My Pumpkin Audio Head Unit has the facility to hook up a reversing camera and with basic models under £10, I thought it’d be useful to see if they were a gimmick or something I’d use. Most suggest models taking trigger power from the reversing light feed at or near the lamp to turn the camera on. This seems a long way to run another cable from, is there anywhere to tap into this reversing wire nearer the front of the car, presumably near the fuse box somewhere?
Thanks.
If the camera is at the back,then that is where you are going to need the power and earth supply,from the reverse light circuit?
The video feed from the camera will have to run to the head unit.
Hi I just installed this one.
Very good product with all the required fittings, yes there is a video feed wire that is required to run from camera to rear of head unit.
View on head unit screen.
It just proves you need a larger proper sized garage.
you can get a wireless unit to work the camera.
But it needs more space to fit it as it is bulky.
One unit near the headunit and one near the camera.
But i think you still need to run a wire from the rear to the front.
I did fit one to mine, but i ran a wire from front to back, because i didnt want to rely on the wireless unit to work properly.
Also fitted mine where sparks has and it does help when getting near the object when reversing
I ended up getting this camera unit from Fleabay. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271943233938 The number plate fits in nicely to the frame, albeit maybe a tad high (I could lose 5mm from the bottom of the plate to let it drop down. I didn’t think of fitting the unit where Sparks & Snowman did, ah well.
I took the reverse trigger wire feed from the 12v +ve feed to the reversing light and +12v from the boot light feed. I routed the signal cable round the back of the boot then down the narrow void between the hood scuttle and the rear drivers side wheel, threading it through with an old coat hanger first then pulling the wire through. Then it was behind the driver’s seat (behind the plastic) and into the central tunnel towards the head unit.
The camera comes on quite quickly, just turn on the ignition, select reverse and the camera kicks in almost immediately, ages before the Pumpkin boots up which was a worry if I’d have to wait for the Pumpkin to start up. The camera has IR bulbs so it works very well in the dark. I manually backed up to the garage door to get a minimum distance for reversing, then adjusted the camera’s tilt so that the warning guides showed red at the base of the door.
I also took the opportunity to fit a little Dash Cam. I thought I’d ordered the 1080 version but got the 780 by mistake. At under £14, it’s not the end of the world as I wanted to see if it was worth having. Again, all wiring hidden and soldered/heat shrinked. I’ll review the footage (it starts recording as soon as the ignition is on) after a few days and maybe upgrade to a higher spec unit if it looks like it’s a useful accessory.
The whole process of stripping cables was well worth the purchase price of this Wire Stripper which I’ll be able to use on other projects as well. I used initially used multiblocks for all of the wiring until I was certain it worked ok, then changed all of the joints to solder and heat shrink.