Randy_Baton Posted September 26, 2016 Share Posted September 26, 2016 I've got a blackview dash cam with a power magic pro that stop the dash cam running if the battery volts get below a certain point. The dash cam is pretty much running constantly when parked, as its triggered by movement and I park on the street. I also only drive once or twice a week and sometimes don't even manage that. All in all that means most of the times when I start my car the battery only just has enough charge in it to start the car and a couple of times recently when I've not driven for more than a week, I've needed my battery pack to jump start the car. Is fully discharging the battery bad for it (i'd presumed so, fairly certain its not lithiu- ion ) How much driving does it take for the alternator to charge the battery back up to full capacity? Its a good excuse for driving from A-B via Z Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThreeFiddyZ Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 (edited) If you keep deep discharging any car battery frequently, it causes the battery to collapse internally and lose its capacity. In the long run it'll make it harder to jump start and it will eventually die. For a healthy battery a 30 minute drive is ample to top up the battery. If the battery is knackered, who knows how long it will take to charge on a drive. It still won't hold its capacity though. I'd find another way of powering the dashcam otherwise you'll keep going through batteries. Maybe not as fast with a new battery though. Sent from my Xperia Z2 using Tapatalk Edited October 12, 2016 by ThreeFiddyZ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetSet Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 How old is the battery? I've heard of batteries on Zeds lasting 8-10 years, but I've already replaced mine twice as like you I only drive a couple of times a week. Pete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy_Baton Posted October 13, 2016 Author Share Posted October 13, 2016 Battery is 1-2 years. My normal driving range is usually around 15 minutes (30 minutes round trip) but only once or twice per week.In the grand scheme of Zed ownership a new battery every few years is nothing. So as for my first question how long would it take to fully charge a battery by driving? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richf Posted October 13, 2016 Share Posted October 13, 2016 Wouldnt it make more sense to up the limit on the power magic unit to allow better battery voltage , alternatively you can get separate battery packs for the blackvue , not cheap but can save a lot of hassle https://www.blackvue.com/power-magic-battery-pack/ I was once told it takes 7 miles of driving to put back the power into a battery that was taken just from starting it so it would take a long time and will put a fair bit of stress on your charging system if you need to do this all the time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy_Baton Posted October 13, 2016 Author Share Posted October 13, 2016 I think the black vue power magic only has 2 minimum voltage settings. Fairly sure mine was set to the highest, but I'll have a check. I'll also have a look through the settings and see if I can reduce some of the battery pull. Already turned the wifi off. Its a bit of a catch 22 situation as if i up the voltage cut off point then it will stop recording sooner. At the moment it only seems to last ~2 days so there are a number of days when it doesn't record. I had 2 acts of vandalism and 3 people drive into me whilst parked in 2/3 months over the winter. Only have to catch one person and it should pay for itself and a new battery. As for the black vue battery $160from the US or £170 from the UK what kind of exchange rate is that! In terms of charge time if it struggles to start in the morning and I drive the 3 miles to work, it doesn't struggle to start on the way home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy_Baton Posted November 5, 2016 Author Share Posted November 5, 2016 Blimey, just got round to buying a battery charger. Plug it in and give my car a quick water less wash, check the battery 30 minutes later and its fully charged.... There's me thinking it should take 6+ hours to charge hmmm. Park my car up and come back to it the next day to see how long the dashcam recorded for, and it made it 7 hours. When I first brought the dashcam it used to record for 3 days. Looks like I've knackered the capacity of my batttery. I brought the battery in Sept '14 (Bosch 4024) and installed the dashcam in March'16. By my reckoning that a 90% loss of capacity in 8 months! I think whats happening is that as I don't drive that much the battery has been sitting at a very low rate for most of the time since I brought the dashcam and has never been charged back up to the full amount. I think my 2 options are either: 1) charge the battery up to full as often as possible - bit difficult as I don't have a driveway and its double yellow outside my house. 1.1) I could get 2 batteries so I can keep one in the car and one on charge and hot swap them each weekend (bit of a palaver though) 2) Forget about keeping the dashcam on when my cars parked up - at the moment I have it set up to stay on all the time, perhaps I should set it up to stay on for 6 hours after parking up. The reason I had the dashcam installed was due to 2 key scratches (7 panels in total) and 3 people driving into me overnight. This all happened in the in the space of about 3 months earlier in the year. I now park my car a few streets away as the roads a lot quieter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tricky-Ricky Posted November 5, 2016 Share Posted November 5, 2016 Its always a pain parking on street, i used to have the same problem, and had battery's fail just from not using the car much and the alarm draining the battery, used to run CCTV on the car, but that doesn't help if you cant get the same parking place. You could just try fitting the largest capacity/size battery that will go in, or fit a dual battery and split charge system,...or just put up with changing the battery yearly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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