Toguard CE20 going randomly standby

ciclista71

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Location
Lombardy
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Italy
Dash Cam
ToGuard CE20 (broken), Viofo A119v3
Hi everybody,
I am brand new on this forum but it looks like a promising place, so let's see if anyone out there can help me....
I have recently bought a Toguard CE20 and overall, I am pretty happy about it. I plug the dashcam to the USB port of my car stereo, as the cigarette lighter USB port is always on (eben if the engine is off) and I don't like this option.

But I realized a strange behaviour:

  1. I open the door of my car
  2. the USB of my car stereo will start providing 5V to the dash cam for around 30 seconds. The dash cam starts and asks around 500mA. Recording starts.
  3. the USB stops sending power, the dash cam runs on battery for the needed time to close the file and shuts down
  4. After around 30 seconds, the USB gives 5V again for just 10 to 15 seconds. The dash cam turns on again but two things may happen:
a) the dash cam asks for 500mA and starts recording, just as before
b) the dash cam only asks for 200mA and gracefully goes into stand-by (no red led ==> standby/off, no blue led ==> no recording to the SD)
5) USB does not provide any power until I start the engine. When I do, two things can happen:
a) The dash cam asks for 500mA and starts recording
b) the dash cam asks for 200mA and goes into stand-by (no red led, no blue led)

After step 4a) there can be step 5a) or 5b)
After step 4b) there is only 5b)

So as you see, sometimes the dash cam goes into standby and will stop recording until I switch the on/off button on the left of the cam. This will wake up the cam and recording will start. If I unplug/replug the USB port, this will also wake up the dash cam.
It does not switch off, it goes into standby.

The dash cam seems to go to standby randomly (sometimes, the normal 4a) 5a) steps are followed), but when I am driving, it always works. The issue occurs only between entering the car and turning the engine on, but I can't quite replicate the issue consistently.

How can avoid this behaviour? It's annoying to check every time if the camera is working or not...

Thanks a lot for your help!
Luca
 
This is not easy to say, because the cig lighter is always on even when the engine is off. Therefore it will always give power to the cam and I cannot reproduce the above steps.
I checked the amount of amperes that were in use and I saw 500mA also in the cig lighter so there is enough power. The car stereo USB can give 1,2A (and can charge my phone for instance)
 
built in USB ports are not always a good choice for cameras, they are generally data enabled ports and may not function well from the cameras perspective

you could also try the camera with cig charger in another vehicle to see how it behaves
 
I see. But it is strange to see this only happens in the initial stage of the process. While I drive, I never suffer any issues - if it were an USB problem, I imagine the camera should go to standby also while I am on the road.
Instead, it seems there is a problem during this switch-on / switch-off back and forth that happens two or three times. Maybe this triggers something in the cam and forces it into standby?
I am not sure I can try the cig lighter in another car.
Could it depend on the external temperature? I noticed this strange behaviour tends to happen when it's rather cold outside (around 3 Celsius degrees). Yesterday, for instance, was a warmer day and it all worked perfectly.
 
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