reverse camera wiring
 

when wiring up relay when conecting a reverse camera, which of the 2 following instructions are right:

http://www.kb97.co.uk/satnav/reverse.htm (near the bottom of the page)

or

or are they both right?

one last thing, are they both using the same relay? is the one on that link a 5pin relay?

this is probably a dumb question? On the the camera there are 2 plugs which are the power and signal and both have 1 wire going into it.

So where to you get the power live and earth from if there is only 1 wire going in to the power plug?

same with the av signal plug, how do you get the video + and earth from?

there are at least 6 combos that you could use.

first of all, the video module pin 17 is ground (earth) -- connecting it to ground causes the nav system to display the camera input.

the idea behind the connection pictured above causes two important things:

1) (+) from the reverse light energizes the camera (so that the camera turns on when the reverse light is energized) and (2) triggers the relay to ground out pin 17.


another option is to connect the camera (+) to a reverse light and camera (-) to ground. connect a wire from the reverse wire to pin 85, and ground to pin 86 and 30. connect pin 87 to the trigger (pin 17).

there are multiple ways to do it depending on what you want to accomplish.

another thing is to use two relays, or a diode and one relay, so that you can manually activate the camera as well with a switch (i have that in my X5); very james bondish so that i can see what is behind me whether or not i'm in reverse.

thanks, so the pic shown above will work?

Any answers to my dumb question? :dunno:

yes, it will.

it uses a standard 12v automotive relay. the 87a (the 5th pin) sometimes comes on the relay but in this case is not needed.

usually the camera has 4 wires. two wires are the camera (+) and (-) power wires, and the other two are usually attached to an RCA cable that goes to the video input.

can you post a photo of the camera and its ends?

by the way, where is says REVERSE CAMERA POSITIVE that is the (+12v) lead to the camera. Where it says VIDEO CAMERA GROUND, that is the camera's (-12v or earth lead) to a ground (in this case, they recommend the ground wire to the reverse light).

i know where the possitive lead on the camera is but not sure where the video camera ground is?

the yellow connector goes to the video input RCA plug of the video module.

the black plug is the power wire.

i would recommend cutting the end off once once you figure out which of the two wires in that connector are positive and negative and connect each.

basically, you must either cut the black plug off or find a male plug to mate it with and connect that to (+) and (-) as described in the relay diagram above.

thanks, so the + goes to pin 86 and - to pin 85.

so what pin of the relay does the yellow (av signal) conect to?

the power looks like 1 wire not 2? when i cut it will there be 2 seperate wires and how do i find out which is the pos and neg on the black plug?

the yellow does not connect to the relay.

the yellow should connect to the harness for the OEM tv tuner to the corresponding RCA plug labelled 'Camera' or 'Reverse Camera' In

do you have the BMW OEM TV tuner and Navgiation Display?

yes, there will be two wires.

one is usually labelled.

if you hook them up wrong you could destroy the camera.

look at the side of the wire and see if it is marked with ------------ or with +++++++++++

if its a solid white line that usually means (+) [USUALLY]

is there definelty an rca conector for the camera on the tv module? what about if you dont have a tv module?

thanks drex, you have been very helpful.

Prob last question, when in reverse will pdc still work? will i still hear the sounds?

PDC is independent of the reverse camera, so you will continue to hear what you currently hear.

where about is the rca conector for the camera located on the tv module? i thought there were just the white and blue conector on the module?

cant find any suitable link here aswell.
http://www.kb97.co.uk/satnav/pdf/BMW-TV-Tuner.gif

you need a special cable or you need to populate the pins on the pinout with an RCA plug.

you mean create an av lead?? if i conect it this way then i wont have another av conection.

isnt it better to wire it up like in the link?
http://www.kb97.co.uk/satnav/reverse.htm

That way i dont need to make up a lead i can conect like a dvd player up aswell.

more stuff

from this site:

http://www.xoutpost.com/38007-post4.html

the cable

http://www.tvonnav.com/images/mini-cable%20harness.JPG


you should be using a cable like the above that connects to your TV tuner. it should either have the above RCAs or add pins to your existing cables and add the RCAs.

yes, you can show the video with the TV Module, but it requires another type of module...

you cannot show the video without something.

you can see in the article you quote above the person has an OEM TV module installed.

what do you mean by "add pins"?

the car has got a tv tuner. so i wont need that cable then?

i will make a av lead by following these instructions,

You then need to get two phono plugs from your local electrical retailer, to which you solder the four leads above.

