Reverse Wire for Double Din Backup Camera?
 

I just bought my FD about a month ago (woohoo!).

I've stripped the FD down to bare bones and I'm re-doing a lot of the work that was done before I owned the car. The previous owner has a nice double din stereo unit in there but the reverse sensor wire isn't hooked up. I'm thinking about throwing a backup camera in there and I have no idea where the reverse wire needs to be hooked up to. Does anyone here know where that should go?

I searched around and didn't find anything. Any help you guys can offer would be much appreciated. :icon_tup:

The switched power to the back-up lights runs from the reverse switch on the transmission to a yellow wire with red stripe (in the emission harness) , through connector X-14 to a red wire (in the dash harness), and from there carries on a red wire through connector X-19 into the rear harness, and from there to the hot sides of the backup lights.

You could tap into that line anywhere convenient and pick up +12 volts when in reverse with ignition on, and 0 volts when not.

Thanks for the response! I think tapping it directly from the transmission might not be the most feasible of options for me.

Are any of the wires/harnesses you referenced in your post near the dash area that I could easily run a wire to?

Yes. Connector X-14 is in cabin on far right against front firewall (see pic). Connector X-19 is also shown in pic below but hard to identify. The red wire in the dash harness running between those two connectors could be tapped anywhere, but probably at one or the other of the connectors would be easiest.

TITS!

Thanks much sir. I'll get after it today and do it job right!

I'm guessing your going to drill a hole through the back? I looked at putting a rear camera in but there is nowhere to run the wires through unless you drill.

I just found a good spot when doing this. The license plate light wiring in the rear bumper goes up into a rubber grommet to get inside the rear of the car.

Just route your wiring through that grommet. It can be tricky, but if you lay on your back under the rear bumper and trace the license plate wires, you'll find the grommet :)

My impression was that the OP wanted power controlled by the reverse lamp switch, i.e. power on to the backup camera when in reverse, off when not.

He can wire it any way he likes. I was responding to "There's no holes to route the wires into the rear of the car" complaint.

There is, by routing them through the rubber grommet that also has the license plate wires passing through it.

How he wires it is up to him. But as far as drilling new holes into the trunk area, don't. Just pass the cable thru the existing rubber grommet :nod:

SA3R,

Sorry, I mistook the target of your post. Your info was useful!

I finally unbundled the wires I'd left in the hatch area and completed this project on my FD yesterday.

My source unit in the dash is a double DIN Pioneer AVH-X3500DAB touch screen DVD player.

My reverse camera is from Fleabay, and it has infrared LEDs and is a long mount license plate type with a bolt at each end.

I attached the camera on the top edge of the rear license plate, under the lip of the bumper cover to shield it from rain, etc.

I then ran the wires up through the hatch floor area- there is that rubber grommet in the spare wheel well that I talked about earlier.

Wiring went like this:

Pioneer DVD player to reverse camera: 1x RCA lead, male both ends. (About 5 meters long is perfect.) Snake it from the rear of the car to the front, hidden under trims, etc.

Purple wire on back of Pioneer DVD unit must be snaked to the rear of the car and attached to a reverse light bulb positive (red) wire in the rear bumper light.

Camera: One black wire grounds to vehicle chassis. The other red wire snakes to the front of the car and goes to Ignition switched 12V so the camera has power whenever the car is on and being driven (PUT A FUSE IN THIS WIRE near the power source end of it)

The system works in this way:

When you get in the car and start it up, turning the key on gives 12V power to the camera, so it is always on and ready.

The wire from the DVD player in the dash to the rear reverse light, allows the DVD player to know when the car is in Reverse gear, as the reverse lights are on.

This lets the DVD unit automatically switch to the image from the camera when in reverse. Camera is already powered up and ready to go.

RCA cable simply transmits image from camera to DVD screen when required.

Notes:

You probably dont need to run the purple reverse signal wire all the way to the rear reverse lights in the rear bumper. There is probably a reverse signal closer in the dash area somewhere up front. I did not have a Japanese wiring diagram, so I ran it all the way to the rear reverse lights.

The camera works great. There were image adjustment options in the screen menus on my Pioneer double DIN to fine tune it.

The main problem I have yet to overcome, is at night. The license plate lights glare down on the reverse camera and glare the image out. It needs a hood or shield from the two license plate lights above it, in the bumper and then it will be perfect.

The wiring instructions I've provided above are actually the preferred way to wire up a reverse camera, according to Pioneer USA/ Australia. There are other ways, but I stuck to the manufacturer's suggestion.

** For wires you intend to run along the length of your car hidden in the interior and under sills, carpet, etc, always add a suitable fuse at the beginning of the wire, just after the power source. For a reverse camera, you would only need the smallest amperage fuse possible. There is nothing worse than a rub through and a shorted wire resulting in a vehicle interior fire.

