Starting the 522gw

[brk1]

Hi there, I'm not new to dashcams, I've had a 512GW that has performed without a blip for the last three years, but used the refurbed offer available for the 522gw just recently after having my old car hit and classed as a write off for a scratched plastic bumper

I have the hardwire kit but haven't installed it yet due to lack of time, I also have the option of the no quibble 30 day return on this product. The 512 gw has been hardwired , at the moment I'm only using the 12v socket cable to give this refurb a thourough testing before I decide whether to keep it or not. Was happy with the 512 but needed a 2nd dash for possible parked up accidents so thought the next step would best be a 522

Is there a recommended procedure for switching on the dash cam using the provided 12c socket cable. If I get into the car , I mount the dash on the magnetic holder, I then plug the cable in , the dash starts recording, away I go, then after 10 mins the dash switches off ??? It records fine , but switches off , if I switch in on again sometimes it works OK again, I know it's actually working as the screen saver speedo pops up after the 30 secs or so.

But today at work, after suffereing the same switching on problems , it worked all the way to work, once there , cable still connected to socket, I switched the dash cam off via it's own power button, when I sat down at 10 a.m it appears the dash had switched itself on, it was then recording video no.79, so I take it the sd card is working for that amount of captures to have continually take place, the card is a class 10 u3 128gb with 60mb write speed that many on here are using successfully in their 522's. The no.79 video would equate to a 2hrs 40mins driving trip.

Tonight I switched it on for the return journey, again it turned on when the cable was connected to the power socket, no screensaver, so switched of and on until it seemed to have settled, blue speedo came up, after about 2 mins it just switched off, it needed 2 OFF/On cycles before the dash seemed to be connected properly again ?? It then lasted all the way home withput issue again.

So is there a procedure for using the supplied 12v socket/plug connection that makes the dash perform correctly, even the provided manual mentions nothing about powering the unit up.

So does the unit not work correctly with the factory supplied power lead.

Any pointers or information greatly accepted to try and sort this out, haven't fitted a rear camera, the video quality is just fine, not through the nextbase app, that seems really pants and is as jumpy as hell, but playing the transferred files through any normal media player, they are crystal clear, proper sound and no jumps at all, so must be the nextbase PC app.

 

[Hey Hoser]

Any chance there is a problem with the 12v socket? Mine has worked just fine for 1 1/2 years using 12v socket. No hardwiring because dashcam gets switched between other cars.

 

[brk1]

Thanks for answering , as far as I know that socket works just fine, it's actually still got the hardwire cable/fixed windscreen mount right next to the sucker mount I'm testing the new one on, not that that make's a difference. My situation was similar to yours , more than one vehicle so I simply installed two hardwire kits , then I simply just plugged the dash into whatever car I was going to use. The registartion stamp isn't set to "On" , but GPS, Speed etc are all on so I get the needed info for a possible insurance claim.

Even when I first opened the dash cam kit and did the 2 hr charge before installing in the car, if I switched it off , it seemed to switch itself on again , I think this is more down to an over sensitive G sensor, if you breathed near it it seemed to switch itself on I have disabled all those settings now at the moment .

I know this morning when it seemed to switch itself on that wasn't the case, while testing it "Parking Mode" and "G sensor" are both set to off. I know the power socket is a constant live supply.

Please tell me how you use yours , do you just plug it into your power socket and it works and starts recording straight away until you stop it yourself ?
You don't have to switch it off and on a few times before you can get it to work ??

I'm sure I read a similar type post on here but haven't had time to look for that exact post at the moment.

When the old 512gw was fitted in either car via the hardwire cable, the moment I started the car the dash cam started up then within 30 secs or so the speedo/screensaver screen is on display, then worked as it should do until I switched the ignition off, a few seconds later the dash shuts down. Never had a problem with that dash cam at all, maybe the odd locked file I didn't press lock on but it constantly loops/overwrites the old files, I'm actually guilty of not doing a reformat , just left in the car, when I wiped the card recently, there were absolutely no corrupt or unplayable files on it either .

I basically try to start my engine , plug in the dash and start driving, as close as possible to the hardwire procedure as I can, sometimes it works most times it runs a few 2min length recordings, then it just shuts down, as if I'm not driving, Auto shutdown is set to "OFF"

 

[jokiin]

what's a refurbed offer, is the camera refurbished, or that means something else?

 

[Hey Hoser]

I just leave it plugged into 12v socket all the time, only powers up when ignition is on, powers down when ignition turned off, MB B250 2013

 

[brk1]

Thanks @Hey Hoser , I don't think it starts up correctly, so I'll see what's going on with it.

