Dash Cam install.

I did find this photo from a 2109 JCW install. The comments in the thread kind of indicated you might need a sunroof to find switched power. https://goo.gl/photos/5p6TvJG3kgYcLLss8

 

I wonder what the behavior of that power source is. I do like that the 12v cigarette power stays on for about 12 minutes after locking the car. Nice find in any event.

Has anyone opened up the headliner? I will be hardwiring my dashcam this week, and am considering running the cable for the rear camera.

 

I haven't opened the headliner - I was hoping I could fish a cable directly from the front to the back down the center since I deleted the moonroof on my build. Unfortunately I don't have something appropriate to fish the cable so I tucked it around the passenger side headliner which wasn't ideal; the cable is still visible around the b-pillar.

 

The rear cam routing definitely seems like it's going to be more complex than the front... I'm planning on having two independent cameras so I don't have to run a cable all the way from the front of the car but even getting the cable from the back side of the 12V trunk outlet up to the hatch isn't going to be easy.

I think I will have to pull down the rear of the headliner at least a bit to get the cable through the rubber tubes to the hatch and I'll make sure to take a picture of what's underneath.

Accessing the back side of the 12V outlet seems like it'll be the hardest part at this point because the panel that it's mounted to is one piece from the hatch to the front door and I don't want to remove it completely.

 

You can pull down the rear headliner just a tad to get to the rubber tubes. Thankfully one of them (I forgot which one, but you can tell just by squeezing it) is almost empty except for one tiny wire. I managed to pull a USB cable with a right-angle plug through it to get to the cyclops light area, below which I put my rear camera. I used a SG9663DCPRO+. The hardest part of the entire thing was finding a way to get from the front passenger door to the rear passenger door. The rest of the cable routing was surprisingly not that difficult.

 

Thanks! I'll give that a try.

Do we have a switched accessory fuse? I bought 3 wire kit (parking mode) by mistake and may just set it up anyway.

 

The switched fused was F53, and the "always-on" fuse was F48. Unfortunately they are different sizes; the F53 is Mini ATO and the F48 is ATO. So you'll need 2 different sized fuse taps. Fortunately there is no existing fuse in either of these so you could get away with something smaller, but in my case the fuse taps that came with my 3 wire kit fit perfectly and they let me choose different sizes for each.

 

Fantastic! I am using the same Street Guardian camera and 3-wire kit. Last question, do you stick a fuse in the both slots of the wire? The SG instructions were surprisingly incomplete.

 

If you're using an empty fuse slot, you only need to put the one supplied with the tap in the position furthest from the prongs; I've attached an illustration. You'll know if you've done it wrong because there will be no current flowing if you don't put the fuse in, or if your fuse goes bad.

 

I used this guy YouTube video to guild me with rear dashcam install. Very helpful. Use the left side rubber conduit to run the cable, only has one wire in it compared to the right side which was full of wires.

 

Thanks! Got it installed! (partially). It doesn't power on the SG 3-wire parking kit, probably because the fusetap isn't long enough as mentioned in posts #13-15.
Removing the panels was easy, especially after pulling the weather stripping out. Though I lost a plastic clip from the speaker panel.

 

Finally got around to installing my rear dashcam! It's definitely more work than the front but still not too bad. I'm using a standalone rear cam and am powering it from the 12v outlet in the trunk so I did not need to run a wire from front to back.

First, removing the outlet:
There's two little slots in the orange plastic piece. Just shove something in both like a flat blade screwdriver and it'll just pull straight out (there's little tabs that get pushed down, one on either side)


Once the outlet is out, it can be unplugged from the backside. To tap off power I found these double spade connector things at the auto parts store that are basically an extension with an extra spade coming off the side (Also on Amazon).


They are not insulated though so I made sure to put some heat shrink over the exposed bit so it couldn't accidentally short. Here's the assembly all back together:


Next I popped off some trim. The little access door in the fabric panel is easy and just pulls out. Next I popped off the C pillar trim. There's 4 clips holding it in, 3 metal and one plastic.


Under that c pillar trim, there's a little torx screw holding the rear part of the large panel that the outlet is attached to. I removed just this screw so I could flex that panel a bit for cable routing.

As mentioned previously in this thread, the right side hatch passthrough is totally full of cables so I used the left one. With the two headliner pins removed, it can be carefully pulled downward enough to sneak the wire through. Careful not to bend the headliner too much!


The wire has to go through two holes to get from the headliner to this passthrough:


Next, remove the upper hatch trim housing the 3rd brake light. This one has a lot of clips so is quite hard to get off. There are 5 plastic clips plus some snap fittings at each end that clip into the other trim pieces


The unfortunate part about using the left passthrough is that the only hole in the hatch I could find that would fit the cable end was all the way on the right side where the 3rd brake light cable comes out. It wasn't too hard to fish this from one side to the other but I did make sure to wrap the cable in foam so it didn't rattle against the metal.

All that's left is to reinstall the trim and tidy up the wires! I used a Garmin hardwire kit and used double sided tape to mount the little box behind the fabric access panel:


So much nicer than a power cord haphazardly dangling from the rear window!


Where it's currently placed, the rear wiper doesn't quite clear it's full field of view but moving it over meant placing it lower and more in my vision so I'm leaving it for now. I'll reevaluate once I get some snow drives to see how much snow builds up on the rear window but hopefully I can leave it where it is.

 

Great job of illustrating and explaining how you installed your rear cam!

 

BlendMount makes a mirror tap product that is compatible with the SE: https://blendmount.com/power-cord-mtx-series-patented-15-inches-long-dc-plug-2-amp-inline-fuse-with-military-grade-taps/

$50 is a bit excessive though I am considering it.

 

I did this last weekend while installing the FitCamX using one of these:


Power after the rain sensor seems to be at 5v but at the connector before the sensor that it branches from is 12v. Used the left and right (not centre) wires on the connector.

 

Just installed my SG cam in another SE.

Couple hints that would have saved me 40 minutes. Removing the passenger side A Pillar trim is definitely worth it. Post #16 covers the removal. For re-installation, make sure all of the fasteners are clipped onto the trim itself. Then align and seat the bottom of the trim (critical!), really make sure it seats flush before moving forward (should match the driver's side panel where it meets the windshield).

Then allow the fasteners to sit near the bottom of their track and press the whole thing outward into place. Always apply the fasteners to the trim pieces. Also, when removing the lower panel, it wouldn't hurt to stuff something in the crevice in case your fasteners fall deeper into the vehicle. Ask me how I know about that..

For cameras with parking mode fuses 46 and 53 work great. When the camera detects that the switched power in 53 has turned off it starts a shutdown timer.

 

Pics of connector?


Sent from my iPad using Inside EVs

 

No, and too long ago now. I just tested voltage on the pins in the connectors after installing the dashcam and then poked the pins into the a positive and negative.

 

I also used the rain sensor, my pics are here: radar detector power tap options