Solved? Overheating of 400 & 500

wozzzzza

wozzzzza

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I am in the middle of trialling a fix for overheating blackvues. I am first trying it on my DR400G, first test run today was successful in the area of heat, after a day out driving and getting home the blackvue is normally quite hot to touch, but today after I got home I took it off to bring inside and it was probably less than half the temperature it normally is on a sunny day. so far success on this.
Played back the recordings and only problem is the sound of the fan is there. although you can hear the engine sounds and background noise, the fan noise if considerably there.
What I did was dismantle it, took out the plastic plate in the end of it where the lights are and it left a big hole where I siliconed a 30mm fan onto and run the power wires to the plug where it gets power from and soldered to the board. Drilled holes in other end for increased airflow. forgot to take picture of it all damn it. when ever the blackvue is running the fan is running also. no more overheating.
What are your thoughts on this?? after a week or two I will do it to my 500G if it works ok on this one.
 

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Wow, that's not even half bad looking when you think of it.

The mounting plate/screw locations can be dremeled off and the shroud sanded slightly for that extra, "It was meant to be like this" factor.

Also, do they make fans that small with the wisper drive bearings? For those ultra quiet fans?
 
yeah I was going to sand off the corners to make it look original but ran out of time. I bought a cheap $5 fan to test it, would like a whisper quiet one, will look into it when it proves working for a while. I have even thought of unsoldering the microphone and extending it to the other end external to the case and not attached to it so it doesn't get the droning.
 
You can to try to grind off fastening the screw ;)
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That was actually going to be my next question, was if the noise from the fan was the fan itself or the wind noise from the air blowing through. :lol:

For extra form factory, Plastidipping the case + the fan would/could erase that line.

Well done though. I like this.
 
Nice job :)
 
Don't try to pick up anyone at the airport with that on your windshield or drive around govt buildings. Especially if you're arab looking. They might think you have a ticking time bomb with those wires on it.
 
Looks good, are we getting many reports of the 500 over heating? (or is this only just in case since the 400 sucked)

I read on other threads where 500 people enabled 15k full bit-rate via custom firmware and are recording 24/7 with no heat issues.
 
Most likely a preventative measure because he just doesn't want to be the first one to find out?
 
I haven't heard one report of an overheating DR500GW yet. The GPS failing yes, but that's fixable.
 
im doing it as preventative, hot things don't last as long as cooler things. will see how the 400 goes in summer, used to daily overheat before when I went to the 500 then had the GPS fail maybe due to the heat as it gets damn hot the casing.
 
I doubt the heat caused the GPS to fail. mine failed in the dead of winter. it hit 92 degrees F here in NYC and my camera didn't miss a beat.
 
I thought about adding a fan also. I was going to use one from an old video card. They should be +12 V.

video-card-fan-1.jpg
 
Has anyone thought about reducing the voltage to get over the heat problem.

I once had a rear view camera on a Caravan and it got too hot to touch with 12 volts going to it.

I made up a little 12-6V reducer and after that it ran cooler and much better clarity.

Perhaps Mio could try and see if it will run on 6/9 V and be not so hot.


Just a thought although I havent had heat problems with any of my 3 Blackvue cameras
 
6.0V -> cam turned on, but immediately began to overload
6.5V -> cam involved, worked
when you turn off immediately switched off
suspect can not charge ionistor to end recording
7.0V -> cam involved,worked
when you turn off reached the the first phrase "...." and went out, too, seems not quite loaded ionistor may simply not have enough time
7.5V -> cam is up and running, sort of like when you turn off all said, but I suspect that the limit
8.2V -> turned on and off by the normal scheme.

current is more than 500mA
scale only 500 :roll:

sorry my english :oops: :oops: :oops:
 
It seems that much of the heat is generated by the voltage reduction process, as 12v entering the camera case needs to be reduced to 9v or slightly less. Someone has suggested inserting diodes in the lead so to reduce the incoming voltage somewhat. The voltage reduction could surely be done in line between the camera and the power source in the car, and assuming power was taken from the fuse box rather than the cig lighter, that unit could easily be out of sight below the dash-board.
Wish I was technically competent :(
 
Changing the voltage of the input would only greatly affect the heat if Pittasoft used inefficient linear regulators, which considering how well designed the rest of the internal electronics were I doubt they used linear regulators. Switching regulators are more efficient regulators. If the camera is pulling 500mA at 12V the regulator is probably only using 50mA, turning off the WIFI function would save more power.

So far I have had my 500 for just a week, but it has booted up just fine even after sitting in direct sunlight in 95 degree Texas heat.

-Joshua
 
duncam said:
It could be placed below the dashboard, out of sight.
Click to expand...
power magic ---> 4 pcs ru version :lol:
Korean version below ;)
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I wonder if I should turn off GPS since I don't care about showing speed anyways. Should save on some heat and power.
 
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