jaywuzhere

No problem DMathews! I check the forum regularly and am always interested how helpful everyone is. Just recently, I threw away a rear seat guide clip by accident and couldn't locate the part. The friendly people on this forum helped me out.

I'm currently thinking about adding usb charging ports to the center plastic of the rear seats so that my rear passengers can stop bothering me. I may also try adding a wireless Qi charger to it as well. I'll make a write up of it all if I decide to do it.

DMathews

Jay-

Although my dash cam went in fine, I have a "new problem". My sunroof doesn't open!!!! OMG.... I never would have thought that could happen. So, I guess I should start with the obvious and make sure a fuse didn't get blown in the process of checking wires on the left and right wire harness. I'm not sure if any of those wires have anything to do with the sunroof. - - Since I only spliced into two wires, that should not have caused the problem. Btw, there was a wire harness above the upper console that I believe said sunroof drive or something like that. I didn't probe any of those wires and that harness is completely plugged in. - - Let me know if you have any good ideas. Thanks!

Dave

jaywuzhere

Quick question for you. DId you unplug the car battery at any time during the install? I ask this because I heard that the sunroof and/or door windows may have an issue if the battery is unplugged or replaced and just need to be reset through some procedure (which I dont know how to do)

DMathews

Hey, that was a fast reply! Thanks!!!

No, I did not unplug the battery. I was just checking to find out where my fuse box is located...lol... I saw some diagram that said Fuse #27, but I think I need to double check that fuse location. I'm kind of hoping it's a blown fuse, but I realize that's not terribly likely...

jaywuzhere

I hope you're right and its just a simple fuse that needs to be replaced.

DMathews

I was just checking things out a bit...the plot thickens! My overhead/dome/interior lights are out too!!! - - So, I'm sure all this points to something obvious; I'm just not sure what that "obvious thing" is yet!...lol. I'll do some research on this forum to see if anyone else had a similar problem.

Thanks for you help Jay; I'll keep you posted.

ps. edit: I'm thinking I might have accidentally broke one of the wires I tried tapping into with the Posi-taps. I heard that can happen. - - And since one was an ignition-positive, I'm thinking maybe it was one of the ground wires since I wouldn't think an Ignition-Positive wire would affect all this stuff...not sure...but that's all I can think of at this point. I'm thinking maybe I'll do some continuity checks on the wires I touched tomorrow... wish me good luck!

jaywuzhere

You may be right. I would try to remove posi-taps and verify that the original wires you tapped into are still electrically connected and not severed. My guess is that one of these wires someone how became severed during the installation and just need to be reconnected again.

As far as the ignition positive wire, it is quite important to supply the components the 12V needed to power on the interior lights/sunroof/etc. I would first check the ignition wire you selected in the harness, then check the other wire you used for ground to make sure both wires are still providing 12V using the meter.

DMathews

Thanks for the tips Jay! I'll do just as you said. I'm sure things will be fine tomorrow. I'll report back.... Thanks again!

DMathews

Jay-

Everything is fine now!!! - - I'm not sure, but I may have left the left wire harness unplugged one time when I was going back and forth with the console which caused the lights not to work... I know, pretty dumb! - - I moved the ground wire around very slightly on the right side and that got the sunroof to work...lol... I double-checked the connection and it seems good now.

I'm curious, did you put anything on your 12-5 volt converter to keep it from moving around up in the console? - - I was going to add a piece of Velcro to the back of it and affix it to the top of the console.

edit: Now having had a chance to check my video playback with the dash cam, I'm not terribly pleased with the quality. Although the dash cam is supposed to have great clarity/video I was not able to read a license plate right in front of me...??? What type of dash cam are you using... I assume you are able to read license plates... does yours have the "parking mode"? I'm thinking about making a switch in products.

jaywuzhere

Glad to hear it turned out to be a simple fix!

