Dash Camera Installation

[Rei]

Thanks William. I still really want to get a service manual to see if the built in cameras could be used with a Raspberry Pi or something.

[YogiX]

As it’s just a “maintainer” so do not expect it will charge the battery but more like slowing down the draining.

Fitting is kind of straightforward and just need to be careful when punching the hole of the firewall.

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You will then need to pull out the top part of rubber seal on the rear passenger side door, check carefully and you will find a hole facing top, it is where the wire can go in and reach the tailgate.

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Hope this help!

Great pics William - thanks.

[williamchan]

No problem at all.

I am not sure how other car perform but when it comes to my E, the 12V drops about 0.02V every hour and after quite a few times of jump starts the car in the past one year, I decided to install a solar maintainer.

When the solar maintainer is installed and when sunny day, it can top up the battery for about 0.15V - 0.3V - which is enough to prevent the battery from draining.

This isn’t an ideal solution due to weather dependency but I can’t think of a better way.

I think the bottom line is try not to draw the 12V when it park.

[vulgaris_magistralis]

I've decided to fit the Blackvue dash cam on the driver's side because I have found out that I can power it from the OBDII port (which is in the driver's footwell) using the Blackvue Conecta cable, that also has the battery discharge protection so parking mode can be used and it's cheaper & more convenient than the magic pro.
Here's some photos of how easy it was to do a tidy install. The switch on the OBDII connector switches between normal (switches off after car locked) & parking power mode (stays powered on when car is locked to capture any parking/motion incidents, subject to the low voltage battery remaining above 12v) for the dash cam.
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Many thanks Londiniumperson! I would never attemt to remove the weather stripping if I haven't seen your example. Finally installed mine today on the passenger side (don't like anything in my field of vision) and it was easy as pie. I managed to wire it up under the glovebox and to the usb plugs. Here are some pics if anybody needs some inspiration from.

[MrM83]

You will then need to pull out the top part of rubber seal on the rear passenger side door, check carefully and you will find a hole facing top, it is where the wire can go in and reach the tailgate.

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Hope this help!

I’ve been following William’s pictures and feel the need to issue a word of caution. There is indeed a vertical hole at the top of the rear door through which you could fish a cable but you would need to be really, really careful that it didn’t interfere with the airbag on this side.

I’ve spent a few hours the last few evenings having a poke around with an endoscope. There is a channel that runs the length of the car from the rear grommet at the top of the boot, all the way to the a pillar. There is a smaller hole in the a pillar that I’m hoping/ planning to feed a cable through. There’s also an airbag here but there’s more room to work around it. I’ve got a VIOFO A139 and the connector cable to the rear is super slim and even that is a tight fit for size. This job would be nigh on impossible without a lit endoscope. Hoping to complete the installation soon, will feedback once done.

[Rei]

Thanks MrM83, looking forward to seeing how you get on.

[MrM83]

I managed to complete the install VIOFO A139 front and rear cameras. Front was easy, rear was a pig of a job in the way I did it. I’ve taken a few pics (in hindsight not as many as I should have) and will see if I can upload them here.

The pictures William supplied would, I expect, make for easier installation but I was worried about running wires directly above the rear seat airbag. The hole there, located in the top centre of the door is probably 15mm in diameter so a convenient size to take a standard micro/mini usb plug. Even if you use this hole as access it would be very tricky to avoid touching the airbag during installation as you would have to fish the lead from this point, through a channel in the inside roof edge, to the back of the car. This is assuming you need to run a cable from back to front and you may find a much more convenient power supply in the rear of the car.

I will quickly describe my findings in case it helps anyone else. The rear can in my setup connects to the main front cam unit for power, so I needed to run a lead front to back. I mounted the front unit on the plastic trim behind the rear view mirror for a centred, unobstructed view out of the front.

If you prise the a pillar plastic trim down where it meets the headlining, you should be able to find a small circular hole slightly facing the inside of the car on the end of where the airbag assembly is. This hole is small and a standard usb mini/ C cable will not fit. I had to smooth off the corners of the VIOFO plug cable with a dremel to get it to fit in. This hole leads to a cavity that runs the length of the car, in the roof space on the inside above the headlining. You can access this channel through the rear grommet connecting the car chassis to the tail gate, you just need to prise the grommet out.

Fishing through from here to the hole above would be impossible without a flexible lit endoscope. I taped mine to a plastic rodding kit for rigidity. There are a number of trim clips and screws that reside in this channel which can foul on string and leads so a rigid rodding line is essential. The endoscope kit I bought comes with a little hook attachment that you can see on the camera, which again was invaluable. This is the really hard bit; rodding to the hole and then hooking the lead back. You need a loop attached to the plug head to hook onto. After lots of trial and error I found some nylon garden twine the best. It’s strong and squashes flat. The latter is essential as the hole is so tight anything else won’t fit!

I cut a small length of twine, made a few knotted loops in it and carefully tied it to the lead by the plug. Then fed the twine in, followed by the plug. At this point there was much cursing, readjusting of the lead, to try and get the loop hooked on to the endoscope. Once done, the lead needs to be carefully fed though the hole as it is at a bit of an angle, meaning you can’t just yank the rod to pull it through. You will need to pull through about 3 ft of cable to connect the rear camera. There is lots of space to store excess cable at the back.

With the tailgate up you can carefully prise the plastic trim off the top by starting at one edge. You will need to prise 2 clip worths of trim off to get access to a centre void which is on the inside of where the rear camera is. Having fished the cable the length of the car, fishing through the rubber grommet/ tubing and then into the centre void is a doddle.

The final bit was fishing the other end of the lead through into the cabin at the top of the a pillar, carefully avoiding the airbag there. This was not difficult. The wire can be run tucked into the headlining on the passenger side of the car (RHD) and towards the centre console.

I would like to be able to hide the rear wire coming to the front and also the main camera wire going off on the other side towards the fuse box in the top console but I need to spend some time figuring out how to do so.

Sorry for the long ramble. In short, the A139 kit can be installed but it’s a bastard and will require time, patience, a rodding kit and a long flexible endoscope.

[MrM83]

I should add much easier is do drop a cable down from the rear grommet opening, opposed to along the roofline. I wasn’t able to easily remove the rear side plastic boot trim and couldn’t feel where the rods lead to so didn’t spend much time pursuing this option.

[Rei]

Thanks for the detailed explanation! I hope you can get some pics uploaded. Is there any switched power at the back? I think it's all lights and the window heater. Maybe the rear view camera that is already there? It would be interesting to have a look at the wiring loom for it anyway because there must be a video signal there somewhere.

[MrM83]

Completed the install today. I’ve managed to feed the wires in the hole behind the rear view mirror and with the dashcam mounted on the upper plastic trim so it’s all very neat. Still bloody hard work though. Onto the next project!