Hey all, this might be unique to me/my truck but thought I'd ask to see if anyone has had similar issues. I'm installing a mirror dashcam, specifically a Vantop H612, which has a wired rear camera. And when the ignition switch is set to ON (with engine off) it works perfectly and as expected. But as soon as I start the engine things get weird. It immediately kicks into showing the front cam view which completely defeats the point lol, and I can no longer switch between the split or rear camera feed. Also putting in reverse does nothing even though it works with the engine off. My first thought is maybe its a voltage thing. That or I just got a lemon. Voltage does kick up to the 13-14v range while the engine is running so idk, I haven't had any luck contacting their support yet. The unit powered via USB so 5V. I have tried both the cigarette lighter and a hardwired install kit. The only thing that's connected directly to vehicle would be the reverse wire that is connected to the reverse light in the back. Any ideas?
Update: chatted with a buddy of mine and he thinks it could be a grounding issue. Going to look more into that
Do you have a radio that works correctly? You could be getting RF interference from the ignition system.
Yup, no issues so far with the stereo. It came with an aftermarket radio which worked but was cheap so I replaced with one that had bluetooth. And so far it works fine.
You might want to check the USB power feed. I have a GPS speedo, which has a USB charging cable and port. There was no kind of transformer in the cigarette lighter adapter, so it was feeding the unit 12-volts.
Good call! I will try probing that with the multimeter just to be on the safe side. It's just weird that it's only when the engine is running that is starts acting up. Gonna also try cleaning all the grounds I can find in the engine bay
All the ground for it should be coming from the chassis ground. I was asking about the radio, becasue the only time you would get RF interference from the ignition system, would be when the engine is running. If the engine is just on and not running the ignition is stable, and shouldn’t generate RFI, but when the engine is running you can pick up the RFI from the plugs, plug wires, etc. Thought of the moment: Could the Diodes in the alternator be leaking a little, or one of them bad? So, that when the engine is running the power isn’t a good DC conversion from the AC the alternator makes. That is something which would only happen when the engine is running, and the alternator spinning. If you’re using the cigarette adapter, you could add a capacitor in the hot lead to the lighter socket, to act as a filter
Dude Jigs, thanks so much for all the pointers! I think I may have fixed it. I had watched this video earlier, which helped point out the grounding points . So I figured it couldn't hurt to check the grounds since the truck is painted and undercoated. Turn out that they were a little overzealous with the undercoating. Took the dremel and a wire wheel to two of the ground contact points and now the mirror is behaving as it should. So weird that a ground could make it behave like that, while the stereo is functioning fine. I will keep the alternator diodes in mind though if the issue starts to come up again. Thanks again for the help!
Welp, turns out it was just a fluke and I hadn't fixed the issue after all. So I tore it out and decided to try it on the wife's car just to verify if it was actually faulty or is the truck before returning the unit... and it works just fine. So i'm going to try another "test" fit but this time running the wiring away from the main harnesses/wiring to minimize any interference. The part that bothers me the most is that I did an initial test fit, but never thought to start the engine when I did. So it wasn't until I had it all wired-loomed and did the final install when I noticed the issue with the engine running. lol definitely my bad and lesson learned. I was so proud of my clean install too haha oh well
Final update, I hope... I sacrificed a DVI cable I had lying around for it's ferrite core (even though they're pretty cheap I wanted to make sure it'd have an effect before buying some of the snap on kind), and that alone looked like it made a difference, but I also ran the camera wire on the opposite side away from the main wiring harness. Also I had initially ran the reverse wire (for the 3rd brake light/reverse/cabin light) in the same run as the rear camera cable. But this time i'll be doing keeping them separate. Still not sure if this is unique to my truck, but hopefully it'll help someone out in a similar situation.
