Thread: VentureCam - '07 L322 vogue

Daniel
Sounds like the re-chargable battery back is dead ! you have to get rid of the rubber seal and then you will find 3 clips at the top centre and both sides up high . "Gently" prise apart. You will have to get a new battery pack from Jaycar etc and solder in.

Laurie

Originally Posted by Laurie

Daniel
Sounds like the re-chargablebattery back is dead ! you have to get rid of the the rubber seal and then you will find 3 clips at the top centre and both sides up high . "Gently" prise apart. You will have to get a new battery pack from Jaycar etc and solder in.

Laurie

Thanks Laurie

Odd that a rechargeable cell pack would die if it is left in the charge socket!

Might have been cheap short life NiCd cells - I have opened it all up and sure enough the cells are all but dead - I ran a direct DC conn to bypass the cells and the Cam works OK.

The truck comes with reverse cam built in so it would be good to set up a permanent front Cam as well.

Originally Posted by Laurie

Daniel
You will have to get a new battery pack from Jaycar etc and solder in.

Laurie

6 x cells - NiCd or NiMH?

Daniel from Fullfatrr !


"Mine was from a 2007, and so may be different from Blubbermans, but it uses 750mAh AAA Nimh batteries, not nicads. Tagged 800 mAH ones are easily found on the web, and much easier to solder. If you go down this route remember to recover the thermistor which is scotched to the old pack!. The only disadvantage with this method, is I could not reuse the fusible link that is on the original pack. "

Laurie

Also from Fullfatrr

I had problems with my venture cam which appeared to be dead , no lights etc , so I also bought one off ebay which was fully charged on arrival but would not connect to the car systems . Not wanting to damage the "new" one off ebay , I opened up the case of the original one to have a look inside , and found it to be powered by some nicads .
They use 6 AA size nicads to power the unit , so I bought 6 AA rechargeable nicads from the pound shop , wired them in series to give the required 7.2 volt battery pack and attached the flying leads which power the electronics. The camera then powered up ok , but would still not connect to the car system .


The fault turned out to be the docking unit , there was power to the PCB inside the docking unit , but no power on the pins to the venture cam , so the PCB must have been goosed . No Physical damage , but no way of testing the PCB because they use SMT components . I am not sure but I think the docking station also incorporates the bluetooth receiver , because there is a small coax cable attached to the docking atation .

A new docking station was fitted at the dealers ( The Beast was still under warranty but the dealer didn't want to fit a new docking station until I threw my toys out of the pram , but thats another story

As far as I can make out , I think the venture cam is fed with 12v from the docking station , which is dropped down to a lower voltage inside the venture cam to charge the batteries .

I then had 2 working venture cams , but the picture from the ebay camera was much worse than the picture from the original . Traced fault to dodgy ribbon cable from CCd camera PCB to main board .

Then the biggest laugh , found that anything over 5 mph turns off the camera , and I wanted it for seeing behind me when towing the caravan . Dealer refused to configure it - total waste of time and effort !

The process of getting the camera to talk to the car systems is a little tricky , I always refer to the handbook when trying to get them to communicate . ( just used for reversing onto the caravan tow hitch now )

Cheers

Originally Posted by Laurie

Also from Fullfatrr
....
They use 6 AA size nicads ....
......
Then the biggest laugh , found that anything over 5 mph turns off the camera , and I wanted it for seeing behind me when towing the caravan . Dealer refused to configure it - total waste of time and effort !
....

Cheers

Thanks Laurie

It would be interesting to see if anybody has disabled the speed limit on the VentureCam, the SatNav system for inputs of addresses and the Phone for Message bank etc? I understand that the restriction is to stop shopping trolley drivers being distracted as they drop their kids off at school and not running over other kids but for the average Aussie rural road user .......

My VCam uses AAA cells - perhaps that is a typo from you. I cannot see any fusible link on the battery to PCB wiring.

Had the same on ours, Venturecam was dead from being left docked for years never used.

Replaced with NiMH cells from Jaycar and all working again.

The Satnav lockout is damn annoying, there was a code that could be entered on earlier models to disable it but I've not been able to find any way of doing it on 07+.

On ours the phone and the Venturecam don't lock out, just the Satnav destination entry.

Originally Posted by ariddell

Had the same on ours, Venturecam was dead from being left docked for years never used.

Replaced with NiMH cells from Jaycar and all working again.

The Satnav lockout is damn annoying, there was a code that could be entered on earlier models to disable it but I've not been able to find any way of doing it on 07+.

On ours the phone and the Venturecam don't lock out, just the Satnav destination entry.

VentureCam - dismantled the VC unit, rejuvenated the cells directly and it now works as good as new! I still have to test the cradle to ensure that it charges - it may be dead and so have to look for a blown fuse somewhere in the system. Should have done that first but then everybody was adamant that the cells needed to be replaced. As with all NiCd/NiMH cell packs lack of use is worse than frequent use and often leads to individual cells reversing their polarity and therefore needing to be rejuvenated

I'm informed that the VentureCam locks out at above 20kph.
The Phone and SatNav both lock out their many useful features as soon as any vehicle movement is detected (I'm not referring to the BT phone connection) which has hardly any features enabled anyway.

I understand from the FullfatRR forum that dealers can upgrade the firmware to enable BT phone connection to a more functional one with phone contact list etc. The standard BT firmware is almost useless.