HonestReview
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8 reviews and 7 of them got the product for free
I pointed that out above
8 reviews and 7 of them got the product for free
Have you got any other issues with yours?
They are all the same issue. Writing it in three different ways doesn't make it three different issues, and for many of us who don't insist on using 24 hour parking mode while leaving the vehicle parked in full sun in the heat of Arizona, it is not an issue anyway, and is very likely to have been addressed for production, although maybe it still wont manage to keep recording all day in Death Valley!poor thermal paste, overheating, cameras dropping out
Nigel, please quit pretending this issue is just a minor issue, You forget that mine was overheating while driving, even with the air conditioner running. Since my mod that hasn't happened even with hotter weather this last few days.They are all the same issue. Writing it in three different ways doesn't make it three different issues, and for many of us who don't insist on using 24 hour parking mode while leaving the vehicle parked in full sun in the heat of Arizona, it is not an issue anyway, and is very likely to have been addressed for production, although maybe it still wont manage to keep recording all day in Death Valley!
If this is the only problem you can come up with in a prototype model then the camera is doing pretty well!
They are all the same issue. Writing it in three different ways doesn't make it three different issues, and for many of us who don't insist on using 24 hour parking mode while leaving the vehicle parked in full sun in the heat of Arizona, it is not an issue anyway, and is very likely to have been addressed for production, although maybe it still wont manage to keep recording all day in Death Valley!
If this is the only problem you can come up with in a prototype model then the camera is doing pretty well!
Nigel, please quit pretending this issue is just a minor issue, You forget that mine was overheating while driving, even with the air conditioner running. Since my mod that hasn't happened even with hotter weather this last few days.
Yes, probably your buddies at Zenfox been trying to correct the issue, which is the right thing to do, but no doubt they sold as many as they could from the bad batch under their knowledge these units where bad as we pointed out several days before they starting selling them on amazon and adorama, perhaps other places too. I feel sorry for those who's money was taken in exchange of those units. If you feel comfortable with that, that's on you...
I won't name names, but "Verified buyer" is meaningless. More than one cam manufacturer has asked for me to purchase their "free beta-test cam" with them refunding me my money afterward so I could post a review on Amazon etal as a "verified buyer"I've heard from others that it's a common practice. Whether that happened with the T-3 on Reddit I don't know, but I wouldn't be shocked if it did.
All I know for sure is that this cam started out with a basic and serious design flaw in the way it's hardware was assembled and you can't fix that through firmware changes. The science of heat-sinking solid-state electronics goes back about fifty years to when the TO-3 type transistor case was developed as a way to shierd it and help it dissipate heat faster and better so transistors could handle more powerNothing exotic, hard-to-do, complex, or new about it, but Zenfox and his 'engineers' don't even know this much about what they're doing
Oh well, he seems to want it to fail so it will. It won't be long before other 3 channel cams come along and take his market away from him. Their makers will come here seeking beta-testers and the T-3 will fade away from memory with better happier things replacing it.
Phil
Is that the result of a test that we can compare with the result from your modified unit?I'll get about 1.5 hours of interior recording while parked before overheating.
When cameras are sent out for testing, problems are expected, both with the firmware and hardware. Of course they will fix the problems before production!I truly doubt they have corrected the problem.
You are making assumptions there! Certainly there was a whole batch of them made, but I think it would be a very small boat, and changes would always have been expected before production. How do you know that Zenfox doesn't have their own factory and can make whatever number they want?now saddled with a boatload of units
When cameras are sent out for testing, problems are expected, both with the firmware and hardware. Of course they will fix the problems before production!
Is that the result of a test that we can compare with the result from your modified unit?
You appear to be predicting the test result...
When cameras are sent out for testing, problems are expected, both with the firmware and hardware. Of course they will fix the problems before production!
You are making assumptions there! Certainly there was a whole batch of them made, but I think it would be a very small boat, and changes would always have been expected before production. How do you know that Zenfox doesn't have their own factory and can make whatever number they want?
The purpose of beta-testing is to find problems in real-world conditions with typical people doing the testing. Yes, there will be problems found, but they should not be basic problems nor significant onesThat kind of thing should be handled before the cam leaves the factory testing.
