dojoman

iTrader: (5)

Could you post a picture of how you tucked the cable without removing A-pillar? Appreciate it. Wouldn't the cable in the way in case the air bag deploy?

Hermes

How many hours did this install take approximately?

ancpratt

dojoman,

I'll take a few pics for you when I can. I won't pull the cables out but I'll take the photos and kind of point to where I ran the wires down the A-pillar. So you know for now, I ran them down the side closest to the driver's side door, just under the weather stripping but also under the A-pillar piece.

Thanks.

ancpratt

Hermes,

I took my time and I think the whole project took me roughly 3 hours total. That includes upgrading the firmware onto the 32 GB extra micro-SD card I bought and tidying up/hiding the spare cable lengths under the dash too.

Thanks.

Hermes

Thank you. I can upgrade the firm wear when I get the dash cam right? Or do i have to upgrade once it's installed? I have a friend who installs stereos/electronics in cars professionally, so just wondering how long it would take him to install so I know a ballpark figure for installation prices. Thank you.

ancpratt

You can do an upgrade any time you like. Just remove the cam from the holder in the car and the FW upgrade process is an easy one:

- Remove the micro-SD card from the BlackVue cam and insert it into the card reader they provide to you for reading it on your desktop
- Download the latest FW from the BlackVue website for the model of cam you have
- Format the SD card (before you do that, copy out all of the .mp4 files from the Recordings sub-folder first so you can move them back in after the upgrade is done. You won't lose all of your previously recorded files this way)
- Unzip the new FW file
- Copy the BlackVue folder to your SD card
- Put the SD card back into the camera and power it on. The cam will load the new FW automatically from the card

Hermes

Thank you for the instructions. Do you know if it will work with a Mac?

ancpratt

Yes, BlackVue provides FW and viewer software for MACs too, on their downloads page.

Hermes

Thanks again!

ancpratt

dojoman,

Here's are a few pics as promised of my installation down the A-pillar:

- In the first pic, I ran the cables from the BlackVue cam, along the headliner then started them down and behind the A-Pillar liner piece
- In the second pic, the cables are running down the A-Pillar (can't actually see them here)
- In the third, it got a little tight here but I have the cables still running down the A-Pillar piece
- In the fourth, you can see how I have the cables and how they start to head in behind the plastic A-Pillar and side console plate. As Bass Mech did, I also had to pull the plastic strip piece and the plate off then fished the cables through one of the holes behind the plate and down to where the fuse box is located
- The last pic is of the Power Magic Pro box mounted on the underside of my dash

ancpratt

This final pic shows how I have most of the wires cable-tied and hung under the dash, near the fuse box:

dojoman

iTrader: (5)

Thanks for taking the pics and write up. I don't see the air bags in the first pic of A pillar? How did you run the wire from rear view mirror to the fuse box?

ancpratt

No problem.

The air bag components are on the other side of the A-pillar liner and away from the door so running the cables like this make it ideal.

The front (main) cam does all of the recording for both cameras that that's where the SD card is located. From the front cam, you'll only have the power cable running down to the fuse box and I ran it along the headliner and down the A-pillar. There will also be some slack data cable wire that connects the two cams together that I ran along the headliner and down the A-pillar as well. All in the same fashion.

craigsager

Thanks for the tutorial. It's a lot less daunting than the tutorial. I didn't have to take anything apart. I ran the wire along the headliner, down the pillar in the weather stripping, and across the floor stripping to the fuse box. I didn't use any tools, just tugging the wire and pushing it into the crevices along the way. I then connected the red and black wires just like in this tutorial. The whole thing probably took me less than ten minutes. Definitely easier than I thought!

llcw79

Thanks for good DIY instruction. Installed mine working fine.