Questions about hardwiring separate front and rear cameras

markus

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Dash Cam
VIOFO A229 Pro 2ch, VIOFO A119 V3, 70mai Smart Dash Cam 1S
Hello,
I have a question or two about hardwiring and parking mode

Let's say that someone had an Viofo A119 V3 to be used for their front camera, and an 70mai Car DVR 1S to be used as a rear camera.

From what I understand, you'd need two "add a fuse" things, one for ACC and the other for Power, and then plug them into an appropriate fuse in the fuse box, and of course crimp the end of the hardwire kit into the end of those "add a fuse" items

For a single camera being hardwired, that makes sense. What about if you wanted to hardwire both of the cameras? Should you use the two "add a fuse" items with two ACC and two Power wires from both hardwire kits, or would it be better to simply have four "add a fuse" items and four fuses used (two per camera)?

Is there a better way to handle hardwiring of two separate cameras?

What about the ciggarete lighter style ports that you can plug an adapter into that has USB ports? If such an adpater had two USB ports on it, then could that be used to power both the cameras instead of a hardwire?



When it comes to parking mode, I'm not overly interested in that functionality, so would I be correct to say if I turn that off in the cameras, then they would shut off when no power was detected, ie; there should be no battery drain because parking mode is not being used.

Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions
 
As long as the circuit you tap into has enough excess capacity, one fusebox tap (Add-a-Fuse) for Battery and another for switched is all you need. Even during boot-up, you're not going to exceed about 4A for two cams and during normal running that should be closer to 3A. I'd look for fuses locations where the car fuse is 20A or larger which should be able to handle the added current of the cams. As always, never tap any safety-related or engine-function fuses/circuits. The switched hardwire kit wire draws almost zero current, so tying two together is no issue with them.

If your doubled-up 'battery' tap causes overcurrent problems (blown fuse), or if you want to for whatever reason, you can draw from 2 fuse taps./circuits.

For a few years I used a 2.4A dual-port 'ciggie-to-USB' adapter by Anker to run dashcams. It worked great till one side died. If you use these, go with a good brand and ensure that each side can do 1.2A or more; some have a lower rating on one port and the cheap ones may lack good voltage regulation or not have the claimed capacity.

Phil
 
Thanks for the detailed answer. Very much appreciated.

One other question. If I went the USB adapter route to start off with, and then wanted to hardwire, could I use a USB-A female to usb micro / mini female adapter cable, and plug in the usb connector end of the hardwire kit into that, then do the "real" hardwire? The idea here being that I would not need to re-run cables from the cameras due to them terminating in USB-A and the hardwire kits start with a mini / micro usb cable.
 
Thanks for the detailed answer. Very much appreciated.

One other question. If I went the USB adapter route to start off with, and then wanted to hardwire, could I use a USB-A female to usb micro / mini female adapter cable, and plug in the usb connector end of the hardwire kit into that, then do the "real" hardwire? The idea here being that I would not need to re-run cables from the cameras due to them terminating in USB-A and the hardwire kits start with a mini / micro usb cable.
That can result in the cables being too long, which results in too much voltage loss. It may work, but is not recommended for a reliable system.
 
I lost footage of me getting rear ended due to a too long / poor quality USB cable from the front of the little car to the back, after that i wired in a 3 socket ( 12 V ) outlet in the back of the car so i could use sensible length cables to power the camera.

I an currently running 2 systems off the same one fuse taps, both systems have their respective hard wire kit so just piggyback on the same fuses in the box, but i am only running parking guard on the one of the cameras.
two different brand cameras can not ( well probably not ) share the same hard wire kit, but on the 12 V side they can share the same fuse adapters.
I use 5 A fuse for the camera side on my add a fuse adapters.

In general there is just one output on a hard wire kit, and they generally are scaled to what they need to do, so might not have enough overhead in the 12 to 5 V converter to give enough Amps for 2 camera systems.

I also run a few USB chargers i some times use to power dashcams instead of the supplied PSU, this is also fine but these must be 2 A USB sockets at least for just 1 camera system, and you have to be careful with these multi port USB chargers, some times they can not deliver what is claimed.
 
