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Blackvue won't power on

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martinicus

martinicus

Member
Aug 15, 2016
212
111
North NJ
#1
So I just got my X back from a certified bodyshop, to replace the spoiler that had damage at delivery, and my new Blackvue 650S that I just had professionally installed won't power on. I had unplugged the power plug before dropping it off for service, and plugged it back it when I got it back, it was working fine before. I just stuck a little wire into the power plug and measured it with my multimeter, it reads 14V so power seems fine. It just won't turn on or do anything, even after being plugged in all day. Tried taking out the card, tried holding down the format button for 20 seconds. Tried jiggling the power cord.

Has this happened to anyone else with their 650S? Any tricks? Has anyone dealt with blackvue customer service? I'm definitely not ripping out all the cords that I just had installed, I can send in the unit itself but I'd imagine I won't be getting a new one back for several weeks? Very frustrating.
 
#2
martinicus said:
So I just got my X back from a certified bodyshop, to replace the spoiler that had damage at delivery, and my new Blackvue 650S that I just had professionally installed won't power on. I had unplugged the power plug before dropping it off for service, and plugged it back it when I got it back, it was working fine before. I just stuck a little wire into the power plug and measured it with my multimeter, it reads 14V so power seems fine. It just won't turn on or do anything, even after being plugged in all day. Tried taking out the card, tried holding down the format button for 20 seconds. Tried jiggling the power cord.

Has this happened to anyone else with their 650S? Any tricks? Has anyone dealt with blackvue customer service? I'm definitely not ripping out all the cords that I just had installed, I can send in the unit itself but I'd imagine I won't be getting a new one back for several weeks? Very frustrating.
Click to expand...

Perhaps the body shop tried plugging the cables back in incorrectly?? The pins are very delicate. Try contacting BlackVue CS
 
#4
Examining the memory card that was in it, it actually looks like it died two days earlier, I dropped the car at the body shop on Monday morning and the last recording was on the Friday before. There was definitely alot of driving happening on Saturday and Sunday, and not a single recording or log file. Looks like it's simply a dead dashcam. I had just gotten a new 128 GB Lexar card from Amazon, hope that didn't have anything to do with it. Haven't heard back from blackvue customer support yet, fingers crossed they come through quickly.
 
  • Helpful
Reactions: hiroshiy
#5
martinicus said:
Examining the memory card that was in it, it actually looks like it died two days earlier, I dropped the car at the body shop on Monday morning and the last recording was on the Friday before. There was definitely alot of driving happening on Saturday and Sunday, and not a single recording or log file. Looks like it's simply a dead dashcam. I had just gotten a new 128 GB Lexar card from Amazon, hope that didn't have anything to do with it. Haven't heard back from blackvue customer support yet, fingers crossed they come through quickly.
Click to expand...

Was the card full? At first my Blackvue wouldn't record over the old footage once the card was full. I was able to reformat it using the Blackvue software to get it working correctly. However. That wouldn't explain the issue with it not powering on.

Another thing to check is the fuse inside the cigarette plug head on the Blackvue power cable. You can try replacing the fuse to see if that fixes your issue.
 
  • Disagree
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#6
It's still out today. Haven't heard back from Blackvue. Wonder if it's an issue with the female power outlet in the unit.
Nerdy_Engineer said:
Was the card full? At first my Blackvue wouldn't record over the old footage once the card was full. I was able to reformat it using the Blackvue software to get it working correctly. However. That wouldn't explain the issue with it not powering on.

Another thing to check is the fuse inside the cigarette plug head on the Blackvue power cable. You can try replacing the fuse to see if that fixes your issue.
Click to expand...

No the card was mostly empty, only had it running a few days. I metered the male plug and it shows 14V so I don't think power is an issue. Examined the cam and don't see any way to open it, would probably void the warranty anyways. Guess I'll be sending it in.
 
