ThinkWare F750 DIY Hardwire Possible?

[golfers27]

Get a Bussman "Add-A-Circuit" fuse connector. I hardwired my F750, I put the Red wire to a fuse with constant power going to it such as cigarette lighter. The Yellow wire to ignition when the key is on.
If you have a test light you can test for one in the fuse panel.

 

[Dippy]

The red wire needs to have a permanent 12V connection. Then when the yellow wire is connected to 12V the dashcam will enter continuous recording mode. When the yellow wire is removed from 12V the dashcam will automatically enter parking mode. The red wire has a fuse on it because some people might literally connect it to the battery.

 

[canadianelbow]

I have a couple add a circuit fuses on order off eBay, along with some 3amp fuses.

Rocketrancher had said a few times in this thread , like on Dec. 4, that the manufacturer miss labeled the wires and that yellow needed constant power, and red needed switched power.

So thinkware got it right, and Rocketrancher is wrong.

 

[Dippy]

Yes, I can absolutely confirm that the Thinkware hardwire cable is correct as I described.
Make sure that you get the right size fuses and piggy-back-holders for your car!
Ideally 0.5A or 1A fuses should be used (the F750 is only rated at 3.5W), but 3A is OK for the wires in the cable (I used 3A myself as these were the lowest my supplier had).
I never got around to looking at the rating of the fuse in the holder on the red wire.

 

[canadianelbow]

If you used your own 3A fuse, did you cut out the glass fuse and holder in your install? It seems redundant to have multiple fuses on the same wire.

 

[Dippy]

No. It is indeed redundant but one fuse will always blow first so it makes no difference.

 

[Gael]

Anyone have any issues with the hard wiring killing their battery? My brother helped me hardwire mine on the 31st, and it seems like I've been killing my battery ever since. We tested parasitic loss, and we're losing 20mA without the dash cam, 40mA with the dash cam in parking mode, it peaked at 45mA when it detected motion or movement.

We set mine up plugging 1/8" male spade connectors into open hot and switched fuse locations, and used in-line mini fuse holders on both yellow and red cables, and not using the built in fuse, but currently have a 5amp fuse in both.

I had my battery tested, and they seem to think the battery is fine, so I'm a bit confused.

 

[Dippy]

If you check the manual you can see that the F750 with rear camera uses up to 3.5W of power. I have not checked my own current draw however I don't use my car daily so usually my unit will turn itself off because it reaches the set supply voltage threshold before it reaches the 48 hour time limit.

 

[canadianelbow]

Is the supply voltage limit adjustable somehow in the software? Or turn off/on? If his battery is being sucked dry then I assume his limits are not set correctly?

 

[Dippy]

Yes - either using a smartphone/tablet with the mobile app or the PC/MAC dashcam viewer. The Dashcam settings for parking mode includes a timer and voltage setting (both 12V and 24V systems). I think the 12V mode can be set between about 11.6V and 12.4V or thereabouts.

 

[Gael]

Yeah, my smartphone shows it set at 12.2V.

 

[canadianelbow]

So... as a test..... why not turn off car, open hood and check battery voltage. Then turn on headlights and monitor battery voltage. When it hits 12v even, turn off headlights. then I assume it is safe to say that the camera should not enter parking mode. Check camera for parasitic drain with battery at 12v. If it still drains, then either your camera or wiring job is faulty. If it doesn't enter parking mode and has no drain, then your problem is something other than the camera.

 

[Dippy]

The voltage will have to be at or below the threshold for several minutes for the dashcam to shut down.

 

[Gael]

Right now I'm testing the battery with the dashcam off of hard wired mode, just using cigarette lighter again.

 

[canadianelbow]

So what was the verdict?

 

[Gael]

Bad battery, just awful timing/coincidence of hard wiring the dash cam. I let the car sit over the weekend, and sure enough, wouldn't start in the morning.

 

[JerryJ]

I posted else ware on this forum with the same problem as Gael. Thinkware 750 front and rear with their hardwire kit. Red constant and yellow switched.
I have it set to shut off at 12.2 which it does. But I only get about 6 hours or so before it shuts down from the low battery mode in the cam. I tried motion and
incident first then I turned off motion and went with just incident with similar results. Battery starts off at 12.7 but always goes down to 12.2 or 12.3 and the cam turns off after about 6 hours. I see others who get about 12 hours and that's with motion. Any ideas? BTW it's a brand new 2016 so not likely anything going on there.

 

[jokiin]

battery voltage may be higher than that, the indicated level is not always accurate to what's at the battery, check the battery with a meter after it cuts off and you'll likely find the voltage is not that low, if it isn't then you could safely drop the cutoff down lower

 

[RocketRancher]

The red wire needs to have a permanent 12V connection. Then when the yellow wire is connected to 12V the dashcam will enter continuous recording mode. When the yellow wire is removed from 12V the dashcam will automatically enter parking mode. The red wire has a fuse on it because some people might literally connect it to the battery.

I have a couple add a circuit fuses on order off eBay, along with some 3amp fuses.

Rocketrancher had said a few times in this thread , like on Dec. 4, that the manufacturer miss labeled the wires and that yellow needed constant power, and red needed switched power.

So thinkware got it right, and Rocketrancher is wrong.

Yes, I can absolutely confirm that the Thinkware hardwire cable is correct as I described.
Make sure that you get the right size fuses and piggy-back-holders for your car!
Ideally 0.5A or 1A fuses should be used (the F750 is only rated at 3.5W), but 3A is OK for the wires in the cable (I used 3A myself as these were the lowest my supplier had).
I never got around to looking at the rating of the fuse in the holder on the red wire.

Somewhere there's a quote about not always being right, but never wrong.
Having the third-party cable, all I can do is reference the fourth and fifth posts in this thread for the factory color-coding.
Perhaps the factory, since then, has changed it's spots.
I do, however, know the response of the camera and that is why I recommended using the power-off delays to identify lead function. That removes color from the equation and is unaffected by the park-mode setting. The essence remains the tip/ring/sleeve correspondence of the camera's connector: Persistent power to tip, switched power to ring, ground to sleeve.

 

[JerryJ]

battery voltage may be higher than that, the indicated level is not always accurate to what's at the battery, check the battery with a meter after it cuts off and you'll likely find the voltage is not that low, if it isn't then you could safely drop the cutoff down lower

At the battery it reads 12.3 according to one of my many dvm's when it cuts off.
I start with 12.6 or 12.7
So it appears I am dropping 300 to 400 milliamps in about 6 hours time. That would be around 50 to 67 milliamps per hour. Does that sound about right?