"Chewing gum" dv cam - firmware settings? - Page 8

rich smith · Nov 07, 2009, 07:09 AM

I bought 11 of these on Ebay and 2 of them will not charge. They worked the first time but not after that. The fact that these two got warm when charging off a PC was a hint something not right.

Sellers offered to replace or refund if I return them. Yeah.. right!

Well, considering what I paid these are still a bargain.

jackerbes · Nov 07, 2009, 09:36 AM

I have two of them now, identical in appearance, one 640x480, the second 720x480, both 30 FPS. But they are not all created equal. The first comes with a "real" AC wall wart charger (5V 500 mAh), the second comes with a USB to microUSB adapter and will chage from the USB port.

On the first I am able to set and reset the time but cannot get it to quit putting the times on the videos and photos. I tried about 20 times and it simply will not do it. Yes, I added the "N" to the time.txt file that will work otherwise.

The second was received last night. It has resisted all efforts to set the time. It has the time on the video and photos and starts at 2001/01/01 00:00:00 with each new power up.

The 2nd has a green LED in place of where the blue one was. When powered up just the green LED on the left stays lit after power up. The red LED on the right blinks during video recording and flashes a couple of time when a photo is taken.

The 2nd one automatically powers itself off after 30 seconds or so unless photos are being taken more frequently than that or a video is being recorded.

The first saves a video at 50 minutes and again at low battery. That gave me two files of about 2 GB each and 100 minutes of video in two videos.

The second records video continuously for about 90-100 minutes and saves it to one files that is a little less than 4GB.

I downloaded this DateTimePlugin.zip file somewhere and tried it. If you put the *.bat and *.exe files on the root of the card you can go to a command propmt and then execute the *.bat and then the *.exe file. That will create a time.txt file with your system's time in it but the syntax is different. It has hyphens between date elements (YY-MM-DD) instead of periods (YY.MM.DD) and may or may not be of any help to anyone.

The never ending annoyances of cheap crap from China that sort of works...

Jack

highflier · Nov 07, 2009, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackerbes

The second was received last night. It has resisted all efforts to set the time. It has the time on the video and photos and starts at 2001/01/01 00:00:00 with each new power up.

The never ending annoyances of cheap crap from China that sort of works...

Jack

Jack,
try this file. Put in in the root, power off, power all, snap a pic, check it.

Do not power off again after snapping the pic. Mine resets the time back to day 0 every time I turn it off. Thus I set the time in the am, and leave it on, Of course in about 30 seconds it enters a standby mode. To exit standby mode press the take picture button and wait a few seconds. Then you must hit the button again to actually take a picture or start the record.
BTW mine records 720x 480 30 FPS and came with a Ac USB port and cable for charging. Howver it will charge off PC also.

They all appear to have their own required file format. Once you get the base file figured out you'll have no problem setting time in the future.
Mine does not turn off time stamp.

Have you seen the Virtualdub plugin that removes (kinda) the time stamp. Search out demo in the keychain cam thread. I tried it but I did not have as much luch as the demo in the other thread

Highflier

guapoman2000 · Nov 07, 2009, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackerbes

The never ending annoyances of cheap crap from China that sort of works...

Jack

No more for me, at least for a while!

The Camera is on it's way back to HobbyPartz dot com and should be there on Monday!

We will see what kind of customer service I get.

guapo

jackerbes · Nov 07, 2009, 02:20 PM

Highflier,

Thanks, I'll give that one a try. You'd think they could stabilize on one firmware routine and all work the same, but no, that would be too easy!

quapo,

I can't bring myself to send back a $13 camera that is such a no brainer to put into use. :>)

Jack

guapoman2000 · Nov 07, 2009, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackerbes

guapo,

I can't bring myself to send back a $13 camera that is such a no brainer to put into use. :>)

Jack

Are you razzing me?

Give me a break!

First, it did not cost $13.00 or $15.00 like in most eBay outlets, I bought it from a distributor here in US of A for less than $30.00 so, sending it back was good thing.

My camera is totally different than those found with those price list you posted.

There is nothing I can do if the charging circuit is busted on the camera and I was not about to open it as then, the warranty would be voided.

jackerbes · Nov 07, 2009, 02:32 PM

No offense was meant, I was thinking you were sending it back just because of the time setting issues that we were talking about. And I thought it was the same camera we were talking about.

When we were buying these for $20 or so there was some guy selling them on the For Sale forum here for $60.

Jack

guapoman2000 · Nov 07, 2009, 02:52 PM

Oh, I see, sorry!

