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After I set my cutoff to 12.2 volts, I found that the cam would blip on and off when I was in the car and it was parked. So there is something in the car that is making voltage fluctuate below 12.2 volts, at least on the rear fuse block. I turned the adjustment dial another 1/2 turn to the left, and that solved it.
Did you have to fiddle with the low voltage cut-off 's dial to make it work right or is it just plug and play?
rsilvers mentioned adjusting the voltage and setting it up and soldering it, but it looks like you simply ran the adapter through it and that was it.
If we want to use simply switched source (and not mess with mirror cover), can we use one of the other fuse slots (preferably the empty one closer to center that you mentioned) and skip the low voltage sensor? I am afraid I'll short things trying to connect all this stuff in there. It doesn't look like you disconnected the battery before working in there, did you?
I had tried to find a switched source fuse for two other items a while back and I was not able to find a single one.
Yes, the voltage cutoff I used comes set to, I think, 10.5 or 10.7 volts. So you need to adjust it. I did so using rsilvers suggestion: hook it up to car power (I used a modified cigarette light plug, but you could use the fuse tap instead) and turn on the headlights. Monitor the voltage with a meter until it drops to what you want, then adjust the screw on the unit until the cutoff LED comes on. Or just use the digital one that VanDamme got. I probably would have used that one had I known about it.
The wiring is really pretty straight forward. No worry about shorts. No need to disconnect the battery. Just make sure the last step is plugging the fuse tap into the fuse panel.
All you have to do is cut the Rexing cable halfway between the fuse tap/ground wire end and the 12v to 5v inline transformer (the 3 inch x 3/4 inch cylinder). You will have a red (12V) and green (ground) wire on each half and you wire those four wires to the voltage cutoff unit as per its instructions. Then you wire the green end of the Rexing under a screw somewhere for ground, then finally plug in the fuse tap end of the Rexing.
BTW, I got my back one done today. All the wiring is totally hidden away and it looks good. I'll post some pics and notes of that tomorrow or the next day when I have time.
And how long after parking are you recording before it cuts off?
I don't really know. I have the cards out of the cameras now to review. I have the motion detection on, so it may be hard to tell. But I'm pretty sure the cameras were still on this morning after sitting in the garage all night. I really don't think they draw very much energy. I also have a remote temp sensor and mobile hotspot running on unswitched power full time. They don't draw that much either.
I was able to get my rear A119 camera installed yesterday. The wire run from the camera to the voltage cutoff module to the fuse panel is all hidden. I was able to do so removing only one panel and a couple other pieces. I'll describe the process I followed below, with photos. Apologies in advance for the long post, but maybe it will be helpful to someone else.
Since the inline transformer on the Rexing wire kit won't fit through the spaces, I ran the wire from bottom to top. Start by removing the carpeted panel covering the rear fuse blocks: first unclip the lower net bar from the panel, then pry it up from the inboard edge. You can see the fuses below this panel in the photo below.
Next, I removed the seat/suspension switch panel from the side wall. This is done by removing the plastic cover that hides the center screw. The cover can be popped off with a flat blade screwdriver. The photo below shows the center area with the screw removed. After the screw is out, the panel pops out easily with a little pry pressure. In the photo above, you can see the back of the switch panel as it dangles from the hole. No need to unplug it.
The next part might be the trickiest of the whole wire run. You need to fish a wire down so you can pull cable up from bottom to switch hole. The difficulty lies in that there is a bunch of insulating mat behind this panel. That makes it nearly impossible to drop down a weighted string. I ended up following a path with a clothes hanger similar to that shown in the above photo. Make sure there isn't a hook on your fish wire, or it will likely get caught in the insulation and be very hard to pull back out. You may be temped to pop out the light fixture that lies close to this path. DO NOT DO THIS. The light very easily comes apart as you try to take it out, and it is a HUGE pain to get it reassembled and working. And, the light sits in a plastic housing mounted to the back of the panel, so getting it out does no good anyway.
Once you have the cable coming out of the switch panel hole, the next step is to fish it up to the area where the seat belt exits the side wall. The trim around the seat belt receiver pops out with a little bit of pry pressure. It is then very easy to fish the cable from the switch panel hole to the seat belt hole.
Once the cable is coming out of the seat belt hole, it can easily be fished up to the the area where the hinge exits the roof panel. The cover of the hinge should be removed prior to this as well as the upper center rear lid trim panel. (More on these later.) Below is a picture of the hinge with its cover removed. Once the upper center lid panel is removed, the hinge cover snaps off easily with just finger pressure working from the inboard back side outward. Make sure the rear lid is as far up as it will go while doing this. The Rexing cable can be secured to the hinge with zip ties to the existing cables. Two important points: (1) make sure that the cable is routed around the seat belt mechanism so it cannot be entangled. To do this, I ran the cable above the seat belt receiver and mounted a couple of cable clips on the inside of the sidewall panel to keep it up there. You could probably run the cable below the seat belt receiver as well. (2) make sure you leave enough slack in the cable so that when the hinge retreats into the roof panel, it does not yank or stretch the cable.
To remove the upper center rear lid panel, you first remove the cup in the center that contains the catch for the rear shade (if you have one). To remove this cup, you remove a small flat plastic piece from its interior using a pick of some sort. Then remove the screw from the center of the cup and the cup will pop out. You then unclip the panel's 6 clips. (A clip removal tool is very helpful for this.) The photo below shows the lid with this panel removed. There is no need to remove the rear lid side trim. By prying it out slightly at the top, you can get a fish wire easily down to the base of the hinge to pull the cable through. I zip-tied the cable to existing cables and added one cable clip to keep it in place.
The photo below also shows the A119 GPS base mounted to the glass. I experimented quite a bit on the exact vertical placement of the mount. There is no place to mount the camera that the heat wires on the glass will not be somewhat visible in the camera view. The best position that I found was with the bottom of the GPS mount just very slightly above the 2nd heat wire down from the top (see photo). This seemed to minimize the heat wire visibility in the camera view and also means the mount's 3M tape only crosses one heat wire.
The photo below shows the back of the upper center rear lid trim after removal from the rear lid.
Once the cable was run and the rear lid panel, hinge cover, seat belt trim and switch panel were reinstalled, I spliced the low voltage cutoff module into the Rexing cable halfway between the inline transformer and the fuse tap. I mounted the module to the top of the plastic pedestal below and inboard of the fuse blocks using 3M tape. I ran the fuse tap up to the fuse blocks and ran the ground wire under a screw just below the pedestal. The photo below was taken from under the rear cargo floor just above the large audio unit.
Last step below: plug the Rexing fuse tap into the outboard mini fuse block.
Looks good. I may take off that panel to improve my wire.
If you are talking about the rear lid side panel, according to the shop manual, you have to take off the rear lid lower panel first. So it would turn into a bunch more work. That's why I didn't do it and it really wasn't an issue.
If you are talking about the cargo area side panel, yes that would help. Not sure how complicated that might be though. Might have to take off a bunch of other stuff first.
11-06-2017, 05:48 PM
