My Pano II installation

[lankyduke]

My original plan was to mount the camera onto the dash instead of the glass. I have a convenient plastic cap on the top of the Command Center which had a nice flat spot to mount onto. It also meant I could route all the wires down through the dash instead of worrying about doing it through the roof

But I did end up going with a windscreen mount. I didn't like the idea of the camera being glaringly obvious on the dash.
So I stuck the mount (the flush sitting mount, not the suction cup type). I used Clingtape Ultra Bond removable strips . Each strip is meant to hold 2kg so should be strong enough. If it fails I'm going to use some aquarium silicone to secure it.

So tucked up into the roof liner, there's a bit of a cavity that you can easily pull down and get access to.

Down to the A-pillar, and just tucked into the top lip. I originally wanted it to go down through the pillar but I have airbags in there. I found the rubber door seal to be a good channel to route into

With the door open, pop out the dash end-cap and thread down

(just remember to secure the cap back in place before you shut the door :doh bent one of the clips already)

And down into the fuse box

For any Australians reading, I used a Jaycar fuse tap (http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=SF5125) to wire in my Lukas PK-290 battery prevention device. The fuse taps used a much thicker gauge wire compared the Lukas wiring, so I didn't use the included crimp terminal. I stripped the ends of each and soldered them together.

Constant power was tapped into the green 30A trailer fuse, which is handy because I don't tow, and won't muck up any other important electronics.
Accessory I could only use the wiper fuse because of the way the fuse tap is designed. The bonnet release latch plastic shroud is in the way of the number 11/12/13 fuses which aren't in use in my car, unfortunately.

And finally I mounted the GPS receiver for the camera down on the passenger side of the windscreen. Again, tucking any excess cables up into the roof liner.

And the final results. View from my melon

I chose the left hand side of the mirror because that's where the main buttons are and the SD card slot are on the left, so it's the easiest access.

 

[LmBsY]

Thanks for sharing.
I have a very similar setup, except that, since I have no airbag in the a-pillar, I am able to remove it to tuck the wires in there. I'm also able to hide the gps unit inside there as well. Was originally worried that would interfere with the gps signal but, in my case, it is working fine. I used a bit of black tape to cover the text on the front and lens surround, to make the camera, well, a little bit less obvious from outside.
I have it plugged into a Power Magic Pro (Blackvue's battery discharge prevention device, also tapped in to the fuse box), since I originally that wired up for my previous DR400G camera for parking mode captures. Works great no problems.

 

[joshi]

Hi. I'm considering buying the Powerucc Panorama II. Is the Lucas LK-290 the best (easiest) power cable to get for installation?

Why is a fuse tap still needed if the LK-290 has a fuse already attached to the wire? Couldn't the wire go directly to the fuse I'm tapping into, rather than using a fuse tap? (newbie here).

 

[jokiin]

fuse tap is generally about ease of install, in some markets tapping into the harness can be a warranty issue so the fuse tap also avoids this problem, not in issue in Australia though, as long as you're correctly fused is all that matters, keep in mind the fuse is to protect the vehicle, not the device

 

[lankyduke]

Well for me, it wasn't so much about fusing the camera (which can't hurt) but ease of installation, reliability and reversibility. I've seen some installation "guides" where they simply wrap the power box leads around the legs of the fuse and jam it back it (such as the itronics one, see here http://dashcamtalk.com/battery-discharge-prevention/).
Firstly, my fuses fit in pretty tight as is, without having to jam in a cable, too.
Secondly, the car is subject to vibrations, so I don't want a flimsy gauge wire bouncing around and breaking off.
Thirdly, the fuse tap gives a second fuse to the camera, independent of what you're tapping in to. So if either fuse breaks it won't effect the other.
And if I ever want to move the system to another car, I have the fuse tap soldered and shrinkwrapped all nice and neat.

But in answering your first question, the Lukas isn't the "easiest" to install. They're all exactly the same, except maybe the FineVu Perfect Power which looks like it might have one less wire. But the Lukas box seems to be one of the smallest one, so I can fit it in the fuse compartment easily. It's also the only unit (at the time of writing http://dashcamtalk.com/battery-discharge-prevention/) that has the highest cut off voltage of 12.4V and has 4 total power options to choose from. Now, the PII doesn't chew up much power when parked in my experience, so I'm probably not getting close to the cut off point, but it'd be good piece of mind that I'd be able to start the car when it does happen. I have a newer car that has a relatively small battery capacity so I don't want to take my chances with a lower voltage.