#8
Nope, just a waiting game trying to get it replaced. I bought it new from Massdrop, but since they don't carry inventory they weren't sure what to do. Eventually BlackVue customer support told me to ship it to ProDashcam for RMA service (since Blackvue is only in Korea). They have had it for over a week and I haven't heard anything yet.. one of the downsides of ordering from massdrop instead of B&H...
 
#11
martinicus said:
Examining the memory card that was in it, it actually looks like it died two days earlier, I dropped the car at the body shop on Monday morning and the last recording was on the Friday before. There was definitely alot of driving happening on Saturday and Sunday, and not a single recording or log file. Looks like it's simply a dead dashcam. I had just gotten a new 128 GB Lexar card from Amazon, hope that didn't have anything to do with it. Haven't heard back from blackvue customer support yet, fingers crossed they come through quickly.
Click to expand...

martinicus said:
Nope, just a waiting game trying to get it replaced. I bought it new from Massdrop, but since they don't carry inventory they weren't sure what to do. Eventually BlackVue customer support told me to ship it to ProDashcam for RMA service (since Blackvue is only in Korea). They have had it for over a week and I haven't heard anything yet.. one of the downsides of ordering from massdrop instead of B&H...
Click to expand...


Sorry you are still without a working camera. We are using the same model, 2-channel. Be curious to learn if a replacement was necessary for you, and if so, what they diagnosed as the reason. I have heard problems with the connectors being broken while trying to unplug/replug the unit due to service visits where they didn't want it on.

Is there any chance your camera unit was installed with the plastic film still left on it? Thanks to reading a post here on TMC, we luckily came across a post about someone's unit that had been working fine for a few weeks after install but suddenly stopped -- in the end he assumed due to overheating. His installer had left the clear plastic film on the cameras, and when we checked our 2-channel unit so did our installer! Different installer and in different parts of the country. Believe another owner checked his and found he had installed it himself with the film on. Due to the location of the cameras in our car we never really noticed through the glass. The original poster mentioned that the unit has vents and the plastic covers those. We never took ours out of the box to notice the film, just handed the package to them. Needless to say we took the film off immediately, and fortunately the week the covers were on it was fairly cool outside so we think we were spared the same fate. Spoke to our installer to alert him to this and he said they leave it on so they don't get fingerprints on the cameras while installing....glad we've been reading this forum LOL. So just a word of caution for any newbies getting theirs installed and reading this thread.

Yeah, the downsides that can come from whom you order from can end up giving you more grief if you run into problems. We bought our 650S recently from B&H and our Blackvue 128 card from TheDashCamStore because both are local (well US and with stores) and can provide support or replacement. Read too many posts from people having issues with their dash cams and cards in general that we wanted the extra assurance of easy repair or replace. Heck with the labor for install and the cost of the camera it is a decent investment.
 
Last edited:
#12
My Blackvue DR650S-2CH stopped working as well. It was installed in my Mercedes with the Power Magic Pro accessory so I can have it hardwired and working in parking mode.
I didn't drive my car for the past 5 days and it was vandalized over the course of that time, which I was extremely mad that it failed at the worst possible moment. The front camera never light up or powered up when I drove it this morning and the last recording was when I last drove it.
I have left my car parked for much longer and never experienced this. I checked all the connections for the cameras and the Power Magic Pro and it looks like everything is secure. I will check to see if the fuse is ok.

Would it be possible that extreme heat would reduce the longevity of this camera? Our summers has been extremely hot.
I purchased mine from Amazon 18 months ago and don't know how receptive Blackvue is to help me as it is beyond the 1 year warranty.
 
#14
aowhaus said:
My Blackvue DR650S-2CH stopped working as well. It was installed in my Mercedes with the Power Magic Pro accessory so I can have it hardwired and working in parking mode.
I didn't drive my car for the past 5 days and it was vandalized over the course of that time, which I was extremely mad that it failed at the worst possible moment. The front camera never light up or powered up when I drove it this morning and the last recording was when I last drove it.
I have left my car parked for much longer and never experienced this. I checked all the connections for the cameras and the Power Magic Pro and it looks like everything is secure. I will check to see if the fuse is ok.

