Dash camera hard wiring Mk1 NA

Technical Area Electrics & ICE
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  1. My model of MX-5 is: NA Berkeley__
  2. I’m based near: Ashbourne, Derbyshire_
  3. I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: best place to locate a dash camera on a Mk1 and which fuse to piggyback the hard wiring__
1 Like
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Mine is mounted next to the rear view mirror, but they sell camera mounts that replace the sun visor mount. I ran the wire down the side of the windscreen and tapped into the ignition controlled wire on the radio loom. There are two power feeds there, permanent to keep the memories in and switched so the radio goes on/off with the ignition.

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Ours are mounted to the screen in front of the reversing mirror, i don’t need to be watching it , its just recording whats going on, and i don’t want it blocking my view, ours also came with a rear mounted camera so records front and back at the same time in different files which as been very useful.
As for hard wiring, there is only two wires , a power live and earth to connect, you just need to tap into an ignition live easiest is in the ignition itself and make sure you add a 10 amp fuse also in line,earth can be anywhere to anything behind the dash , plenty of screws.nuts and bolts to attach to.
M-m

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thanks Jeff, I’ve hard wired my Cooper S camera into a spare fuse in fusebox, the hardwire kit came with everything for a plug & play set up.
With regards to my MX5 NA, can you break it down and point me in right direction to identify the correct wire/cable for the ignition controlled wire on the radio loom. Thanks.

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It was a few years ago when I did mine, but from memory the red wire is switched power and yellow is constant power so you have the choice of having the camera on/off with ignition (red) or on all the time monitoring whilst parked (yellow).

I double-checked on the Web and it seems to agree with my memory.

Interestingly, it reminded me when I fitted the radio that the wiring had been hacked and the red/yellow was reversed somewhere in the loom which confused me for ages as the memories were dropping out (needed constant power for that).

Current draw will be small, so if you need to add a fuse (if camera power lead doesn’t have one) then a 3 amp fuse. Camera power plugs that go into a cigarette lighter socket (or whatever they are called these days) are normally fused at 2 amp.

Hope this helps…

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MM24E_X4qNs/hqdefault.jpg

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hi Jeff,
thank you for this diagram and summary, I can now visualise what I need to do.
Best wishes Neil

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Hi M-m, very useful information & thanks for taking the time to assist, best wishes Neil