Viofo HK3 kit fails!

[IAmATeaf]

@viofo where is the fuse in the hk3 kit? Looking at the kit there’s doesn’t appear to be a separate fuse housing.

 

[Mtz]

@viofo where is the fuse in the hk3 kit? Looking at the kit there’s doesn’t appear to be a separate fuse housing.

If should be a fuse, where do you expect to be, on the red wire on on the yellow wire? Or on both wires?

 

[StrayCam]

@viofo where is the fuse in the hk3 kit? Looking at the kit there’s doesn’t appear to be a separate fuse housing.

There is not a separate housing for the fuses on the hw3 kit. You need to get fuse wire taps for the installation along with low amperage fuses (5 amps or less)... very inexpensive. Be careful to purchase the fuse tap style that matches your car fuses. You only need 2, but it doesn't hurt to have a few extras just in case.

 

[LateralNW]

@viofo where is the fuse in the hk3 kit? Looking at the kit there’s doesn’t appear to be a separate fuse housing.

Your right there isn't any.

 

[IAmATeaf]

If should be a fuse, where do you expect to be, on the red wire on on the yellow wire? Or on both wires?

Not too sure if you’re asking me or making a statement?

I know that most hardwire kits are installed with a fuse tap which has a fuse on the positive wire. I don’t personally use a hardwire kit but the way the @viofo reply was worded implied to me that there was a problem with some sort of built in fuse which is why I goggled HK3 and couldn’t see an obvious fuse or fuse holder.

 

[StrayCam]

Not too sure if you’re asking me or making a statement?

I know that most hardwire kits are installed with a fuse tap which has a fuse on the positive wire. I don’t personally use a hardwire kit but the way the @viofo reply was worded implied to me that there was a problem with some sort of built in fuse which is why I goggled HK3 and couldn’t see an obvious fuse or fuse holder.

If you do not use the hw3 kit, none of the fuse taps and the related fuses apply to you.

If one wants parking mode with Viofo, one needs to use their hw3 kit.

 

[IAmATeaf]

If you do not use the hw3 kit, none of the fuse taps and the related fuses apply to you.

If one wants parking mode with Viofo, one needs to use their hw3 kit.

Yes I know and understand that.

I was just curious as the fuse statement made by @viofo, wonder if the customers returned the HK3 kits with their fuse taps?

 

[Taz2022]

The Viofo hardwire kits are very good quality, were tested and measured by many forum users. Do not compare the Average Joe from Amazon with people from this forum.
Of course, there can be some isolated bad manufactured items, this should be accepted by all manufacturers, but your general advice for the people to not buy their hardwire kit is a... joke. People have tested on this forum their hardwire kits for years and almost nobody wrote so desperate advice to not buy them. If that hardwire kits were so bad like you wrote, this forum should be full of reports like yours 2-3 years ago and people could stop buying this product 2-3 years ago.

Most of the fails of hardwire kits are because of users and this was showed many times on this forum by, for example, poor connection of GND, wrong fuse for ACC or BAT. Intermittent connection can kill a hardwire kit and almost nobody who is killing a device (generally speaking) is not assuming their fault, but blaming the manufacturer. This is an old story and will never end because in this way the human is build. An intermittent power connection can kill a TV or a fridge, why to not kill a dashcam or a hardwire kit?

Purchased A129 Pro Duo with HK3 last year for my truck. It's been 8 months and worked relatively well. Purchased second set for my car recenlty. HK3 failed three times! I am having same issue. HK3 won't wake up when car starts. Only way I can start the unit is to power cycle the fuse tap (constant). Battery is always on battery charger (shouldn't trigger LVD at all), pulling more than 12.6V on the fuse tap but the HK3 LED light is off. Original one purchased and two replacement HK3 are doing the same. It's been over a month since the purchase, and I have yet to use the dash cam properly. I get it. Majority of the returns are user error. But this is different. I have been in tech/consumer electronics industry 20+ years and an advid DIY car guy for longer. Only thing I can think of is... Due to global chip shortage, Viofo (or their supplier) went along with unverified replacement chip and they are failing.

 

[Taz2022]

Update Jan. 2022: Viofo reached out to me and offered a replacement unit. The replacement unit failed as well after 3-4 days and does not start up the dash cam any more as there is no power going to it. There is a bad batch of faulty units out there.


