Constant 12V Feed In The Boot.

[Steve_Goral]

Hi guys,

I'm looking at fitting one of these into the boot. It's a reversing camera that can be viewed by any smart phone. It's meant to draw power from the reverse light, but there's a bit of a delay as the unit starts up so I was hoping there was a constant feed that went into the boot so it was on all the time. Is there onetere or is it a case of running one from the 12V feed in the dash?

[Guest Mister Dabsy]

Make one... The battery is in the boot anyway so decide whether you want a socket or direct feed... Direct feed would be better, use a relay and use the reverse light as a switch to complete the circuit, but if the cam does take time this won't help. Alternative would be ignition activated and would be on all the time (except when the key is removed), there are quite a few options TBH but make sure its a fused connection.

[Steve_Goral]

Yeah, it needs to be on constantly I think, that way it doesn't go off when I'm parallel parking (something I sadly have to do about 4 times a day). It's something I've never done before, is it pretty simple? I'm not scared of a bit of soldering.

[Guest Mister Dabsy]

Take an earth from anywhere then select a wire that becomes live with the key turned to 1st position, obviously use a multimeter or test lamp, start with the fusebox in the rear that will mean less wires... Scotchlock your cams' live to the one you discover... The phono cables need routing to the front for the screen.

[Steve_Goral]

That sounds awesome, the phono cable connects to a wifi sender, so no need to run a cable. I've got an old android phone mounted on the dash so I can run the cam and Torque Pro.

[Guest Mister Dabsy]

Top stuff... Have a go buddy, and let us know... Maybe take some pics as you go along, learn by doing matey :)

[Steve_Goral]

I will do, once I've got everything. What kind of fuse would you recommend?

There's a fuse box in the rear?

[mikesmith2939]

You can put an inline fuse holder in the wire itself, then you can use whatever the unit is rated at.

I put a permanent live feed to a aux socket to keep an led inspection lamp charged all the time, I connected this direct to the battery then put an inline fuse holder and fuse in.

This means I can run any 12v item from the boot without the ignition being on and I can swap the fuses to meet the spec of the item being used.

[Steve_Goral]

I'll have a look in the boot and see if I can find this fuse box and run a wire to it. Sounds pretty simple though.