07, 535d dash cam hardwire?

[Swingy_p]

Afternoon,

As title says, I'm trying to hardwire my dashcam into the glovebox fuse board, now I need to piggyback off one of the 5 amp fuses but I can't seam to find a switched one 🤷🏻‍♂️ 

Has anyone done this and if so which fuse number have you used?

Currently got it piggybacked off fuse number 38 (cd changer) as thought that was a switched one but keep getting a battery drain message come up every now and then so am seeking help from the masses as can't seam to find the answer on Google 😞

Paul

[Greydog]

Morning Paul

When we did this on my brother inlaws 5 touring I took power from the torch charging point in the glove box with its own inline fuse. No battery drain no issues in use moved it 4 times since. Latest car is a 540d x drive Touring we used the power feed to the visor courtesy lamp 

Hope this helps

Dave

[Swingy_p]

1 hour ago, Greydog said:

Morning Paul

When we did this on my brother inlaws 5 touring I took power from the torch charging point in the glove box with its own inline fuse. No battery drain no issues in use moved it 4 times since. Latest car is a 540d x drive Touring we used the power feed to the visor courtesy lamp 

Hope this helps

Dave

Morning Dave,

To be honest, was just thinking about that on my way into work this morning lol 

As was either gonna be that or trying to tap into the cigarette lighter socket at the bottom of the front centre console but that would involve taking a lot more of the trim and other parts off to get to easily so tapping into the back to the glovebox torch would make for a much cleaner fit 👍🏻

So will look into that over the weekend and keep you updated as to how it goes as I keep forgetting to take the cam down so it doesn't keep draining the battery.

Paul 

 

 

 

[Swingy_p]

On 2/24/2022 at 9:06 AM, Greydog said:

Morning Paul

When we did this on my brother inlaws 5 touring I took power from the torch charging point in the glove box with its own inline fuse. No battery drain no issues in use moved it 4 times since. Latest car is a 540d x drive Touring we used the power feed to the visor courtesy lamp 

Hope this helps

Dave

Morning Dave,

Thanks again for your help on this 👍🏻

Had a go over the weekend but couldn't for the life of me get the leverage to pull the charge point housing out from the glovebox to gain access to the wiring behind, so I used the old torch and took all the insides out as they was totally buggered and soldered straight onto the pins that way, works a treat and I've not had to alter any of the car in anyway and the cam now powers down after around 15 minutes after the ignition is off so am well happy with that.

Since doing this I've found a post on another BMW forum about this same opinion, what are the rules on posting links to other forms or here? As it's a great write up on how to adapt an old torch as a switched power outlet or usb socket for the glovebox without damaging the rest of the car

Paul

 

 

[Greydog]

Morning Paul

Well done you great idea plus if you want to you can buy a spare torch so that if you move the car on it's all OEM

As for posting a link to another forum ask Trevor, I can't think of a reason not to if it helps others.

For what it's worth I now think the Vanity Mirror light is a more elegant solution as all wiring is contained above the rear view mirror. Just took me 3 attempts but got it sorted on the 4th !! 🤣

Dave

[X5smw]

Can you remove the stereo? I’m sure the yellow is a permanent feed for data and the red is switched on the ignition. 
tap a cable off the back of that into an inline fuse ? 
I did this on the x5 reversing camera and it works great. The camera only needs to be on when the head unit is working anyways. 
 

[Swingy_p]

On 3/3/2022 at 7:20 AM, Greydog said:

Morning Paul

Well done you great idea plus if you want to you can buy a spare torch so that if you move the car on it's all OEM

As for posting a link to another forum ask Trevor, I can't think of a reason not to if it helps others.

For what it's worth I now think the Vanity Mirror light is a more elegant solution as all wiring is contained above the rear view mirror. Just took me 3 attempts but got it sorted on the 4th !! 🤣

Dave

Morning Dave,

Yeah that's what I thought too as didn't like the idea of tapping into existing wires that I'd have to go in again and remove if I was to ever sell the car on as new owner may not like the idea also, so this way it's much less invasive and can be just pulled out as and when and you would never know it's been done.

The only visible wires are the 2 the come out the headliner (about 2-3") that go to the front and rear cameras so this has kept everything nice and simple and neat 👍🏻

I'm not sure who Trevor is on this forum 🤔 about asking about adding the link to another forum as I don't want to just copy and paste all the info onto here and take credit for someone else's work.

Paul

[Swingy_p]

2 hours ago, X5smw said:

Can you remove the stereo? I’m sure the yellow is a permanent feed for data and the red is switched on the ignition. 
tap a cable off the back of that into an inline fuse ? 
I did this on the x5 reversing camera and it works great. The camera only needs to be on when the head unit is working anyways. 
 

Morning, 

Yes I could of gone down the route of removing the main head unit, but I didn't want to have to go down the route of taking most of the dash apart to do so, so using an old buggered torch for the glovebox was a much easier and better solution.

Paul

[Swingy_p]

I found this info from another forum (if this isn't allowed then please let me know and will delete 👍🏻)

Offers in my eyes a great and well easy solution for powering your dashcam plus stays on for 10-15 minutes after turning the car off so still records after you've parked.

Not too sure what other BMW models have this feature but saves hacking into existing wires and the time comes to sell the car on you can remove and no one is any the wiser that it was ever there.

 

https://forum.bmw5.co.uk/topic/125539-torch-socket/#comment-1349392