Original post:
About a month ago I pulled a trigger, although was very hesitant due to numerous bad reviews on Amazon, and purchased and installed Viofo HK3 kit for my A129 Pro. It was working fine for about 2-3 weeks and then I noticed my camera was not making any sounds - and indeed after checking it - it was not powered on! I immediately knew something was wrong on the HK side when I tested the voltage output of the cable and saw 0v. After tearing out half of the passenger compartment panels (Mustang S550 is a pain in the butt to get to the fuse box) and verifying that all fuse connections are nice and tight the only other thing to try was to teardown the HK3 module and see what's up.

If you ever installed one, you would know that there is a red led hidden inside that indicates the module is powered on. The led was off. There were no signs of anything burned, however I did note poor solder job on few connections- but that was not the issue. After checking incoming 12v connections with a multimeter - all was ok so the only thing left was try to troubleshoot HK module by changing order of connection to power source.

When connecting red wire to source, the module had voltage incoming but was dead. After touching and holding yellow wire to red for about few seconds the module would magically power on, and stay on after disconnecting yellow wire (as it should as yellow is just a signal lane). Disconnecting and reconnecting red wire - it is dead. The only thing that would wake it up was reconnecting yellow to power. A few times after repeatedly reconnecting yellow to red while the red was constantly connected to source the led would start flickering and dimming off. The only conclusion I can make is that Viofo uses some trash IC logic in these HK kits and would advice against from purchasing one of these until Viofo recognizes the issue and fixes these modules! This part should be set it and forget it as it is not easy to hardwire everything properly and aesthetically just to find out that this critical part fails.

It really seems like there is an IC lottery with these modules as numerous people have reported module dying within short period of time (or not working straight out of the box) and the reason for that is faulty, unsuitable or fake logic ICs Viofo uses in these modules.

Attaching internals of the HK3 kit in case if anyone sees anything strange (as I know few people have disassembled theirs in search of faults). You may notice one of the power ICs (the one at the bottom) looks as if it has been burned, but I think its just the solder bridge that melted the body of IC (I suppose the bridge should be there, right!?)

Using the opportunity - can anyone recommend a good HK kit with parking logic output? I am planning on keeping the viofo cabling (and solder it to the replacement module) as I have no desire whatsoever to disassemble again the pillars and even the visor to replace the wiring going to the camera.

View attachment 59437

View attachment 59438

I installed A129 Pro Duo with HK3 kit on my truck 8 month ago. With few glitches here and there, I was content with the purchase. Bought another set for my car a month ago. I am having same issues. In short, it will go into parking mode and after duration expires, the camera won't boot up unless I power cycle the fuse tap on onstant power. My car is not a daily driver and it is on battery charger while parked in the garage. HK3 kit shouldn't trigger the LVD at all. When HK3 is dead, LED light is also off. I've measured the voltage at the fuse tap, still pulled 12.5V. Tried lower setting (11.8V) and walked away after triggering parking mode. Next morning. Same thing again. Called the retailer, they were kind enough to send me a replacement two days later. Same thing. Called them again and just received the 3rd one. Having same issue. I once connected (with jumper cable) another battery in parallel, connected both batteries to seperate trickle charger to see if I can wake up the HK3. It woke up. Really? That's what it takes? I didn't try the parking mode with this set up, but what's the point, right? I am running out of ideas...

 

[brightonrock]

I have the EXACT same problem. I agree there must be a bad batch of cables out there. Does anybody know if there are other companies that make parking cables that would be compatible with the A129 Pro?

 

[Taz2022]

I have the EXACT same problem. I agree there must be a bad batch of cables out there. Does anybody know if there are other companies that make parking cables that would be compatible with the A129 Pro?

If you need parking mode, not many options out there. You might want to reach out to Viofo support (online) and arrange them to send you a replacement from nearest warehouse. Three units I have received from my retailer all failed. HK3 shuts off and won't turn back on with ignition. Only way to wake up the unit is to power cycle the constant power fuse tap. My 4th try was success. Viofo support sent me a replacement, and it worked as intended.

 

[ProfX]

I have the same problem with the HK3 device. The only way to make it work again is to pull the fuses and re-insert them.
Viofo kindly sent me a replacement unit but I haven't installed it yet. Does anyone know which batches "fixed" the problem? The replacement HK3 unit I have was made in April 2022.

 

[brightonrock]

I have the same problem with the HK3 device. The only way to make it work again is to pull the fuses and re-insert them.
Viofo kindly sent me a replacement unit but I haven't installed it yet. Does anyone know which batches "fixed" the problem? The replacement HK3 unit I have was made in April 2022.