Would it be possible that extreme heat would reduce the longevity of this camera? Our summers has been extremely hot.
I purchased mine from Amazon 18 months ago and don't know how receptive Blackvue is to help me as it is beyond the 1 year warranty.
Click to expand...

So you did not move it into your Tesla?
 
#15
If your blackvue stopped working, check the following:
1. Make sure you use at least MLC microSD card - don't use TLC. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish, but in general avoid SanDisk and Lexar. They are perfect for PC use, but not for dashcam. If you are tired of dead cards, use Blackvue original cards. They're not that expensive. Or you could buy cards with "high endurance" mark.
2. When you or someone will disconnect camera cables, be careful about two things. First, Mark the cables so you know which is power and which is rear camera cable. If you force rear camera cable into power connector, the pin inside will break and it will not work anymore. This is a very common problem with Blackvue but they haven't fixed it for a long time. Second, when you put power cable back, make sure to insert the cable straight to the body. For the same reason.

When the pin is damaged, you can tell by taking a photo of your camera body side power connector, and zoom the photo to see how the center pin looks like. If it's broken or bent, you need to send the unit for repair. Bad design.

Edit: I was wrong when I wrote to avoid SLC. SLC is rare, expensive and more reliable. MLC is good. TLC/QLC should be the ones to be avoided.
 
Last edited:
  • Informative
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#16
hiroshiy said:
If your blackvue stopped working, check the following:
1. Make sure you use at least MLC microSD card - don't use SLC. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish, but in general avoid SanDisk and Lexar. They are perfect for PC use, but not for dashcam. If you are tired of dead cards, use Blackvue original cards. They're not that expensive. Or you could buy cards with "high endurance" mark.
Click to expand...

Actually Single Level Cell (SLC) is more reliable than Multi-level Cell (MLC). But they are difficult to find in the high capacities we are looking for our cameras (128 GB or larger). See Multi-level cell - Wikipedia

The easiest spec to find is the operating temperature range. Typical (cheap) flash is designed to operate down to 0º C. Better quality flash is designed to operate down to -25º C or -40º C. Often these higher performance chips are labeled "Industrial" grade. But it varies by manufacturer. I found Transcend makes a micro SD 128 GB with an operating spec of -25°C (-13°F) ~ 85°C (185°F). It works great in my Blackvue 900S. My camera is left running 24/7 which adds some heat. So I expect it to keep running even if the temp gets below -25 (pretty rare, but possible). https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DYML2S1/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
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#17
So my 2CH-900 also died. There is no power anymore and I can't get it to turn on. I tried taking out the SD card and it seemed to have died a week ago, last recordings from parking mode (nothing shows happened). I tried holding the button down, I took out and replaced the SD card, and tried unplugging the cords and back in. From what I can tell the pins do not seem to be broken. Any ideas?

The only thing I can think of is about an hour or two after the last recording I did an insane launch but I've done plenty of those before. Any thoughts?
 
#18
I have had two Blackvue cameras fail. Won't buy them again. This post confirms they are still not long term reliable. I bought three Thinksys cameras that were much cheaper, don't require a power magic pro to work in parking mode, the wifi app is more reliable (at least for me it is) and the cameras have been flawless for the last 18 months. I also had to go thru a couple of sd cards on the Blackview because I kept getting sd card errors. The Blacksys does not look as sleek but they work great (don't care about a wifi enabled camera that uploads to the cloud).
 
#19
Insureit1 said:
I have had two Blackvue cameras fail. Won't buy them again. This post confirms they are still not long term reliable. I bought three Thinksys cameras that were much cheaper, don't require a power magic pro to work in parking mode, the wifi app is more reliable (at least for me it is) and the cameras have been flawless for the last 18 months. I also had to go thru a couple of sd cards on the Blackview because I kept getting sd card errors. The Blacksys does not look as sleek but they work great (don't care about a wifi enabled camera that uploads to the cloud).
Click to expand...

Are you using their SD card...3rd party cards result in issues.
 
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