mode.

 

[Harsh]

Ok that was with all the switches up.

With the mode switch up and parking signal switch up or down, if the timer is set to either of the presets or no auto off, on cutting power the power bank kicks in and the A119 restarts to resume recording and the SG9665GC performs a soft reboot to restart recording. But when power is turned on again, the A119 turns off and the GC keeps recording. And then if power is turned off again the A119 comes back on while the GC performs a soft reboot and resumes recording.

Can't blame the kit, looks like a quirk with the A119. Seems to be working as intended.

 

[Nigel]

Maybe you have a compatible powerbank, can you try some different powerbanks?

 

[Harsh]

With this one, matches your and lacibaci's finding.



No auto-off also didn't help.

 

[tatkeung]

I finally got it installed, with a 10000mah power bank. Question, when I turn off the car, it looks like the camera switches to parking guard mode (I can see the logo "P" on screen). But the screen is not turning off, do I have to change the setting to turn off screen? And that setting affects both normal recording (while car is on) and in parking guard mode (while car is off)?

 

[kamkar]

I am now testing with the mobius maxi as camera.

Yes with the 0906 you will want the screen to time out and go black, if you have that to off now it will also be off in parking mode i assume and so the screen will be on while parked too.


20.000 MAH setup ( 2600 mah batteries )

 

[kamkar]

the lights on my poweradd suggest that the powerbank then tries to charge from it's own power if there is no 12 volt supply!

Judging by the sole LED on the little box it could look that way, but my power bank have a blue led that light up only when 12 V are on indicating it is charging, that led do not light up when i yank the 12 V plug and go into parking mode.
So i dont think the battery are charging itself when 12 V are not applied.

I have experienced a little problem, some times when u pull the 12 V plug to go into parking mode, the Maxi just shut down and dont start, will have to experiment with Maxi settings to see in i can alleviate this.

Also when the Maxi is recording the flashing bil LED around the power button flash with green light too and not only the mode #1 yellow light flashing, it look quite irregular but the camera record fine for hours not missing a beat.
( ill get a video of that weird LED flashing tomorrow as my little E- fireworks for the 4 July )

 

[kamkar]

As promised a video of the erratic LED flashing on the mobius Maxi when powered by the power bank ( i dont think it do this when 12 V are connected.
Still all video are there and just fine.

I have not tried powering the mobius maxi fron my other little powerbank to see if it do the same there, so updates to follow.

So far 2 - 4 - 8 hour timed mode worked fine aside for the hickups spoken of in the above post.

 

[tatkeung]

As promised a video of the erratic LED flashing on the mobius Maxi when powered by the power bank ( i dont think it do this when 12 V are connected.
Still all video are there and just fine.

I have not tried powering the mobius maxi fron my other little powerbank to see if it do the same there, so updates to follow.

So far 2 - 4 - 8 hour timed mode worked fine aside for the hickups spoken of in the above post.

The timed mode is adjusted by the little switches on the side, right? So, it means if I set it to 2 hour (I think that's the default), power will be cut off in 2 hours after car shuts off, is that right? thanks!

 

[kamkar]

Yep thats it, your options are : 2 - 4 - 8 - 12 - 18 and 24 hours + "No auto off" meaning it will keep going until the power bank have to stop due to low voltage to protect the batteries in it.
There are also a "No delay" setting, i have no idea what that are, but its on the 3 dip switches that set the cut of time, but i assome this cut out the batteries so it just function like a regular dashcam PSU only supplying power to cameras when the car are on.

 

[kamkar]

I did a charge test ( quick charge ) overnight on my 8 X 2600 mah ( 20800 mah total ) power bank.
The power bank was run down until it itself shut off, it was then plugged into the little box along with the mobius maxi so it could log when the power bank was full.

Started charging 02:23 in the morning - video footage indicate charging stopped 08:50, so 6.5 hours you have to drive to replenish a empty large power bank.

Now i have never recharged such a large battery before, but it seem to me like my phone quick charge are faster, factoring in it just have to recharge a 3000 mah battery.
So next order of the day will be to try my phone charger on a empty power bank and see how fast that is.
6.5 hours do seem a little slow, i drive that "much" in 2 weeks, maybe even 3 weeks.
So it seem a bit slow to me with 6.5 hours. ?
Anyways the quick charge are on, this the power bank also indicate with a blue LED, and the 2 are wired up to quick charge.


PS. The "thing" would probably charge faster without carrying the mobius maxi too, but i figure this is the way it would work in peoples cars.

PPS: It seem like i got 27 hours of Mobius Maxi runtime out of the 20.800 mah power bank, i am about to do a closer inspection of the batteries as the ones i use are flat top and may not be optimal at least not around the middle 2 batteries, but more on this later on.