Yes, my carmera is found at:

Without micro SD:
http://www.hobbypartz.com/hicocagrforf.html

With micro SD: (2-Giga micro SD)!
http://www.hobbypartz.com/smvicarewfr2.html

Therefore, the guy selling it for $60 perhaps was not all that outragious.

jackerbes · Nov 07, 2009, 04:03 PM

The guy selling if for $60 was selling just the camera, no card, and it was the same as the ones that were going for $19.95 on eBay.

The one you bought is slightly different, it has a hold button, a different start stop button, some fancier looking chrome trim, and also comes from a U.S. based seller with faster delivery and an implied promise of some support. You pay more you get more...

I was not saying that it was a bad deal.

The technical details on these have varied some in the short time they have been on the market, the earliest ones were 15 FPS, most are now 30 FPS, and the video size is now up to 720 x 480 from 640 x 480.

But it is the variations in the firmware and time settings that seems to be causing the most problems.

Jack

bnrusso · Nov 07, 2009, 05:19 PM

I had 2 that came with a USB cable and no charger and I have 3 more that came with chargers that support the USB cable too.
All of mine support 29FPS as determined by the file properties.

Of those 3 I have 1 that does not blink when connected so it appears that it is not charging but it does seem to get warm. Bottom line is I can't tell if that one is charging or not. If it is not, I will just add a JST connector to parallel the li-po cell and come out the side of the camera to charge with an external li-po charger that I use for my li-pos for planes.

guapoman2000 · Nov 07, 2009, 10:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bnrusso

Bottom line is I can't tell if that one is charging or not. If it is not, I will just add a JST connector to parallel the li-po cell and come out the side of the camera to charge with an external li-po charger that I use for my li-pos for planes.

My bottom line is that I tried my camera on two USB cable ports to the computer and then, a cell phone charger and still the camera shut down shortly after I turned it ON, not withstanding any lights.

Nope, I was not about to enter a science project with a brand new camera irrigardless of the price.

rich smith · Nov 08, 2009, 05:13 AM

I have 3 now that did not charge. Replacing the lipo in one fixed it. Maybe that will work for the other two.

Two sellers offered to replace if I returned them and one is just sending me another free of charge. Those who buy them locally have an advantage in this respect but considering I paid as little as $12 ea I'm quite happy.

It appears I have 5 different hardware (one was actually a Car Dongle Cam even though I ordered a Gum Cam) and 7 firmware versions.

PS The one I'm using and maybe all of them lose time when the hardware switch is shut off but since these draw virtually no power in standby this switch is not used. I don't consider this a design flaw.

dz1sfb · Nov 09, 2009, 10:52 AM

Wow! I am very happy with the results from this camera. This is the first video I have done from a model and am tickled with it. Need make some adjustments, and WMM degraded the resolution some. The raw video was much nicer.

Ken

http://vimeo.com/7517625

highflier · Nov 09, 2009, 12:30 PM

How big is a is your plane? Looked like you were almost as high as the video's I did with my 2 meter sailplane.

These little gum cam sure are fun.

Highflier

guapoman2000 · Nov 09, 2009, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dz1sfb

Wow! I am very happy with the results from this camera. This is the first video I have done from a model and am tickled with it. Need make some adjustments, and WMM degraded the resolution some. The raw video was much nicer.

Ken

Ken,

Exactly! Microsoft Movie Maker does and I just can not tell it to provide more clips to an imported or Video capture segment so, I can delete some dead footage as I have recorded some video using static tripod method.

However, wait a while at YouTube or Vimeo and they have some neat converters that enhance the video quality but, that takes a day or so.

Nov 07, 2009, 09:36 AM	#107
jackerbes Jack Join Date: May 2008 Location: Ellsworth,ME, USA Posts: 3,604	I have two of them now, identical in appearance, one 640x480, the second 720x480, both 30 FPS. But they are not all created equal. The first comes with a "real" AC wall wart charger (5V 500 mAh), the second comes with a USB to microUSB adapter and will chage from the USB port. On the first I am able to set and reset the time but cannot get it to quit putting the times on the videos and photos. I tried about 20 times and it simply will not do it. Yes, I added the "N" to the time.txt file that will work otherwise. The second was received last night. It has resisted all efforts to set the time. It has the time on the video and photos and starts at 2001/01/01 00:00:00 with each new power up. The 2nd has a green LED in place of where the blue one was. When powered up just the green LED on the left stays lit after power up. The red LED on the right blinks during video recording and flashes a couple of time when a photo is taken. The 2nd one automatically powers itself off after 30 seconds or so unless photos are being taken more frequently than that or a video is being recorded. The first saves a video at 50 minutes and again at low battery. That gave me two files of about 2 GB each and 100 minutes of video in two videos. The second records video continuously for about 90-100 minutes and saves it to one files that is a little less than 4GB. I downloaded this DateTimePlugin.zip file somewhere and tried it. If you put the .bat and .exe files on the root of the card you can go to a command propmt and then execute the .bat and then the .exe file. That will create a time.txt file with your system's time in it but the syntax is different. It has hyphens between date elements (YY-MM-DD) instead of periods (YY.MM.DD) and may or may not be of any help to anyone. The never ending annoyances of cheap crap from China that sort of works... Jack Attached Files DateTimePlugin.zip (28.6 KB, 35 views) Time setting utility for gum pack camera (maybe works??)