I received a new one two weeks ago and so far it has not failed. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[Sydney2020]

The Viofo hardwire kits are very good quality, were tested and measured by many forum users. Do not compare the Average Joe from Amazon with people from this forum.
Of course, there can be some isolated bad manufactured items, this should be accepted by all manufacturers, but your general advice for the people to not buy their hardwire kit is a... joke. People have tested on this forum their hardwire kits for years and almost nobody wrote so desperate advice to not buy them. If that hardwire kits were so bad like you wrote, this forum should be full of reports like yours 2-3 years ago and people could stop buying this product 2-3 years ago.

Most of the fails of hardwire kits are because of users and this was showed many times on this forum by, for example, poor connection of GND, wrong fuse for ACC or BAT. Intermittent connection can kill a hardwire kit and almost nobody who is killing a device (generally speaking) is not assuming their fault, but blaming the manufacturer. This is an old story and will never end because in this way the human is build. An intermittent power connection can kill a TV or a fridge, why to not kill a dashcam or a hardwire kit?

There are multiple posts in forum reporting HK3 does not stop powering camera at cut off voltage. That is its only job. So not so sure about your quality claim.

 

[Mtz]

Count the posts and compare with for example 50.000pcs HK3 sold. Every product like this have a failing rate. It is normal to be some users on forums or on Amazon to complain about their buyings no matter if is HK3 or iPhone 15.

Almost one year ago, my Viofo dashcam had some strange restarts. I was checking everything on the dashcam and it was OK. I didn't come to this forum and complain that my Viofo dashcam is poor quality and so on. I continued the investigations. When checking the HK3 wiring I observed that one fuse tap was not firmly inserted into the fuse slot. Maybe because of poor roads it was going out from its location. From the first time I installed the HK3 I observed that the Mini Low profile fuse taps are not so firmly fitting on the fuse location. I had cars with Mini or ATO fuses and none of them had this problem like the Mini Low profile have. If my fuse taps will continue to randomly jump from its location I will replace them with Mini because Mini is fitting better even on Mini Low profile slot.
Regarding my personal experience with my HK3, which another story could be? Not checking everything and start to blame the manufacturer, the Amazon, crying of forums about a bad product which in reality was not bad? Do you accept that an intermittent contact of the fuse tap could damage my HK3 because of hundreds of connect/disconnect power? If it was damaged was because of poor installation or because of poor quality HK3?

Some time ago I have a discussion with jokiin and he told me that most of its returns are because of bad buyers. Some of them even put another dashcam and not Street Guardian in the original Street Guardian gift box and the user asked for money back. He received the money even he sent another no name chinese camera.
The manufacturers of good products know that some percent of returns are not right, some complaints are not right but they are assuming this loss when doing this business. For sure Viofo is accepting the same behavior from some clients, it is a normal part of the business.
When you will see in this forum that old forum members dont believe the OP from its first post is because that members knows what is happening in reality and try to discover if it is a user problem. Only after checking their ideas they are giving advice to contact the manufacturer. You will not see from them something like: your dashcam not recording? Contact manufacturer and ask for replacement!

 

[wasyoingonce2]

Update Jan. 2022: Viofo reached out to me and offered a replacement unit. The replacement unit failed as well after 3-4 days and does not start up the dash cam any more as there is no power going to it. There is a bad batch of faulty units out there.


Original post:
About a month ago I pulled a trigger, although was very hesitant due to numerous bad reviews on Amazon, and purchased and installed Viofo HK3 kit for my A129 Pro. It was working fine for about 2-3 weeks and then I noticed my camera was not making any sounds - and indeed after checking it - it was not powered on! I immediately knew something was wrong on the HK side when I tested the voltage output of the cable and saw 0v. After tearing out half of the passenger compartment panels (Mustang S550 is a pain in the butt to get to the fuse box) and verifying that all fuse connections are nice and tight the only other thing to try was to teardown the HK3 module and see what's up.

If you ever installed one, you would know that there is a red led hidden inside that indicates the module is powered on. The led was off. There were no signs of anything burned, however I did note poor solder job on few connections- but that was not the issue. After checking incoming 12v connections with a multimeter - all was ok so the only thing left was try to troubleshoot HK module by changing order of connection to power source.

When connecting red wire to source, the module had voltage incoming but was dead. After touching and holding yellow wire to red for about few seconds the module would magically power on, and stay on after disconnecting yellow wire (as it should as yellow is just a signal lane). Disconnecting and reconnecting red wire - it is dead. The only thing that would wake it up was reconnecting yellow to power. A few times after repeatedly reconnecting yellow to red while the red was constantly connected to source the led would start flickering and dimming off. The only conclusion I can make is that Viofo uses some trash IC logic in these HK kits and would advice against from purchasing one of these until Viofo recognizes the issue and fixes these modules! This part should be set it and forget it as it is not easy to hardwire everything properly and aesthetically just to find out that this critical part fails.

