1 odd camera

Follow
John Winters
I currently have 6 GoCams, all 6 cams take relatively the same amount of pics per day give or take 15-20. Of the 6 I have 1 cam that seems to drain batteries like no other, I’ll put 3 sets of batteries in this cam to 1 set in the other 5. Identical settings on every cam & I only use energizer lithium batteries. I’m lucky to get 2-3 weeks out of them in that camera. Any ideas?
0

Comments

22 comments

Sort by Date Votes
  • John Lockburner
    • Edited

    Is the firmware up to date? How's the signal strength? have you checked the batteries when you removed them to make sure that they are all dead? There's actually three separate banks of batteries in there.

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Winters

    Firmware is up to date, signal strength is full bars, I don’t have a tester to check the aa batteries but with only having this issue with 1 of my 6 cams I thought there may be an issue I was unaware of. The other cams are set identically & still going strong on the 1st set of batteries I installed 2 months ago, I’m on my 3rd set in this cam now & they just went to P3 indication

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Lockburner

    What model?

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Winters

    Verizon GoCam GC-Z4Gb2

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Lockburner

    Power save turned on in the settings?

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Winters

    Power save is switched On for all 6 cams & flash is set on Low

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Lockburner

    I would check the batteries next time that you change them to make sure that they are all the same voltage, or at least close. Next thing would be to try a different SD card or maybe even swap antennas from a different camera.

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Winters

    Ok that’ll be fairly soon, I put fresh batteries in this cam 1 week ago & am already getting some P3 labeled pics

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Lockburner

    How many pics has it sent since you changed them?

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Winters

    Roughly 600 pics

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Lockburner

    That definitely seems low

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Winters

    I agree, all my cams are less than 1yr old, the other 5 have sent approx the same amount of pics, some close to 1,000 with no sign of weakening

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Winters

    Just a bad camera I guess, have to put it somewhere I don’t get as many pics & see what happens.

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Lockburner

    Did you check the battery voltages?

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Winters

    I still don’t have a voltage tester for aa batteries, but out of 6 identically programmed cams this is the only one going dead within a week or 2 regularly. I’ll just have to move the camera somewhere less important & easier to access

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Lockburner

    Do you have a multi meter? There are three separate banks of 4 batteries inside the camera so if any of the battery contacts/springs are broken or corroded it can keep 1/3 or 2/3rd's of you batteries from even working. So it's possible that you are running the camera off of only 4 of the batteries.

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Winters

    I’m going to pull the camera next time I’m in there, it’s not a convenient place to get to but I’ve already put nearly half the cost of the camera in batteries in it so far since summer. Once I get it home I’ll see if I can diagnose what the problem is.

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Lockburner

    You can always start using an external rechargeable SLA battery. They pay for themselves in a hurry.

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Winters

    This is just my opinion, but why should I invest more money in a camera that obviously is having an issue & should still be under warranty being it’s less than 1yr old? If all 6 cams with identical settings had the same performance, I’d say possibly so, but I honestly don’t see where it’s my responsibility to invest even more money into a faulty camera. If that’s the solution then I guess the warranty really isn’t worth much & I'll have to seriously consider another brand for the order I was about to place for an additional 10 cams

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Lockburner
    • Edited

    The cameras have a two year warranty so I would definitely send it back to be looked at if we can't figure out what it is causing the issue. If you don't want to mess with it any longer you can email support for an RMA. There's a few things we can do to try and getting it working as it should be so maybe you don't have to send it back but that's up to you.

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Winters

    If it’s come down to suggesting I buy external battery equipment to make the camera perform as well as the others do without it, I’d say there’s not much else to try honestly. Thanks for your time

    0
    Comment actions Permalink
  • John Lockburner

    That's not what I'm saying at all. The camera should last longer on a set of batteries we just need to figure out why it's not. There's a few things we (you and I) can go over and do before sending it back to Spartan to be looked at. First thing is we need to check those battery voltages to make sure all the batteries are dead. A multi meter works best because it will give you a better reading than a battery tester. I would also try a different SD card and antenna. Best thing would be to swap them from a camera that you know is working fine. Just be sure to format the SD card in the cameras when you swap them. If you still get the same results then I would swap locations with another camera. Signal can have a lot to do with battery usage. Are there currently any pending commands?

    0
    Comment actions Permalink

Please sign in to leave a comment.

Didn't find what you were looking for?

New post