Once you have done that you simply plug in the four cables to the white socket...

Pin 6 : AV Video + (The centre pin of one phono)
Pin 15: AV Video Gnd (The outer ring of the same phono above)

Pin 4: AV Audio + (Centre pin of second phono plug)
Pin 5: AV Audio Gnd (Out pin of second phono plug)

If i wire it up like in the diagram then i cant wire up the dvd player because the reverse camera will use the AV conection instead.

The reversing camera doesnt use the DVD connections, it has it`s own input. I have DVD`s installed and still have the spare connectors for reversing camera, I just dont have the camera that`s all. It`s all there incase I do though.

thanks mate, but you have the aux input lead. Doesnt that give you an extra input?

On a standard tv tuner without buying a lead can you wire a dvd player and camera?

also on that link above it only shows how he wired the power up, it say how he conected it to the nav screen.

Yes I do have the aux lead. I was assuming that the tuner had a dedicated line for the reversing camer, almost an AV2 connection. If not, does that mean the AV input and the camer input on my lead are sharing the same line?

im not sure mate. Thats were im confused.

I didnt think there was a rca conector on the tv tuner. I thought its got just the white and blue conector.

This needs clearing up.

You are correct, there are no RCA connectors on the TV tuner. You need to make the connections in the wiring loom, as Drex indicated above.

you NEED to read this: http://www.xoutpost.com/navigation-sy...?highlight=pin


there are two video inputs: camera and AV

no, the reverse camera and video system DO NOT share the same lead.

Pins 13 and 14 are the reverse camera

pins 6 and 15 are the VIDEO IN (DVD, etc)

pins 4 and 5 are the MONO leads for the audio in for the VIDEO lead.

you CANNOT get stereo IN unless you use the AUX IN adapter and a special box like the TVonNav unit that allows you to select the AUDIO mode input (AUX/CD/CAS/VIDEO) when the TV module is in video mode.


the pins you list above are for the video source and NOT the reverse camera.


when you select channel AV (and not a TV channel), you get the VIDEO IN signal.

no matter what you are doing (TV/VIDEO/RADIO/NAV), if you activate reverse, the entire picture is replaced by the CAMERA input signal (overwriting ANYTHING on the Nav screen).

you need to hook the reverse camera to the reverse CAMERA leads.

the reverse camera also does not have an audio lead out nor an audio INPUT to the OEM TV tuner as there is no reason for audio on reverse camera function..

so i can get mono sound for the dvd player but if i want stereo sound i need the lead?

drex, the link you gave above does not show him to pin 13 or 14 so how is he sending the signal to the screen?

on this link it does, http://www.kb97.co.uk/satnav/reverse.htm. also on the relay pic on the first page pin 13 or 14 is not mentioned.

1) yes - the LEAD and a module that allows you to select the input source

2) pin 13 and 14 connect to the yellow lead. the relay connects to the black lead wires to power the camera. they are not interrelated.

those instructions are not complete nor as detailed as they should be.

if you was wiring it which way would you do it?

as shown in your link or http://www.kb97.co.uk/satnav/reverse.htm?

is there any disadvantage when taking the boot lock out?

It seems to me that it's time to stop contemplating and start doing :D

you have an X5 with a boot lock????

i'd wire it the way you feel it should work. i wired mine a little differently... i have a button that i can push that turns on the rear view camera manually; otherwise, it turns itself on whenever the car is placed in reverse...

sounds interesting, how did you wire yours up?

if you pull both plugs off the camera (yellow and black plugs) will i see 2 wires going into each plug?

last question. if you retrofit the 16:9 screen but leave in the 4:3 module, will the camera picture be 4:3 or 16:9?

yes, each one will have two wires.

mine was wired up as follows:

hit the reverse switch, the power from the reverse light trips a relay which sends a ground to the input trigger for the camera, and completes the ground to the camera which energizes the circuit and displays a picture.

a switch provides a ground signal just distal to the relay


reverse light positive -> relay 85

ground (earth) to relay 30 and 86

connect the earth leads to 87 from the earth (ground lead) from the camera and the camera trigger on the BMW cable


the you can add a switch between ground and the connections of pin 87; whenever you ground the switch, the camera turns on and the video module switches to this as the input.