@jokiin , they come from an official Nextbase outlet, classed as open box , supposedly fully checked/refurbished and come with a full 1 year warranty. The older 512 gw has been running in that same car without problems ever since it was put in there

 

[jokiin]

When you power it up it should just start recording, no intervention on your behalf required, a bad memory card could conceivably trip that process up but assuming there's no problem there, and your power supply is good, then it's quite possible your refurb is a dud

 

[Kremmen]

IIRC the series 2 cameras need a higher powered card and power supply.

I'm sure NB will be here later and give you a series of steps to go through. Those steps are here in a number of posts so if you get there first ......

 

[Nextbase Support]

Hi there, I'm not new to dashcams, I've had a 512GW that has performed without a blip for the last three years, but used the refurbed offer available for the 522gw just recently after having my old car hit and classed as a write off for a scratched plastic bumper

I have the hardwire kit but haven't installed it yet due to lack of time, I also have the option of the no quibble 30 day return on this product. The 512 gw has been hardwired , at the moment I'm only using the 12v socket cable to give this refurb a thourough testing before I decide whether to keep it or not. Was happy with the 512 but needed a 2nd dash for possible parked up accidents so thought the next step would best be a 522

Hello,

I'm just going to summarise what you've said in your messages above and please let me know if anything is incorrect:

1. 522GW
2. 128GB U3 SD card
3. Screen Display is enabled
4. Parking Mode is off
5. You're using a Cigarette Lighter Cable
6. The Cigarette Lighter port is a permanently live port.

The camera is meant to function whenever it's powered. When you plug the cable into the camera it will start up and record. If Screen Saver and Parking Mode are both off, then the camera will record until a loss of power (car is turned off).

If the camera is always recording, then it's constantly being supplied with power. You've stated above that the cigarette lighter socket is permanently live.
We do not recommend using a permanent live cigarette lighter socket as this will turn the camera on at any time. You can either unplug the socket every time you leave the vehicle which will stop your battery from draining, or you can use a Hard Wire Kit instead. Please be aware that the cigarette lighter cable could drain your car's battery if left connected to a permanent live cigarette lighter socket.

I understand that you do not want to use the Hard Wire Kit, and so I'd recommend removing the cigarette lighter plug every time you leave the vehicle.
If you would be happy to fit a hard wire kit, then this can be done on a switch live fuse.


I'd recommend this test:
1. Bring the camera and GPS mount inside your home/office.
2. Power the mount using the USB cable.
3. Ensure Screen Saver, Screen Display and Parking mode are off.
4. Plug the USB cable into power. The camera should power on.
5. Remove the USB cable from power. The camera will power off (this can take up to 15 minutes if fully charged).
6. Repeat 4-5. If the camera now powers on normally, then the camera itself is functional and the issue is the cabling within the car.

If the camera does not power on and off normally, please remove the GPS mount from the camera and repeat the above 1-6 with the USB cable directly into the top of the camera. If it now works correctly, you have a faulty GPS mount.

If it still does not work correctly, then please remove the SD card, then press the reset button on the underside of the Dash Cam. Then, without the SD card inserted, please turn on the Camera. Does it now start and turn off normally? If so, then it's an SD card failure.

Kind regards,
Millie
Nextbase Technical Support

 

[brk1]

Hi there again , thanks for all the replies, I'll clarify it a bit for you Millie as to what is my correct set up.
522 GW
128gb U3 100 mb read 60 mb write card, freshly formatted to that specific dash cam.
12v Nextbase official socket plug charger , purely for testing the unit out
V2 hardwire kit ready to be fitted into my newer car after old one was hit while parked, I do wish to use the hardwire kit but haven't had time to fit it yet, hence testing with the provided socketed plug power cable.
When I power on, the unit starts up, records straight away but doesn't stay in that state, it will switch itself off as if it's not in use , i.e in standby mode, it might run for 5 - 6 mins in this state before suddenly closing itself down,
Tonight was real nightmare, I started the car up, inserted the plug into 12v supply as if it was being used like it would be in a hardwire system, dash starts up , start recording , doesn't go into screensave rmode, so it's not following the setup procedure of the unit, several unit off/on plug out plug in refused to get it into this mode, but it starts recording everytime it starts up that was never the problem, getting it into a continuous mode is the problem, If the screensaver/speedo doesn't come on I know it will switch itself off in a short while . it always powers up everytime it switches on, it always stats recording everytime it powers up !!!

Once the unit powers up and records then the screen saver comes on I know it will then stay on, well one trip it still didn't, but 9/10 times once the screensaver comes on I know the unit will work.

Once in the screensaver/recording live state comes into play, the recordings carry on just fine until I get home , then when I unplug the cable, the unit switches off in a small amount of time, the same as it would if it was hard wired and the ignition was switched off.

