Rearview Camera for E53 with OEM Navigation

[wpoll]

Originally Posted by Maruzo

Hi Wpoll,

Camera has a video cable and a power cable. The video cable has an additional wire besides the video feed. The power cable has + and - wire.

The way I wired the first camera was this:

video cable connects between the camera's video out to the cam video in on the av harness I purchased (see picture I posted earlier)

For the power cable, the positive wire is connected to the 12v wires from both sides of the backup light, as well as to the 12v on the switch box. The negative is connected to the negative from the switch box.

That's pretty much it. The camera works but due to a defect on the lens (mostly my doing), the image aren't sharp. So I purchased another thinking the wiring should be the same.

Anyway, that's where I'm at. I'll report back once I re-wire everything one more time to make sure I didn't miss anything.

The polarity of the wires on the reversing lights matters...

If you have connected to the left reversing light, then the red wire from the camera AND the red wire from the decoder need to connect to the White/Yellow wire on the reversing lamp. The black wire from the camera AND the black wire from the decoder need to connect to the Brown wire on the reversing lamp.

If you have connected to the right reversing light, then the red wire from the camera AND the red wire from the decoder need to connect to the Blue/Yellow wire on the reversing lamp. The black wire from the camera AND the black wire from the decoder need to connect tot the Brown wire on the reversing lamp.

Should work fine with a connection the either reversing lamp - just pick one. Or you could power the camera off one lamp and the decoder off the other, just to split the electrical load up.

[Crowz]

Flickering and flashing can be caused by two things that come to mind.

One the Hz is wrong. American and European video signals are not the same.

Second is from something I remember reading on the forums a long time ago. It had to do with powering the camera off the rear lights. It was either the source itself or the computer doing the bulb check it does that was causing the video signal to go nuts. IF that's the problem you can diagnose it by providing a clean 12v power source like connecting to the battery itself long enough to see if the problem goes away.

[Maruzo]

Originally Posted by wpoll

The polarity of the wires on the reversing lights matters...

If you have connected to the left reversing light, then the red wire from the camera AND the red wire from the decoder need to connect to the White/Yellow wire on the reversing lamp. The black wire from the camera AND the black wire from the decoder need to connect to the Brown wire on the reversing lamp.

If you have connected to the right reversing light, then the red wire from the camera AND the red wire from the decoder need to connect to the Blue/Yellow wire on the reversing lamp. The black wire from the camera AND the black wire from the decoder need to connect tot the Brown wire on the reversing lamp.

Should work fine with a connection the either reversing lamp - just pick one. Or you could power the camera off one lamp and the decoder off the other, just to split the electrical load up.

Hi wpoll,

Thank you for your instructions. I finally got it wired correctly. Or correctly in my case.

I have to wire both left and right backup light + to the 12v wire from the camera and also from the switch box.

What I did wrong was connecting the - wire from the switch box directly to the - wire from the camera power cable.

I sourced a fresh - from an exposed bolt on the bottom of the trunk and wired it to the - from the switch box and - from the power cable.

Once I did this the image came on instantly.

The only thing now is I do not have the parking lines. Do I need to cut the looped white wire built in on the camera cable?

[Maruzo]

Originally Posted by Crowz

Flickering and flashing can be caused by two things that come to mind.

One the Hz is wrong. American and European video signals are not the same.

Second is from something I remember reading on the forums a long time ago. It had to do with powering the camera off the rear lights. It was either the source itself or the computer doing the bulb check it does that was causing the video signal to go nuts. IF that's the problem you can diagnose it by providing a clean 12v power source like connecting to the battery itself long enough to see if the problem goes away.

Hi Crowz,

My issue is most likely of a different source. I did not wire a negative source to the negative on the switch box and the negative on the camera's power cable.

Strang thing was, I wired it this way on my first camera, and the image came on just fine!

[wpoll]

Originally Posted by Maruzo

...

The only thing now is I do not have the parking lines. Do I need to cut the looped white wire built in on the camera cable?

Not sure on your camera - cut it and see! You can always twist it back together if it does something else.

Glad it's going, btw...

[Maruzo]

Originally Posted by wpoll

Not sure on your camera - cut it and see! You can always twist it back together if it does something else.

Glad it's going, btw...

Thank you for your tip on the wires. Wpoll!

I've been driving the X5 today and enjoying the clear backup image. Not as sharp as my wife's R350 camera, but good enough to make out the obstacles!

I'll probably cut the loop wire next week and see what that does.

On a side note, I took out the bulb inside the right license plate light holder and soldered the + and - of the camera's led light to the + and - of the bulb holder.

This allows the camera's led to light up when the plate light is turned on. But I am now getting a license plate light error.

Any idea what could have caused this error?

[wpoll]

Originally Posted by Maruzo

... On a side note, I took out the bulb inside the right license plate light holder and soldered the + and - of the camera's led light to the + and - of the bulb holder.

This allows the camera's led to light up when the plate light is turned on. But I am now getting a license plate light error.

Any idea what could have caused this error?

The extra electrical load of the camera LED power circuit is probably causing the lamp monitoring to trigger and error. There's a couple of ways to address this; either code out the lamp monitoring or use an electronic circuit (a high impedance voltage detector driving an electronic switch or relay to power the camera) to isolate the load.

Probably easier to code out the lamp monitoring....

[amancuso]

How much did the all the components end up costing you?

[Maruzo]

Originally Posted by wpoll

The extra electrical load of the camera LED power circuit is probably causing the lamp monitoring to trigger and error. There's a couple of ways to address this; either code out the lamp monitoring or use an electronic circuit (a high impedance voltage detector driving an electronic switch or relay to power the camera) to isolate the load.

Probably easier to code out the lamp monitoring....

How do you code out the lamp monitoring? I have the BMW 1.4 scanner tool from amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Scan-Diagnost...8-6&ref=sr_1_6

Works fine with the software that came with it. But my windows xp notebook crashed and i lost the software.

Any recommendations on a good software to run the coding?

[Overboost]

Originally Posted by Maruzo

How do you code out the lamp monitoring? I have the BMW 1.4 scanner tool from amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Scan-Diagnost...8-6&ref=sr_1_6

Works fine with the software that came with it. But my windows xp notebook crashed and i lost the software.

Any recommendations on a good software to run the coding?

BMW Scanner 1.4 will work on any Windows OS from XP up. Just get the proper drivers for Win 7 and up. As far as the cold/hot monitoring, here is a screen shot of the check boxes to clear.