tfro

Yep, I just bought one, and this was the first thing I noticed. I'm pretty frustrated by that. I can't believe no one mentioned this on all the car forums this camera is talked about on.

Skip Wolfe

The A-HD+ does not go into charge mode and still operates normally. Just shows a lightning bolt symbol over the battery icon.

mglobe

Uh, this is a car forum, not an electronics one.

tfro

It seems mine does, its an A-HD+ 1080P. Well, as far as I can tell it does. Maybe if the battery is fully charged it'll work? I dunno. I'll play with it some more before I give up hope.

Nader Fotouhi

Sean,

I do not have an Aiptek. I have my current camera Hardwired. If Aiptek does not record while plugged in, then I will not buy one. I will pose the question to their Tech on monday.

BostonDMD

Nader, I just plugged in the wall my Aiptek, exact same model as Sean, and I assure you it does take video and pics. while attached to a power source.

I don't think it will be different if hardwired in the car.

More importantly, does anyone have a step by step process for the hardwire?

tfro

I played around with it today.

It works with the supplied wall adapter, but not a 12 V cig adapter, or a different wall adapter, or a USB to PC cable. So, something is up with the Aiptek supplied charger. I'll get a DMM out tomorrow to see if I can figure it out.

Does anyone have the car charger from Aiptek, and does it work? Or has anyone found a 12V car charger that works? There is no way I'm going to hook up an inverter to use the wall charger in the car.

Also, you can't just cut a car charger 'before the coil' and hook 12v to it, as far as I know. You need the electronics in the cigarette adapter to get 5V out.

mglobe

Cool, some progress. I performed surgery on a extra USB cord I had laying around. I tried clipping all but the power line (red), but still the same results. I wonder if it's possible to make a Frankencharger by splicing the camera end of the wall charger to the cig lighter end of the car charger?

Let us know what you find out about the wiring differences between the cig adaptor and the wall charger. We should be able to create a hack that works. I've put in a question to Aiptek support. If I hear anything, I'll post it.

JerryW

It works just fine in mine. I ran a cable for the cutoff switch to the roll bar and mounted a cigarette lighter adaptor attached to the camera mount.. The inverter plugs in to that and then the A/C adaptor.

I also got the remote control to start the recording as I leave the grid.

tfro

I looked at the voltage of one that worked, and one that didn't. The one that worked was slightly lower when plugged in compared to the non working one, 5.00 vs 5.10. Any EEs out there want to tell me if that's what the problem is? It shouldn't be too hard to drop the voltage a little bit more with resistors, right?

Radio shack is closed, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow. Then I'll hack apart a car charger and see what I can make work. Although I'd rather buy the 14.99 charger from Aiptek if it works. But I will not be converting from 12Vdc to 110Vac to 5Vdc, thats just silly

mglobe

I'm thinking it has to do with which pins are hot, and which ones are not, rather than what the voltage is. Just a SWAG (stupid wild *** guess) though.

Sean F

I have the cig adapter on the way from Aiptek. I'm electronically challenged so I'll wait to hear from you guys how to do the hack.

tfro

Well, it still seems to charge when the other connectors are in, so I'd think that isn't true. The pins on a mini-usb are so small its really hard for me to check. I'll see if I can hack an adapter apart and check it out.
Edit: Seems like you are on to something. The Aiptek one has 5V across pins 4 and 5 (which is not the USB standard) and the other ones have it across 1 and 5 (which is the standard, although 4 can be grounded to 5 it seems). So I guess you might not want to hook the Aiptek charger to your phone... I spliced the Aiptek mini-USB connector on to my cell phone charger and it works. Somewhat annoying, but at least there's a clean solution.

Let us know when you get it, and if it works in your car before you start hacking away at it

Nader Fotouhi

I'll have to look at how mine is wired and talk to my mechanic. I do not remember if he used the cigaret lighter, but my current hard wire is from one of the existing accessary switches on the dash in my 944S2.

Nader

ilko

I hardwired mine the lazy way. Used the accessory power and ground from the radio harness (don't have a radio in my car, but have the wire harness). Then connected those directly to the male cigarette lighter adapter (charger) so it can convert the power from 12V to whatever it is that the camera needs. This way the battery charges only while the car is running. It's the same way I've hardwired my GPS.

If you use the cigarette lighter as a source, it will provide constant power even if the car is not running and the key is not in the ignition. This way theoretically you can drain your car battery.

If you don't have a radio harness in your car, you can tap into the accessory power from the ignition harness.

Hope this helps.