And don't count on the factory to solve problems before release, for many times they do notI could list half a dozen cams off the top of my head that never got their discovered issues fixed, some of which I tested. Most of them can still be found for sale with their continuing problems included at no extra cost
Only three of them I can think of left the market, one manufacturer went broke, one abandonded their cam for over a year then finally dropped it, and another sold the design to another company who finally dropped it for reasons unknown.
I'm all for giving the manufacturers the benefit of the doubt, and for giving them a chance to fix the issues. But sometimes like we've seen here they seem to not care enough to do anything significant to address the problems, and sometimes they do nothing at allThe only sure thing is that new cams will come along with good and bad outcomes both.
Phil
How do you know that Zenfox doesn't have their own factory and can make whatever number they want?
That was the point, there is a lot that we don't know, and we do know that some prototypes do not have tape under the heatsink, and so statements like this seem a little excessive at this point in time!We can't know any of this for sure,
camera has catastrophically failed beta testing, and the company had to completely redesign their unit.
That was the point, there is a lot that we don't know, and we do know that some prototypes do not have tape under the heatsink, and so statements like this seem a little excessive at this point in time!
It is perfectly possible that the tape was put there to test heat resilience, by lowering the heat tolerance it is more likely that heat related problems will be found, it ensures that the fall back of turning off rear camera followed by interior followed by front is tested and feedback received on if that is the correct order. Also obtains feedback on how important parking mode in high temperatures is to people and what shutdown temperatures are acceptable.
Also obtains feedback on how important parking mode in high temperatures is to people and what shutdown temperatures are acceptable.
First time poster here...It is so that the camera can be mounted behind the mirror with the interior camera looking over the top of the mirror and the front camera still able to see under the dotted area/through the area swept by the wipers. Doesn't work like that in all cars, but when it does it is a neat solution.
I suspect it might do the opposite for this camera! The dots are good at absorbing heat from the sun, since there is not much mount between camera and glass, the heat from the dots may actually warm the camera more than clear glass would. Probably depends on the car.1. Does the dot pattern really protect from the heat?
I've never seen an overheat in UK weather, if you live in Florida then you should probably expect an overheat in parking mode, as many other cameras would too. Don't know about Michigan weather, but as long as it always records while driving then I don't think it is a big issue. For EGS that was an issue with his test camera with original firmware.2. Has anyone who HAS NOT modded their camera cooling tested for the overheat with the latest firmware?
It will make almost no difference to the "horsepower", uses a little extra for the video compression, but less for writing to the memory card because the bitrate is lower. To switch, stop recording, then press and hold the mute button (think it is the mute?) until a white icon appears on the screen indicating H265. You wont notice much difference in the results, unless your computer can't play the H265 properly.3. I see mention of the H.264 vs H.265 encoding - does one of these use less SOC horsepower than the other? And how does one switch modes?
You can use the Viofo HK3, available on Amazon. At some point there will be a proper Zenfox hardwire kit.4. I bought a hardwire kit from Amazon and I realize now that the LVC on it is 11.6V. This seems to be WAY too low. So I haven't tried to install it with the hardwire kit yet, as I want look for one with a higher cutoff value. (I did confirm that the LVC does work right at the 11.6 value by testing with a bench power supply). Does anyone have suggestions on a good kit with a selectable LVC value?
It will enter parking mode on a simple USB charging cable, if it does not detect any movement on the g-sensor for a few minutes.Is there a way to get it into parking mode when running this outside the car (plugged into my bench power supply)? I would like to measure the power draw when in parking mode. Since it would not see any GPS satellites in this situation, would it ever go into parking mode?
There is not much difference, very low frame rate timelapse has a small advantage on power, but low bitrate is the more useful in what gets recorded.5. Is low bitrate recording or timelapse recording more power-intensive when in parking mode?
Only by getting it hot!6. Can the interior camera be effectively disabled? (In the interest of reducing heat?)
It will if it gets hot enough, not many people have been experiencing overheating though, the reports are from Texas, and wherever HonestReview lives, Florida?7. Has this overheating problem appeared on unmodified cameras without the rear channel being active?
Best way to do it, much better than many different posts!Sorry for all the questions at once!
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