Yes, I mounted the 12-5v converter first in a large shrink tube. Then added double sided foam tape to mount it to the top of the body frame. Lastly I add some ugly electrical tape across the top and bottom of the shrink tubed 12-5v converter because I dont know how well the double sided tape will hold up and I have trust issues. hahaha

lexual_rc

This is the 'cleanest' approach in my opinion and how I chose to wire my Vantrue dual dash cam as well. Some benefits listed out below:

1. 0 Wires are visible
2. Installation is quick and easy
3. Use of a Tap-a-Fuse provides the least invasive approach to modifying the factory electrical system
4. Minimize risk of breaking or damaging other circuits which control other car functionality
5. Provides simple solution on choice of the source of constant power or ignition enabled power, to control features such as 'Park Mode'

I'm not writing this to knock the thread started or his custom mod. I just think people who aren't experienced with working with electrical systems should avoid DIY's like this. A lot of them should just know about the Tap-A-fuse approach for electronics like a dashcam or radar detector if they aren't informed.

DMathews

The main reason I chose to use the upper-console tap method mentioned by Jay is that you only run a wire about 10 inches from the wire harness, out the headliner to the camera.

Doesn't the method you suggest require lots of routing of the wire, 8 feet or more just for the front camera? I personally didn't feel comfortable routing the cable down near the A-pillar where there is an air-bag. Maybe my fear of doing so is just because I haven't done it before. - - How difficult is it to route the wire down to the fuse box from the front windshield? - - Similarly, how difficult is it to route the wire from the fuse box back to the back of the car?

lexual_rc

I cannot speak for how a wire is routed for a rear dashcam but I would likely use a similar approach in such a situation once I understood the cars electrical layout more closely. For the front mounted camera near the mirror like yours, I can tell you that it does not take 8 feet of wire to reach the fuse box just below the steering wheel which is the ideal location and recommendation from product manufacturer of most of these cameras to begin with. If the wire which came with the camera is too short, I would suggest investing in the extension which is probably already specifically made available for the different dashcam models like I saw with my Vantrue.

With regard to the installation from the front of the car, there is only 1 wire which needs to be run. If you have experience with removing the A-pillar cover you may notice that there are already several wires routed very neatly behind the curtain airbag which is exactly where the additional camera wire would be routed to prevent any safety issues which you made a good point on. There are panels to the side of the front dash which pop off and will allow you to easily see/follow the wire as it drops down into its final location where you will connect it to the fuse box using a tap a fuse.

All that said, an experienced professional may take less than 30 minutes to complete this installation while a novice may take closer to 1+ hours. As long as you are experienced in working with electrical systems I am not opposing the approach you chose but rather trying to share knowledge about the other options along with reasoning based on the points I shared earlier. In my experience I have done more damage than not messing around with electrical systems in older cars I've owned by attempting mods similar to this without learning enough or by finding a DIY on a forum. Electrical systems in cars are very intricate and can be a pain to fix and I would hate to hear about someone damaging theirs in a 50K car. Using a wire tap to take power from another source isn't the worst thing in the world, but for a front dash cam or radar detector, I personally cant justify not using the most common and proven approach I shared previously given all the benefits.

DMathews

Thanks for your additional thoughts on this subject. In my car, I have about two feet from the center mirror to the left pillar. Probably another two feet down to the dash, and then another two feet or so down to the fusebox, so that's about 6 ft. I know the cable that comes with dash cams is very long.

As I look at my speaker in the left corner of my dash and the left pillar that says SRS curtain airbag I have no clue how I would go about taking those items off to route the wire. I'm sure I could research doing so on YouTube.

On the other hand, the small overhead console that has the dome lights takes about 15 seconds to takeoff with no tools. From the console to the camera would be about 10 inches at the most. The only difficult part about Jay's method is using a multimeter to find the ground and the positive ignition wire. As long as one has a multimeter, that's not hard to do.

Luckily, there are several approaches one can take to install a dash cam! And thankfully there are knowledgeable people like you and Jay who are willing to share the "how to's"!