Back Up Camera Connection
 

I bought a rear view camera off of ebay for about $25 and had some questions about the wiring set up. I'm assuming the red wire gets connected to the orange wire (the smaller of the two?) in the trunk and the black is the ground.

Then at the other end the yellow RCA plugs into the head unit.... but what is that short red wire for connect to the yellow RCA near the head unit? Any ideas?

Even on the sellers page, they didn't indicate what that wire was for.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

I'm guessing its for the "reverse" on the wire harness?

it most likely doesn't connect to anything tape it off... attach the long red wire to your reverse lights and the black wire to the ground.

It may be to power the monitor, but impossible to tell for sure without a schematic or wiring diagram. If you don't need it, tape it off as per iceman.

Tape it off, it is actually not needed from what I have installed. I could not tell you what it's for but I know I have not used it.

You might want to plug it to test it first. I have a feeling that is a 12v wire for reverse. The rear backup cam wont work unless it sees power in that wire

This is what it is- a 12v trigger that could be wired to your harness's "reverse sensor" wire if it has one.

Thanks guys - I will do a test with it taped off and see if it works. I'm planning on doing the install over the Christmas holidays once all of my equipment gets delivered. I'll be sure to provide an update.

Let me know how the camera turns out. I ordered the same one on ebay. I plan on installing all the stuff once i receive my parts. Good luck.

Ok so i installed mine this weekend and I figured out what the cables are for. They both are for power. On one end you can connect it to the backup light so it turns on the camera when you put your car in reverse given that you also connected the cable on the HU to the reverse sensor wire.

Or you can connect the other ends red wire to the HU red power wire. That way the camera is on with the vehicle power. And you can see behind you at any time you chose to regardless if you are in reverse or not.

And the camera is a little tricky to install but it fits in the factory licence plate light and it looks oem. :icon17:

Awesome - I still have not had the time to install it yet. But when I do I will defiantly hook the red wire near the head unit up to the power wire of the head unit. I guess I can turn the camera on while driving - that might be neat to see whats in the back when driving. Thank you for the reply - I appreciate it.

Weird, I was thinking it told the headunit when it "switch" to the reverse feed, like it's a 12v trigger.

Say you get power from you reverse light. You put the car in reverse, camera turns on. Power also feeds that wire next to the video input for the head unit, which hooks in to the "reverse" lead in your harness. Head unit sees this wire is hot and switches to the reverse camera feed automatically.

Put the car in drive, camera turns off, unit goes back to normal operation

at least that's how I thought it was meant to be wired

Way late - but I installed my camera... I hooked the red wire near the head unit up to power and cut off the red wire near the camera. It works - but i have open it back up in a week to install my parking brake bypass. I guess it will not engage automatically when i put it in reverse - but thats ok... I wonder if i plug in the reverse engage wire to something if i can get that feature to work too...

look at my post above yours.

if you choose the option to have it turn on with reverse... i wired it for always on - so not sure how i tell the head unit when the car is in reverse since the camera always has power.