What is a good fuse to tap to wire a dash camera? I initially painstakingly tested fuses to find a switched socket that would turn off with the car, and I thought that the 7.5A SHADE RR fuse was perfect for this, since it didn't sound very important (I don't have a shade?) and seemed to be switched. When I finally got around to starting to wire it, it seems that I was wrong and this is not a switched fuse and instead is always on.

From reading other threads, I believe people were wiring to Ignition, but I don't want to wire it into anything important since I'm using a fuse tap which protrudes, and in the event that I kick it and break the tap, I don't want to accidentally break something important. Any ideas on what's a good, safe fuse to choose?

 

What dash camera are you using? If you have blackvue model, it will take a 12V in. While most others have 5V in. The reason I ask is that I intentionally got the blackvue model (DR590W-1CH) and hardwired it to the mirror directly. Its been working fine for a week now. If you google for hardwire radar detector on 3IS forums, you will a ton of these threads and pictures. Much simpler than routing it to fusebox.

 

oh! and no need to change the mirror fuse to higher amp either as their current draw is very tiny.

 

I have an .

Wiring to the rearview mirror sounds like it'd be so much easier, but I was scared away by how much work seemed to be involved in this post. I've also seen MirrorTap guides for 2016/17 but I understand these mirror setups are different than my car, which is a 2015. So I can't tell how much work is involved in doing it to the mirror for my car with a mirrortap.

 

You dont need to go the route from that post at all. He has complicated it for no good reason.

Just get a 12v to 5V converter like this: Also get this pin from frys: https://www.frys.com/product/2875784.

5 mins to connect the thing to the mirror and you are done.

If there is no frys available close to your house, order the same pin from frys through google express. Thats what I had to do.

 

I think this might be a stupid question, but what would I be using the crimp pins for? I can't really tell what they are and I can't zoom in on the image. Would I basically just be crimping 2 of those pins, 1 to each of the converter wires, and jamming them into the purple and blue wires on the mirror? No need for any other hardware beyond the two things you just linked?

Related, I already bought this to hardwire to the fusebox. I could use this instead of what you linked, right? It notes: regulator power spec.: 12V~24V input, 5V 1200mA output

Thanks for the insight!

 

You are right. They are 0.1" crimp pins. Anything bigger and you will not be able to push them through the purple and blue wires in the mirror connector. You can use the converter you already bought to connect to the camera. I just posted that as an example converter which is fairly small and can be somewhat hidden near the mirror. Good luck.