It really seems like there is an IC lottery with these modules as numerous people have reported module dying within short period of time (or not working straight out of the box) and the reason for that is faulty, unsuitable or fake logic ICs Viofo uses in these modules.

Attaching internals of the HK3 kit in case if anyone sees anything strange (as I know few people have disassembled theirs in search of faults). You may notice one of the power ICs (the one at the bottom) looks as if it has been burned, but I think its just the solder bridge that melted the body of IC (I suppose the bridge should be there, right!?)

Using the opportunity - can anyone recommend a good HK kit with parking logic output? I am planning on keeping the viofo cabling (and solder it to the replacement module) as I have no desire whatsoever to disassemble again the pillars and even the visor to replace the wiring going to the camera.

View attachment 59437

View attachment 59438

hey OP

I had same HK3 unit....and there appears a fault in your unit. The 8 pin SOIC IC parallel with R19 has pins 2 & 3 soldered together with a solder blob. Mine doesn't! It may be this doesn't matter...but see my pics here. Whe (with user V81) did tests with HK3 units and he had some fail, mine was ok. The uinit you have does have a "zero" ohm output restive fuse. But that would be either working or not.

HK3 hard wire kit - terrible voltage regulation

I can see a possible variance from batch to batch, both of HWK's and cams both, where individual pairing could lead to problems or not. In that kind of 'marginal' situation, a switch to lamp cord for lower resistance could make just enough difference to cause the stated results for that one...

dashcamtalk.com

FWIW....

cheers

 

[Ty07allstar]

I am having the same issue and my kit was purchased in Jan of 2022. Randomly just stops working and the only way to get it to work is to pull the taps and reinsert them. Emailed Viofo and they are sending me a new kit. Hopefully the new one is better then the old ones we all were getting.

 

[Dadi_T]

Ok, apparently the issue occurs in the winter time when batteries are more stressed out? And maybe on cars with some kind of variable charging?
I had the same problem last winter. And now has started again.
I have started monitoring the car battery charging. When it is cold, i start the engine, the car starts charging with 15,2/15,3V for about 5 to 15 minutes, depending on how many hours had stayed parked and how cold it is.
After that, it drops to 13,5/13,7V all day long, even if it is parked for an hour and i start the engine again.

The camera stops working only at 15,2/15,3V point with the engine running. and it will not turn on until i remove and put back a fuse wire.
It has never stopped working at this 13,5/13,7V point.

I have HK3-C (HK4?).

Maybe some batch of them can't handle this type of charging?
Or maybe not all the cars have this kind of charging and HK3/HK4 can't handle this type of charging?
Just asking.

Maybe @viofo @VIOFO-Support can answer to this?

 

[Ty07allstar]

Ok, apparently the issue occurs in the winter time when batteries are more stressed out? And maybe on cars with some kind of variable charging?
I had the same problem last winter. And now has started again.
I have started monitoring the car battery charging. When it is cold, the car starts charging with 15,2/15,3V for about 5 to 15 minutes, depending on how many hours had stayed parked and how cold it is.
After that, it drops to 13,5/13,7V all day long, even if it is parked for an hour.

The camera stop working only at this 15,2/15,3V point and it will not turn on until i remove and put back a fuse wire.

I have HK3-C (HK4?).

Maybe some batch of them can't handle this type of charging?
Or maybe not all the cars have this kind of charging and HK3/HK4 can't handle this type of charging?
Just asking.

Maybe @viofo @VIOFO-Support can answer to this?

Hopefully they can. I’m going to try turning off parking mode and see if that changes anything.

 

[bobcat]

Hopefully they can. I’m going to try turning off parking mode and see if that changes anything.

Ok, apparently the issue occurs in the winter time when batteries are more stressed out?

I don't think this is the cause to be honest (live in the south and experienced these issues all the time). I think it's just glitched chips they used on some of these hardware kits and it is a matter of luck or something, I don't know. I went through 3 of those and they all had the same issue. Even when I tied both power and signal wire to run on engine start I still have occasional issues when the camera does not turn on right away but would later start-up after 15-20 minutes of driving (my car is new and definitely does not have any battery or voltages issues).

At this point I'm thinking to design my own circuit and just replace the board, but I need to beat my laziness for that to happen lol.