To do 79 continuous recordings make me think the SD card is coping with the unit, it's speeds are certainly above what the dash cam unit needs, it's been faultless in the 512gw for approx 3 years, so I haven't been using a slow speed card, I'm also not overstressing it with a rear camera in action at the same time, I'm also only doing 2min 1080 60 fps recording. I have some more SD cards in transit so will try others when they arrive .

It also can't be down to lower power battery at start up time as the engine turns over, as the car is fully in motion with the engine running, when I attempt the multiple start up attempts both via unit off/on or cable in out as well, it just refuses to start up in a continuous recording mode, recording starts everytime the unit starts , it just won't stay in that mode.

Hence why I'm testing it in this car , the supplied 12v socket plug cable should be quite capable of running the dash cam or whats the point of supplying one in the first place?? It will be hardwired when I have some spare time, but shouldn't have be to make it work correctly, several people do use those cablesto be able to swap between cars, as stated earlier, both my cars were fully hardwired , simply plug the dash into whatever car was in use at the time, but unless the dash starts up then follows the menu choice of events that I have selected , the screen saver comes on after approx 30 secs then it will be fine, if it boots up starts recording without the screensave coming on I know it will shut down, there us no set time to shut down, it might be within one 2min recording, it might be several recordings and 5 miles or more away , all fully recorded up until that point where it suddenly switches off.

I will follow you list/guide suggestions Millie and see what happens and report back if I find out anything else

I'm always a little dubious about testing in refurbed/open box sales, I don't believe everybody sent them back because they didn't like the colour of them , I'm sure some are repaierd units for some or other small fault, then resold on again, a fault like this might not even show up, I don't know the testing procedure used before resale . I simple needed a 2nd dash cam that could pick up possible parked car incidents

 

[Nextbase Support]

Hello,

I'd recommend the tests in my above message. Once we have the results of those, we'll be able to determine whether the fault is the SD card, the cabling, the mount or the camera.

Kind regards,
Millie
Nextbase Technical Support

 

[brk1]

Hi Millie , I thought all was sorted , last night I brought all of the equipement out of my car, into my house, started it up plugged straight in with a phone charger cable through the GPS mount , started up the moment it was plugged in, within 30 secs or so "screensaver" jumped in as GPS signal was obviously connected depite being in my house (I know you said to turn it off), I let it run for quite a while , no problems at all , my thinking was if it was the power supply cable was at fault, then plugged straight into a phone charger may have found the problem right from the beginning ???.

I pulled out the charging plug several times, each time the cam goes off as it should do, each time when plugged back in , cam starts up again, soon followed by the screensaver , dash records lots of recordings , no shut offs , everyting working as it should

I then moved outside again to my newer car, I realise it shouldn't be powered by the in-car usb slots but seeing the cable was still connected to the mount I thought I'd give it a go. Dash powered up instantly , started recording straight away, screensaver kicked in quickly , dash recorded as it should do , lots of recordings , lots of restarts via cam power button or power cable removal, starts up instantly everytime , no switch off's whatsoever No problems found at all

Moved onto the NBase supplied cigarette lighter plug in cable , again lots of testing , all performed without any switch offs at all , restarts , cable removals . all worked flawlessly. So now I'm thinking it's the works car power supply at fault?

Moved back to my works car, only 12v cigarrete lighter available in this car, inserted the dash and mount back to the windscreen right in front of my face for ease of testing ,must of had it running for 50 mins plus , several restarts followed by longer recording tests , all passed with flying colours , I just couldn't get it to misbehave at all in either car or from the wall plug in

Removed it from the car overnight to make sure 100% that it didn't have a GPS connection, maybe the cause of the error when not finding the GPS signal on start up as to why no screensaver was appearing ?? Within a minute or so GPS had been initialised , screensaver popped on, drove for 20 mins or so to work , no problem whatsoever. Had a little play again at break time, again , everything working spot on as it should do.

Time to come home from work, carefully watching it before I set off , GPS didn't connect straight away this time, I drove to the end of the driveway, halfway along GPS signal was found , a few seconds later screensaver kicked in, started the journey home , then all of a sudden , it just switched off, I don't mean shut down like it would if power had been lost as it had done at other times , it went from black screensaver, blue speedo numbers , to completely black screen, no charging lights , no recording lights , no shutdown sound , just instanly completely off. It was a bit hard to see exactly the second it happened as it's virtually out of sight behind my mirror , But being out in the open I managed to see it was totally dead . The unit didn't try to re-power itself up again. Blue led light to plug was still lit throughout the dash shut off time . A simple push of the dash cam power button switched everything on again so was obviously still powered up via the cable connected despite no lights being visible at all . Everything started up correctly , everything worked again as it should do , recorded correctly all the way home again, powered off the moment the cable was disconnected as it should do . The dash had been connected all day without touching the GPS mounts so cable should still have been unmoved.

