replacing battery in Mini0806

mjgriffo

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Hi all,

I know there's a couple of pics floating about on the forum about how to disassemble the mini0806, but I thought I'd supplement those existing images.

Some background. My cam was purchased around 6 months ago from the guys at SportGPS, who have been fantastic. In the last couple of weeks the camera has started shutting down after a couple of minutes running, and rebooting for a few minutes then repeating.

After searching the forums and a bit of diagnosing (powering the cam directly rather than through the GPS mount) I concluded that it was likely the battery.

I spoke to Mike at SportGPS who indicated he was happy for me to replace the battery under warranty, so I went about sourcing and replacing the battery.

1) I purchased two of these of eBay (expecting that the battery in my other mini 0806 would go soon too):
20160314_183016.jpg


3.7v 300mAH LiPo battery, with slightly smaller dimensions than the original.

2) Opening the case was pretty simple thanks to the photos already on the forum - turn the mount to line up with the lens, then pry of the power button shroud with your fingernail, running around the outside. A jeweler's screwdriver may come in handy.

3) Once off, unscrew the four screws underneath, and the end cap comes off:
20160312_125536.jpg


20160312_125555.jpg


4) next step is to carefully slide off the mount ring, being conscious of the wire underneath (in this photo you can see I've marked the original mount position with white-out too). Be aware that when this ring comes off, there is also a spring loaded ball bearing adjacent to the indicator LEDs that is *very* easy to lose track of.
20160312_125824.jpg


20160312_125722.jpg


5) With the mount ring off, it is simply a matter of working your way around the outside of the case halves, separating the lock tabs:
20160312_125915.jpg


20160312_130001.jpg



6) the screen-half of the case is tethered by the screen cable - flicking the grey section of the socket up and away from the ribbon will release it:
20160312_130044.jpg


20160312_130527.jpg


7) this should allow you to remove the circuit boards from the other case-half.:
20160312_132107.jpg


8) The battery is housed between the two circuit boards - you will need to gently and carefully pry the two boards apart. There are 3 sets of pin-socket connectors, slowly work your way around each of them opening the gap slightly with a jeweler's screwdriver (in the photo above I'm already part way there, but here's some other photos of the connectors):
20160312_131719.jpg


20160312_131740.jpg


9) eventually (be patient), they will separate, revealing the battery which is held down with a small double-sided sticky pad (not shown):
20160312_132504.jpg


10) The battery is connected to the circuit board on the other side to where it's mounted - the wires run around a sharp corner to fit inside the case:
20160312_132548.jpg


11) the black wire is obscured underneath the red:
20160312_132614.jpg


12) unsolder - resolder and re-use the sticky pad to mount the battery paying close attention to the routing of the wires. Here's the new battery top, compared to the old:
20160314_183243.jpg


13) reassembly is simply the reverse of the previous steps, paying particular attention to compress the ball bearing into it's enclosure prior to pushing the mount ring over it. The first time I tried it shot across the room - panic ensued.
20160312_125722.jpg


14) test - in my case, no more rebooting!

Good luck!
 
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Can you post the dimensions of the battery for us? That would make it easier for people to source one?
 
Absolutely.

As Jokiin mentioned, my original measured 30mm x 19mm x 4mm with verniers.

The replacement was also 30mm x 19mm, but was 4.5mm thick - it still fit comfortably.
 
Now make sure that it has some sort of sunshade so that overhead mid day sun doesn't roast it in the summer, then you shouldn't have to do it again for a long time.

My original battery is still working OK after 1 year, 5 months.
 
Heat wasn't the cause, the car is always parked under cover.

I assume it was just a dud battery.
 
they're not high quality batteries unfortunately
They did have a bad batch last summer with some only lasting a week or two, not seen so many reports of battery issues recently.
 
..and just to completely close the loop, I sent Mike @ SportGPS a link to this thread, and he has voluntarily refunded me the purchase price of the battery, which was completely unexpected...now that's service!

Look them up if you're in the market for GPS or dash cam equipment.

http://www.sportgps.com.au/
 
They did have a bad batch last summer with some only lasting a week or two, not seen so many reports of battery issues recently.

yeah that was a particular batch problem, the regular batteries are not great quality, not a criticism of this product, all the Chinese cameras use poor quality batteries, they are not alone there
 
they're not high quality batteries unfortunately

According to the recent post on the Nextbase 402G/DOD/TT pages > link < the charging control circuit seems to be a source of dashcam battery problems too. My 402G suffered the same problems as discussed on those pages which I assumed was heat-related battery failure during an unusually sunny summer but now sounds like it could have been the charging circuit.

I would have thought that a bad charging circuit would be potentially worse than a poor quality battery - not that either is desirable!
 
According to the recent post on the Nextbase 402G/DOD/TT pages > link < the charging control circuit seems to be a source of dashcam battery problems too. My 402G suffered the same problems as discussed on those pages which I assumed was heat-related battery failure during an unusually sunny summer but now sounds like it could have been the charging circuit.

I would have thought that a bad charging circuit would be potentially worse than a poor quality battery - not that either is desirable!

can't say I'm surprised

a bad charging circuit has the potential to be a lot worse than a low quality battery, but even more so when it's a poor design and a low quality battery being used together
 
cut the wires, twist them together and insulate them.. you ll be changing a battery again before the connection fails !!!!

if the lipo is the same size as the original and of poor quality you can bet it it having less capacity than stated !
 
mjgriffo, what's the postscript on your battery replacement project? Did it solve your problem? If you had to replace the battery again, would you do anything different?
 
mjgriffo, what's the postscript on your battery replacement project? Did it solve your problem? If you had to replace the battery again, would you do anything different?

Raven, hate to butt in here, but just so you know, since switching from my Sandisk 64gb to the Lexar 32gb, I have not had a single shutdown, failure to start, or other gremlins. I did have one battery die on me, which I replaced just as shown in this thread - and it's been going solid since. I think 99% of my issues (random shutdowns) were due to card incompatibilities. If you're struggling with similar issues, these are the cards I purchased. If the camera shuts off instantly when the USB power is dropped, you will need a new battery. If the battery is shot, you'll get write errors on the last file no matter how good the card is - and those errors will cause shutdowns during normal operation.

The replacement battery was purchased from Amazon - a bit more expensive than the slow boat from China, but I had it in two days. It's been working like a top ever since.
 
RavenManiac,

Postscript - The cameras are now in a new car after working faultlessly for many months.

In the last month I've had 2 mid-drive restarts, which tends to imply that the charging circuit might also be an issue, as mentioned above.
 
Thank you for this great write-up @mjgriffo . Followed your instructions and was able to replace the battery myself and the camera is working normally again. My problem was that I always got a "Low Battery" message whenever I started up the car after leaving it unused for a couple of days. It's been a few days now and I don't get the "Low Battery" message anymore. :)

Thanks again! Cheers!
 
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