Help with Hard-Wiring Parking Camera and Monitor

[SuperCNJ]

Hi Guys,

I hope this is in the right section!

I've just bought one of those rear view mirrors that has a LCD monitor built in and a reversing camera for my wife's Jazz (GD Sport) and I need a bit of help installing it.

I have a little basic knowledge of car electrics and have done some soldering/wiring before so I should be able to follow some simple pointers...

It comes with a bag of cables which are easy enough to connect together but the instructions are awful, the diagram is not complete and the description can't be more vague.

At the mirror/monitor end, there is a bear loose wire and the same at the rear parking camera end of the cable. Because modern car electrics are grounded via the chassis, I presumed these were for grounding the negative for the monitor and the camera so they can get a feed of power? However, there is also a cigarette lighter plug too, so I'm confused as to why there is a need to ground anything? And if I have to ground it, there doesn't seem to be a wire for the live (positive feed)? I'll get some photos up later.

How have you guys grounded anything to the chassis, did you drill holes? I have to say, I'm not that keen on drilling holes if I can avoid it. Is there something that I can' just use to "stick" or "solder" the wire down onto the metal chassis rather than having to drill and bolt it down?

Also I'm trying to figure out the best route to channel the cable for the rear camera through the car as I'd like to mount the camera on the underside of the roof spoiler without having to drill holes in the rear hatch door. I can't see anywhere to feed the cable into the hatch door other than via the number plate area, so I may have to mount the camera there instead. I've no idea how to remove some of the interior trim so I can pull the cable through. There is a little rubber tube at the hinge of the hatch door, which I think must be for the lights and washer hose. Anyone know if I can use this to feed my camera cable through? And if I need to ground the camera, can I ground it on the hatch door itself?

Hardwiring... I read that you can get some piggyback fuse connectors that gives you an easy way of hardwiring from the fuse box... so I went ahead and bought one (only £3). I found the fuse box under the steering wheel but can't there doesn't seem to be a route down from the where the windscreen pillar meets the dash. I pulled the windscreen pillar trim off but can't get the piece of trim beneath it off so see. Does this just pull off too?

Is there another easy way to hardwire? Essentially I just need to feed power to the monitor and also to the camera at the back.

Many thanks guys... as said, I'll try and get some photos up ASAP!

[SuperCNJ]

Here's a photo of the kit I have...

[guest3906]

i think that the plug that goes into the cigarette lighter socket is to power up the monitor. the camera will take its positive supply from the reverse light positive(white wire in the pic , you need to read the instruction booklet that came with the kit) ,so that the camera is only operational when in reverse gear. the yellow connector is the camera signal wire which goes to the monitor. ground can be taken from a ring type lug which must be fastened to an existing bolt closest to where the camera is fitted. to feed the wire through the rear hatch lid is a pita , u need to use the existing trunking that honda uses to run its wire for the rear wiper ,lights etc. the one with the washer tube cannot be used cos its only a pipe going through for the washer spray.

[SuperCNJ]

i think that the plug that goes into the cigarette lighter socket is to power up the monitor. the camera will take its positive supply from the reverse light positive(white wire in the pic , you need to read the instruction booklet that came with the kit) ,so that the camera is only operational when in reverse gear. the yellow connector is the camera signal wire which goes to the monitor. ground can be taken from a ring type lug which must be fastened to an existing bolt closest to where the camera is fitted. to feed the wire through the rear hatch lid is a pita , u need to use the existing trunking that honda uses to run its wire for the rear wiper ,lights etc. the one with the washer tube cannot be used cos its only a pipe going through for the washer spray.

That’s really helpful. Thanks! 

But I’m still a bit confused about a few things. The instructions are very very vague (probably ok for a car lekky tho).

You may not be able to see, but in the pic there are two cameras. One attached to the mirror, and one attached to the end of the white wire. I agree that the white wire is to connect to the reverse light positive supply but there’s no ground/negative for the camera? Do you think it gets its ground through the monitor, i.e. the cig lighter plug?

The yellow connector looks like the usual AV connector plug, I’ve ignored this as I’m assuming it’s there as an option to plug in other AV devices? It doesn’t come with any other cables so I presume the rear camera signal is fed to the monitor through the black cable its attached to.

Finally, any idea what the green wire is for? If the monitor gets a positive and negative feed via the cig lighter, what’s the green wire for?

[SuperCNJ]

Just updating on this thread for the benefit of anyone else looking to do this later.

I've managed to install it all now and to be honest it was pretty straightforward.

All the grey plastic panels in my wife's GD comes off simply by pulling gently so I didn't really have much trouble pulling the cables though the dash. There is a hole that allowed me to feed the cable down the windscreen pillar to the fusebox where I hardwired using a "fuse piggyback cable". Conveniently there are two bolts that hold the fuse box to the chassis which I used for the ground.

I tested the empty fuse bays for one that came on when you turn the key to power using a multimeter.

I cut and soldered the cables to the piggyback connector and a ring connector and tucked all the loose cables back in behind the fusebox.

I fed the cables to the rear camera along the edge of the roof trim to the rear hatch (just tucks into the gap) and removed the side panel above the boot to pull the cable through the chassis. There is a hole that goes to the rubber tubing between the hatch door and the car, I used a metal coat hanger the feed the cable through.

The boot lid trim is pretty easy to remove, unclip the handle, pull out a couple of plastic fastenings at the bottom and gently pull the trim away from the pop fasteners to gain access to the back. Drilled a small hole for the camera cable, treated it with some lacquer to prevent corrosion and fastened it all to the underside of the boot handle. Extended the reverse light activation cable and clipped it to the positive reverse light cable using one of those "fast self-cutting splice connectors". I didn't need to use the green cable in the end, I think it was just the "live" feed for any AV input device.

A good days work but everything is working as it should, rear camera turns on when reverse is engaged and continuous recording from the front camera in 720p!

Next projects...

USB port hard wiring and bodywork repair...

And might fit one to my sister's GE later.