So everything's finally in place and seems to be behaving extremely well.
First of all I'd like to send a massive thank you to
@niko who arranged an excellent bundle and got it to me in no time at all. And to
@jokiin and the rest of the SG team for their endless devotion and hard work on these products - it really shows in the products and their omnipresent nature on these forums.
I've not had a chance to get out for a good drive with this installed yet, my mechanic has had the car for a couple of days with a list of jobs to do.
Installation was no harder than any of the previous cams I've had.
I don't have a huge amount of pictures as I prefer to keep working until I'm finished, especially if there's a hurdle to overcome.
The Camera - SG9663DC Pro
The Car - '08 Kia Cee'd 5dr Hatchback
Tools - Multimeter, trim tools, cable ties, cutters, swearing, a good cup of tea (x4 minimum)
It requires one 12v live and one 12v switched input for the HW kit which are mere inches away in the same fuse box. And there's a nicely placed 10mm bolt that works perfectly for the ground.
The USB cable was then fed out from the bottom of the fuse panel in to the door weather seal and up to the top of the A pillar. It's then poked in the top of the A pillar trim (which needs to be changed as you'll see in a bit) and along the front of the roof lining to the camera. Pretty much invisible install, I can easily access the HW kit to adjust the cut off. Both of the fuses used are for 12v sockets in the dash, the constant live one (upper connection) was a bit of a surprise as both sockets shut off with the ignition.
Next up was the rear cam, getting this in place means you know how much cable you need and spare you have to play with or hide away. For my car, this is the single most difficult bit to do.
Between the tailgate and the roof of the car are two rubber tubes, one hiding the wiring loom and the other the rear washer hose. They require just the right amount of swearing and encouragement to get off and reinstall properly.
These are sealed up for weatherproofing which means they're also the perfect way to keep you rear cam cable nice and safe. The problem comes in getting the connector through the damn things. Being careful not to pull at things too hard and patience are the only way to go here. Mine goes through with the washer hose as it pops out neatly the other end. Be extra careful with this one as you don't want to puncture it or detach it anywhere.
Other than that it's just a case of pulling away the boot seal, unclipping the rear of the head lining, and coiling up the excess cable and storing it in the lining.
The cable is then routed along the gap between the rear trim panels and head lining, along the top of the door weather seals and through to the front with enough excess for playing around with positioning.
The last piece of the puzzle is the GPS receiver. This tiny little box just need to be out the way enough and the excess cable hidden away. My thought was to do my usual of poking the cable away and then forget about it. But being that I'll be needing to get the A pillar trim off for and DAB install soon that I might as well have a look behind while I've got the tools out. One hidden screw and some clips and it pops right off. This gave gave me a bit of a shock. The airbag behind it is right where I've been poking cables in at the top (oops). So I carefully routed the rear camera cable behind it (will need to do the same with the power on the driver's side I've just realised) and looped the excess GPS cable away in there too.
Once everything was all plugged in and the camera was moved over to a better position for recording I am very happy with the end result. Takes up less space than the mini0906 did and, to me at least, looks a lot cleaner from outside the car. Plenty of discrete beeps to tell you everything is working as it should and goes into and out of parking mode just fine. I can easily reach the buttons if needs be to activate the wifi mode. From the passenger side I can move the mirror and see the screen well enough. Accessing the SD card is a doddle and will now be a 200GB one thanks to Amazon having a timely sale on them for £20.
From the outside. Hopefully the air bubble on the GPS unit will sort itself out. I'll give it a week or two and if I remember I'll re-stick it.
Anything I would change with the kit provided?
Honestly the only thing I would say is a few more spare 3M pads for the main camera as I initially placed it too high up to connect the rear camera and then in a position that left too much of the view covering an unwiped area of the screen. I used one of the GPS pads without realising. On the other hand if I'd got it powered up and connected to my phone to help position with the live view this might've been avoided. Other than that there is more than enough in the box to cover 99% of installs and the StreetGuardian team will generally go above and beyond to help that last 1% from what I've seen.
Purely by coincidence I think (and hope) since installing the first few bits my car's battery has rolled over and died. The HW kit is set at 12.4v and cuts off exactly at that mark but the last few days it's being a bit temperamental to start. It's an old OEM battery with a good few years on it I'd guess so I'll see what getting a new one in does for things. If that doesn't do it then I'll poke about and at worst will disconnect the permanent fed to the HW kit. For now I think it's unrelated.
Comparison to the mini0906:
This was as hidden and central as I could get the mini and still have the mirror in the right place. It's surprising how far these stick out from the glass.
My stealthiest installs were with the mobius. Setup I had on a Honda Accord:
This had the benefit of being removable just by taking the mirror off
And for the ultimate in hidden away was my original mobius Vauxhall Astra install:
Going back to the original mobius install shows I've been using dashcams for nearly 5 years. All three purchased based on posts at these forums
.