Reverse camera installed with pics.

[Abid221]

My 2003 LS430 didn't have a reverse camera so I started researching and found that it's a pretty involved process.

So I thought I'd install a reverse camera mirror which simply fits over the existing rear view mirror. It's a pretty cool piece of kit which records the front of the car as well as the rear.

I chose to go for the Yi Mirror which was a cheap £60 mirror because it's long enough to go over the existing mirror. A 10 inches mirror will not fit. 12 inches and over would fit.

It's pretty easy to install the camera. I simply attached it to the the empty space where the camera was supposed to go.

 

Thereafter I hooked the red wire to the reverse wire. Easy peasy.

Now THE HARD BIT. I couldn't figure out how to route the camera wire (which is supposed to attached to the rear view camera mirror) from the boot lid to inside the car.

Thanks to forum member The-Acre who gave me some valuable guidance.

to get the wire in to the car you'll have to remove  the upper lining out of the boot, which you'll need to do to access the wires anyway, there is a small hole in the metal panel just below the parcel shelf.  This is the only area I found.  It may not seem ideal but it looked fine when it was done.  From the boot you need to locate this hole which is on the left hand side.  You need to poke a small screwdriver or similar up into the hole which with a bit of effort and twisting will pierce the shelf.

once the wire is through then it's pretty easy to route the wire.

I'm not very good at writeups but just quickly put this together using my phone. The pictures might not be in order.

Hope it's helps somebody and good luck.

[The-Acre]

A job well done, all it takes is a little patience!  How about some close up pictures of the mirror/screen in action?

[Herbie]

Good job Adam but there's just a couple of things that maybe could be improved.

First of all, I must say that I may have completely the wrong end of the stick. There's no single photo that shows everything so I may be making wrong assumptions and if I am, then I'm sorry.

The first thing that really attracted my attention is that square hole that you've pushed the cable through seems to have some very rough edges that may well damage the cable.

At the very least you need some grommet strip around those edges (eBay, amazon or electrical suppliers local to you):

I'm assuming that you've mounted the camera somewhere near the licence plate and that the licence plate is on the boot lid?

If that's correct then it looks like it may have been possible to route the cable in the conduit and braided sleeve arrowed below (or if not in the braided sleeve, maybe taped to the outside) which I'm assuming (again) routes through the circular grommet next to the sharp-edged hole that you've used. Again, I'm only guessing/assuming here because there is no photo that shows both ends of the cable run.

And finally:

Please tell me that you haven't just poked that copper wire into the top of the plug?

If the connection isn't tight it will cause a high-resistance joint which could be a fire risk, or at the very least it'll just work loose and drop out within a week. You need to cut along the sleeving (in fact, it doesn't look very long so I'd cut the whole sleeve off to give you a decent length of wire to work with) and then cut the individual wire you want about half-way along its length, put some heatshrink sleeving on, solder the three ends together and then shrink the sleeving to close the joint - or you could use crimped terminals instead of soldering.

Once the joint is done and closed, either get a piece of the ribbed conduit and use that to replace the sleeve that you cut off earlier, or wrap the whole length with harness tape, up to and including where it meets the ribbed conduit.

[The-Acre]

I'm assuming he has done something about the rough edges.  As far as the braided cord goes it's a non starter. I've looked at the possibility of that with both cameras and sensor wires but there is no access through it.

[Abid221]

Hello there Herbie

Many thanks for the advise.  I'll definitely be going back to this project to 'clean up'.

I have to admit that i did it in a rush and probably it is a semi-cowboy job 🤠 but hey it works.  I'll defiantly be sorting out the connection for the red wire as I admittedly did just poke the wire in to the plug. Again cowboy 🤠

I could have routed the cable through the braided sleeve but didn't because I didn't want to mess with the mechanism and screw it up.  So I simply ran the wire along it and zip tied it.  Now, when I close the boot lid there's around 10cm of wire that sticks out but it doesn't get in my way.

the square hole I pushed the wire through isnt really sharp at all. I guessed that the wire won't be touched or move so I didn't put a grommet around it. Though I will be doing it when I 'clean up' the project just to be on the safe side.

Again thanks for the tips.

 

I've attached some pictures of the mirror.  I think it looks pretty neat and the mini sun visor just on top of the mirror hides away the cables.

 

 

[Herbie]

Thanks for that info Phil, it just looked a logical way through but obviously not that easy.

Adam, no worries mate. I'll often do a 'dry run' first to make sure things fit and work then tidy it all up after. It's only that apparent sharp edges and possible high-resistance joints make me nervous 😉

I have to say though, I'm very impressed with the mirror itself, it seems to work really well.