Thanks to both of you.
It would be great if my car - 2014 Kia Forte5 (hatchback) - had a power outlet in the trunk / hatch, but alas it does not, so I'm a little unsure how to put one there. I think I'll do a little research on it.
 
I tapped into a switched 30 A fuse in the fuse box ( just one + 12 V wire ) put a 10 A fuse in the add a fuse adapter for the new line, then pulled the +12 V wire to the trunk, got the - 12 V GND from one of the bolts holding the rear seat in place.
And then put one of these in the end by cutting the plug off and solder the wires together ( making sure to have the polarity right )

664ef76fe5783e1d9fb891001566102f.jpg


That way i could always use the provided PSU for the individual cameras, and i even got a 2 A USB outlet too.

This is of course just for ordinary running of cameras or chargers for action cameras and other stuff, to this day i have the in dash 12 V socket free, and i could power 17 cameras / systems from my added power sources.

In my glove box i have two of these 3 way 12 V splitters, and a 4 way USB charger and a 5 way USB charger

And then i have the 2 current systems wired in to the fuse box, so in total 19 cameras / systems is possible in my car.
 
I tapped into a switched 30 A fuse in the fuse box ( just 1 + 12 V wire ) put a 10 A fuse in the add a fuse adapter for the new line, then pulled the +12 V wire to the trunk, got the - 12 V GND from one of the bolts holding the rear seat in place.
And then put one of these in the end by cutting the plug off and solder the wires together ( making sure to have the polarity right )

664ef76fe5783e1d9fb891001566102f.jpg


That way i could always use the provided PSU for the individual cameras, and i even got a 2 A USB outlet too.


Oh right. Thanks for the additional information. I hope it's not too rude to ask, but what gauge of wire did you use for this?
 
Not sure of the gauge, i think its about 5-6 mm thick in total, thicker than the original wire on the 3 way splitter, not super thick compared to the stuff i used when into car audio, but 500 W amplifiers also use a lot more power.
I got 2 rolls ( 10 M ) in the car store when i went there to get the add a fuse adapter too.
 
Not sure of the gauge, i think its about 5-6 mm thick in total, thicker than the original wire on the 3 way splitter, not super thick compared to the stuff i used when into car audio, but 500 W amplifiers also use a lot more power.
I got 2 rolls ( 10 M ) in the car store when i went there to get the add a fuse adapter too.

Thanks!
 
That is not so good if you want to use parking mode with a 3 wire hardwire kit, but for non-parking mode use it is good, in fact it means you can "hardwire" without needing the hardwire kit.
 
No the splitter is just a basic extension for regular when driving use.
Still if you are going to hard wire a camera with a 3 wire kit or 2 wire for that matter, if the wires are not long enough to reach all the way back, then i would recommend you extend on the 12 V side of the HW kit and not the 5 V side ( assuming it is a system / camera powered by USB )

And i do think thats needed if you want to hard wire a rear camera, though the kids usually come with plenty of wire length for install in the front, but out back it might be a problem, even for a almost micro car like mine.
 
Hello all,
Once again, thanks to everyone for their advice, very much appreciated.

I have another couple of questions.

I am going to use a hardwire kit for front and rear cameras. One of the cams (70mai Smart Dash Cam 1S) has arrived, as has a hardwire kit, the Viofo A119 V3 is still on the way.

Looking at the three wires (12V side?) I am wondering where I should strip them for insertion into the add-a-fuse adapter. The end of the wire seems to have been tinned, and further back there is a section of the wire where it's been partially stripped (see attached picture). I'm going to guess that cutting and stripping at that point where the bare copper is exposed, is that correct?

The other question is. If I'm not interested in parking mode then can I simply not hook up one of the wires? If so, would it be the ACC one - yellow for this hardwire kit, possibly yellow for the other one as I'm not sure how standard the color to designation of operation of the wire is - does that sound correct? I know I can disable the parking mode in the camera settings anyway so I could just do that and have things set up if I do want to try out parking mode (pretty sure the 70mai doesn't have parking mode anyway)

Thank you!
 

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