Easy :)

I know, no problem :)

This clears up a little which one is X-19. I'm going to look for it on the car in a bit, I'll post a pic of what it looks like when I find it. I'd look for X-14 but I believe it's behind the HVAC boxes and I don't feel like pulling those out haha.

Has anyone else hooked up a reverse camera since the last post? I'm about to hook mine up.

I thought this was X-19 because it has a red wire and it connects the dash to the rear harness, but according to the pinout of the connector according to the FSM, I'm not so sure anymore.
Attachment 614209

I did some more digging tonight and realized there are two other connectors attached to the harness going to the rear. So it's these three...
Attachment 614079

And they connect to these three...
Attachment 614080

After comparing wire colors and locations within the connector to the common connector list, I believe it's the white connector. When you view it this way (or the back side of the one that connects to it), most of the wires match up. I haven't detached the other end from the side of the box, but I'd imagine the wires match up perfectly. I might do that tomorrow night just to be sure. But I'm fairly certain this is the one.

Attachment 614081
Attachment 614082

I put a backup camera on my FD as well.
There's a hole up under where the light for the license plate that I used to feed the wires.
The camera is on one of those license plate frame deals. (Pretty inexpensive, and good quality... especially at night.)

For power, I just tapped into the reverse light wiring right there at the harness.

Nice, clean, not a lot of wire, and went pretty smoothly.
Just used a metal fish line to get it through the interior.

What's funny is, the car (IMO) has such great visibility that I don't even really look at the backup camera! :lol:

I plan on running the cables/wires to the camera through that hole as well, but I didn't want to run a wire all the way to the back of the car just to turn the camera on if I didn't have to. I was thinking about tapping into the reverse wires to power the camera but I wouldn't mind having power to it at all times in the hopes that there won't be any kind of lag with it turning on. I'm not even sure if that would be an issue lol.

Which camera are you using? Do you have a link?

I detached the white connector from the side of the box and verified the wires going into the back of it and they match what the common connector list shows for X-19. I tapped into harness going to the rear so that it would be easier to repair if needed.
Attachment 614056

I'm still going to test it first before fully installing the dash.

No, no delay or any latency issues with the lights.
I simply popped off the light on the passenger side, disconnected the harness clip, then spliced into the wiring there.

See if this image works:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...L._SL1200_.jpg
Link to the camera:

Also, let me know if would be value added to get a picture or video of the image quality of the camera. I think it looks pretty good.

The infrared mode for night time viewing is very good.

Thanks for the link!

So you tapped into the reverse lights to power the camera? So the camera is on only when you're in reverse? That's what I was originally planning, maybe I'll still do that. Although my stereo allows you to look at the camera feed anytime. I thought you meant you tapped into that to tell the stereo when to show the camera feed.

Yeah I wouldn't mind seeing a pic of the quality.

That's what I did.
I have an Android 4.4.4 Pumpkin double din head unit, and the backup camera function needs 12V on that particular wire, so that's where I got it. As soon as it goes into reverse and the lights get voltage so does the camera.

I'll get a picture the next time I go out to the car for you!

Which head unit do you have? I recently picked up a Pioneer AVIC 8100NEX. I needed something that I can link with the app for my ECU and I think it should work.

My buddy has the same backup camera on both his vehicles that you have. He said he really likes it too.

I've been looking at the wiring for the camera I bought recently and trying to figure out why the AV cable has a red wire sticking out each end too. After checking with a multimeter I think it's just to make it easier to run a wire the length of the cable, basically splicing the power wire for the camera to the red wire on one end of the AV cable, then run the red wire on the other end to wherever you want to get power from. And I believe I'll run that to 12v switched (accessory).
Attachment 614016

Ok, I did some verification tonight and everything is as I expected. That red wire built into the AV cable is just a pass-through.

The white connector is X-19 and the red wire is the reverse wire, and it does indeed work.

Just for testing I grounded the camera ground wire straight to the battery, and ran the power wire to the red wire in the AV cable and from there to the spade terminal in the top of the fuse box by the driver's left foot. I tested in reverse and also just using camera view through the stereo and they both worked. I'll be wiring it up this way when I install the camera permanently, other than maybe using the power going to the stereo to power the camera instead of running it to the fuse box.

Big thanks to wstrohm for mentioning the connectors and posting the pic from the manual, that definitely helped.

/\/\..
can you use the 12volt switched wire for the Cam?..

I'm not an FD guy but I got a wild sound setup and the project needs wiring.I was going to hook up the reverse camera but I would not mind it on all the time.
Sorry to jack the thread and any answer is appreciated.
Thanks lads.

Yes, you can do this.
Keep in mind, all head units/displays might be different.
In my case with the Android unit, the audio from the stereo gets 90% muted once the backup camera is on.

Check your setup if that's something that matters to you.