I must have spent over 2 1/2 hours last night testing it anyway I could, to see if it would power off, many car restarts , cable removals , it just worked and worked as it should do, I thought maybe handling it so much last night, I may have squeezed someyhing into place that maybe hadn't been seated properly, which would have annoyed me, as a possible moving of the dash cam again might well have moved the affected part again at a later date ?? So in total that was over 3 hours of totally error free operation since tested last night until the start of my journey home tonight when the gremlin struck again. I might be able to do all your tests as stated above , switching off all the features (Parking, screeensaver etc) to again find it works flawlessly again, thinking whatever I'd done had cured the problem , to find one random moment again switches it off completely without any lights on . Hours of cable moving/wiggling around at sockets etc , 3 hours of recording to the memory card makes me think that the sd card is mananging to perform correctly with the dash, Power cable seems to be supplying it again with a unbroken supply, otherwise if that had of stopped for long enough, then it should have gone through the shutdown process.??

While testing it last night I even switched the "Parking" feature back on while I was trying everything I could, power turned off , dash shuts down. Simply shut the car door with small slam, dash boots up and starts recording , the padlock icon appears on screen so that seems to be following the proper procedure, about a minute later, dash powers down again. So that feature is checked as working. I haven't enabled it again, as I'm removing the dash at nights until I have it set in one car and hardwired properly in .

So extensive testing with all parts in use proved impossible to pinpoint any one component to be at fault. At first I was convinced it was the GPS signal, that's the only reason that the screensaver wouldn't have come on as it needs a GPS signal to be able display the speedo screensaver . I would have thought a 3 mile + 10 min drive time should have been plenty of time for that to have picked up a GPS signal, but obviously not some days . Normally once the GPS has connected the unit works without fault and will not shut down, but even that was proved wrong tonight .

 

[Kremmen]

A couple of things ......

Does your car have stop/start ?

How firm is the cigarette lighter plug in the socket, does the plug easily reach the bottom to make a solid connection ?

 

[brk1]

Hi there, the newer car has start/stop but I don't use it and that's not the car I've been testing the dash am in, also like many cars those cigarette Sockets are just classed as power points, it has a very good fit as well, on the night of the extensive testing I gave that plug several good wiggles that would be impossible for that cable to achieve in normal driving circumstances, it didn't play up once, the blue led stays lit constantly

 

[jokiin]

possible your testing inside with the phone charger was beneficial, helps fully charge the battery, it's something I've seen @NextBase Support suggest doing before

 

[brk1]

Battery was fully charged before any testing took place, I realise they have a very small capacity, but while sitting there during the 30min + testing I gave it the other night the light was out indicating that the battery was full, it's only being tested under normal working conditions as you would in real life , you wouldn't buy a dash cam then think it won't work properly unless you charge it to 100% before being able to set off. Drove to work this morning, GPS didn't register for quite a while again, I thought here we go again, but noticed when I got to the traffic light it has picked up the signal (5+ mins ) this time, but as I sat there, the screensaver kicked in, dash cam worked flawlessly again on this trip .

 

[jokiin]

Intermittent faults are the worst type to deal with

 

[brk1]

Quite agree, that's why I came here rather than just saying it's faulty, refund please, I'm trying to sort it out rather than go through the hassle of having to keep posting things back, despite the postage return being free to me, when it wouldn't originally stay on, that's when it didn't seem to pick up the GPS signal, now it picks up that very quickly ( most times) but a random total power off with no shut down sequence is what it has evolved to at the moment

 

[Nextbase Support]

Time to come home from work, carefully watching it before I set off , GPS didn't connect straight away this time, I drove to the end of the driveway, halfway along GPS signal was found , a few seconds later screensaver kicked in, started the journey home , then all of a sudden , it just switched off, I don't mean shut down like it would if power had been lost as it had done at other times , it went from black screensaver, blue speedo numbers , to completely black screen, no charging lights , no recording lights , no shutdown sound , just instanly completely off.

Hello,

If the camera has been recording correctly at the time when this happened, you would have heard a shut down noise, as the camera would have finished the current recording before shutting down.

This would indicate the fault is actually the SD card. I can see above that you're using a 128GB U3 SD card, but an unspecified brand.
I've sent you a private message for your name and address, and I'll then get a suitable SD card sent to you to try with the camera. This should resolve the issue you're having.

Kind regards,
Millie
Nextbase Technical Support

 

[brk1]

Thank you very much Millie, I've answered your pm