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.
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.
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