Has Anyone Ever Encountered This Issue Before with the Exterior Cameras?

[THEbuz]

My 2023 Model Y has never exhibited this issue before, but my wife was about to back out of the garage yesterday to take the TESLA to her meeting and all the cameras (except the rear camera) began showing lines on the screen. (SEE ATTACHED EXAMPLE.) Apparently, you cannot ATTACH video clips here on TMC, so I had to take a screenshot of my 5sec video for you, but please note that the lines are active, not fixed.

You can examine all camera angles through the “Camera Preview” feature in the settings, which is how I know that all camera were doing this, except for the rear camera.

We powered off the TESLA and restarted it to no avail. We also performed a “hard boot” (by holding down the scroll wheel buttons) twice to no avail.

My wife had to leave, as it did not affect the vehicle’s ability to drive. She called me less than 5min later and reported that it had ceased.

Anyone ever seen this before? If so, what was the cause and the solution? (NOTE: I have not contacted TESLA Service to report this issue.)

 

[starship42]

RF Interference? Does your neighbor have Ham Radio antennas on their house?

 

[MY1stEV]

Have you recently switched to LED bulbs in your garage? Some LED bulbs strobe at a rate similar to refresh rate of the cameras.

 

[Anson Fung]

Have you recently switched to LED bulbs in your garage? Some LED bulbs strobe at a rate similar to refresh rate of the cameras.

Yep, that looks like LED flicker. That is, the LED is turning on and off rapidly. Flicker might not be perceived with human vision. It can be picked up by a camera though if its frame rate isn't perfectly synced the flickering rate--this is because the camera will be capturing a frame of video at a point in time when the LED is actually off. Result is that you see a darkened band in the camera's output.

Note that any light that derives its power from AC mains is going to flicker (the sinusoidal waveform crosses back and forth between 0V). It's just more noticeable with LEDs for two reasons:

• First, LEDs stop producing light after loss of voltage much faster than other kinds of lighting--a glowing hot filament in an incandescent bulb is still going to glow for the split second it gets 0VAC.
• Second, LEDs need DC voltage and some manufacturers cheap out on the AC to DC rectification circuitry.
  • Cheap way is to run a half bridge rectifier that will chop off the bottom half of the sinusoidal AC wave. On a half bridge rectifier, the LED gets DC voltage only when the AC waveform is positive. This results in a 60 Hz flicker.
  • Fancier way is to use a full bridge rectifier that functionally inverts the negative V portions of the AC waveform. That will double the amount of time the LED gets DC voltage and doubles the flicker rate to 120 Hz.
  • Theoretically it should be possible to add a capacitor in line with the full bridge rectifier output to keep the voltage above the minimum threshold required for the LED to illuminate.

 

[THEbuz]

Have you recently switched to LED bulbs in your garage? Some LED bulbs strobe at a rate similar to refresh rate of the cameras.

Dude, you’re spot on! It never occurred to me, but the instant I read your reply, it made perfect sense.

Yes, I changed my garage lights to new super-white, super bright LED’s a couple weeks ago. The reason, though, I never noticed it before (in my TESLA) is because we almost never have the garage lights on when leaving the house and they’re never on when we arrive home. Only the LED bulbs inside the garage door opener turn on upon arrival. It also makes perfect sense why my wife called me just 5min later to say that the “issue” had subsided. Also, the reason it wasn’t doing it on my rear facing camera is because it was daytime and the garage door was open; hence, no LED-generated light was reaching the rear camera.

Thanks again! I’m sure I would’ve looked pretty stupid had I contacted TESLA Service first!

Cheers, mate!

 

[THEbuz]

Yep, that looks like LED flicker. That is, the LED is turning on and off rapidly. Flicker might not be perceived with human vision. It can be picked up by a camera though if its frame rate isn't perfectly synced the flickering rate--this is because the camera will be capturing a frame of video at a point in time when the LED is actually off. Result is that you see a darkened band in the camera's output.

Note that any light that derives its power from AC mains is going to flicker (the sinusoidal waveform crosses back and forth between 0V). It's just more noticeable with LEDs for two reasons:

• First, LEDs stop producing light after loss of voltage much faster than other kinds of lighting--a glowing hot filament in an incandescent bulb is still going to glow for the split second it gets 0VAC.
• Second, LEDs need DC voltage and some manufacturers cheap out on the AC to DC rectification circuitry.
  • Cheap way is to run a half bridge rectifier that will chop off the bottom half of the sinusoidal AC wave. On a half bridge rectifier, the LED gets DC voltage only when the AC waveform is positive. This results in a 60 Hz flicker.
  • Fancier way is to use a full bridge rectifier that functionally inverts the negative V portions of the AC waveform. That will double the amount of time the LED gets DC voltage and doubles the flicker rate to 120 Hz.
  • Theoretically it should be possible to add a capacitor in line with the full bridge rectifier output to keep the voltage above the minimum threshold required for the LED to illuminate.

Thanks for weighing in!