Nov 08, 2009, 05:13 AM	#117
rich smith 7000mw of raw power! Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 4,501	I have 3 now that did not charge. Replacing the lipo in one fixed it. Maybe that will work for the other two. Two sellers offered to replace if I returned them and one is just sending me another free of charge. Those who buy them locally have an advantage in this respect but considering I paid as little as $12 ea I'm quite happy. It appears I have 5 different hardware (one was actually a Car Dongle Cam even though I ordered a Gum Cam) and 7 firmware versions. PS The one I'm using and maybe all of them lose time when the hardware switch is shut off but since these draw virtually no power in standby this switch is not used. I don't consider this a design flaw. Last edited by rich smith; Nov 08, 2009 at 05:44 AM. Reason: lose time

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Nov 07, 2009, 07:09 AM	#106
rich smith 7000mw of raw power! Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 4,501	I bought 11 of these on Ebay and 2 of them will not charge. They worked the first time but not after that. The fact that these two got warm when charging off a PC was a hint something not right. Sellers offered to replace or refund if I return them. Yeah.. right! Well, considering what I paid these are still a bargain.

Nov 07, 2009, 02:20 PM	#110
jackerbes Jack Join Date: May 2008 Location: Ellsworth,ME, USA Posts: 3,604	Highflier, Thanks, I'll give that one a try. You'd think they could stabilize on one firmware routine and all work the same, but no, that would be too easy! quapo, I can't bring myself to send back a $13 camera that is such a no brainer to put into use. :>) Jack

Nov 07, 2009, 02:32 PM	#112
jackerbes Jack Join Date: May 2008 Location: Ellsworth,ME, USA Posts: 3,604	No offense was meant, I was thinking you were sending it back just because of the time setting issues that we were talking about. And I thought it was the same camera we were talking about. When we were buying these for $20 or so there was some guy selling them on the For Sale forum here for $60. Jack

Nov 07, 2009, 02:52 PM	#113
guapoman2000 Deep Space One Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Orlando, Florida, USA Posts: 31,966	Oh, I see, sorry! Yes, my carmera is found at: Without micro SD: http://www.hobbypartz.com/hicocagrforf.html With micro SD: (2-Giga micro SD)! http://www.hobbypartz.com/smvicarewfr2.html Therefore, the guy selling it for $60 perhaps was not all that outragious.

Nov 07, 2009, 04:03 PM	#114
jackerbes Jack Join Date: May 2008 Location: Ellsworth,ME, USA Posts: 3,604	The guy selling if for $60 was selling just the camera, no card, and it was the same as the ones that were going for $19.95 on eBay. The one you bought is slightly different, it has a hold button, a different start stop button, some fancier looking chrome trim, and also comes from a U.S. based seller with faster delivery and an implied promise of some support. You pay more you get more... I was not saying that it was a bad deal. The technical details on these have varied some in the short time they have been on the market, the earliest ones were 15 FPS, most are now 30 FPS, and the video size is now up to 720 x 480 from 640 x 480. But it is the variations in the firmware and time settings that seems to be causing the most problems. Jack

Nov 07, 2009, 05:19 PM	#115
bnrusso early retired & loving it Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: northeast Illinois Posts: 1,015	I had 2 that came with a USB cable and no charger and I have 3 more that came with chargers that support the USB cable too. All of mine support 29FPS as determined by the file properties. Of those 3 I have 1 that does not blink when connected so it appears that it is not charging but it does seem to get warm. Bottom line is I can't tell if that one is charging or not. If it is not, I will just add a JST connector to parallel the li-po cell and come out the side of the camera to charge with an external li-po charger that I use for my li-pos for planes.

Nov 09, 2009, 12:30 PM	#119
highflier Speed cost money. Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Holland, Pennsylvania, United States Posts: 2,508	How big is a is your plane? Looked like you were almost as high as the video's I did with my 2 meter sailplane. These little gum cam sure are fun. Highflier