[How To] Inexpensive Front Parking Camera

Software installation and info

Before physically installing the kit, you'll want to ensure everything works.

First, download and install the software for your phone. For Android, you'll find it in the Play Store. For iPhones, in the App Store. Sorry, I don't have an iPhone, but what you need is explained in the directions that come with the unit.

Then connect the camera to the WiFi module, and connect the power and ground wires to a power source temporarily. Follow the instructions to make sure everything works before doing the physical install. I connected the wires to a cigarette lighter adapter and plugged it into the rear accessory socket for the test. If everything works, proceed to post #3.


Now then, about the software. It has one significant, and one minor, glitch. The significant one is that if the app is open when you turn off the car and kill the WiFi connection, the app just freezes, and it won't reconnect to the camera the next time you start the car. To use the app again, you'll need to go into the Recent Apps list and close the app. Poor programming, but not that difficult to deal with.

The minor glitch is that every time the app starts it displays a bar of icons at the bottom of the screen that obscure the most important part of the image. Just tap the screen once to make it go away. Or figure that since it's covering the "red" area, you'll never pull that far forward anyway.

First, I apologize for my verbosity. This install really isn't as difficult as I make it sound. After years of writing for government contracts, I tend to be verbose, and the frustrated teacher in me wants to make sure I don't leave out anything important. If you're familiar with installing electrical accessories in cars, you can probably skim this, look at the pictures, and know what to do. If you haven't done anything like this before, hopefully I've made it clear enough for you to follow. Feel free to ask me any questions before or during your install.

To make this install much, much easier, you'll want to order a few accessories.

First, an add-a-circuit or similar device to wire the system to a switched circuit. You can get these from Amazon, or most auto stores. Make sure you get one for a micro fuse.

MICRO2 FUSE-TAP Add ON DUAL CIRCUIT ADAPTER AUTO CAR TERMINAL

Next, as I mentioned above, the wires from the camera are so short they make installation more difficult, and greatly limit your mounting options for the black box. There may be other options, but these two cables will do the job. And at 10 feet will give you more than enough to mount the black box wherever you want. If you can find shorter ones, 3 to 6 feet should be plenty.

VasterCable, Digital Video Cable, Extension Cable 10 Ft

E-KYLIN 3M 10FT DC Power Extension Cable 5.5x2.1mm Plug Male to Female Adapter

WIRING THE CAMERA

First, attach the extension cables to the cables from the camera. I'd suggest taping the connections with electrical tape to ensure they don't come apart while your pulling wires around. Figure out where you want to mount the camera, and feed the wires through the grill at that spot. Now you'll need to find where you can pull the wires into the engine bay. There's a square hole to the passenger side of the radiator that will work just fine. Shine a light through the grill, then look under the hood, near the bottom of the passenger side of the radiator, and you'll see this. The silver looking bar on the left of the picture is part of the hood hinge, the gray area at the bottom right is a big, thick wire bundle.

With better light inside the engine bay, here's the hole:

And from the front of the car, looking through the grill. The brown looking strap is a wire snake coming through the hole from the engine bay.

If you don't have a wire snake, make one by straightening a coat hanger and making a small hook on the end. Feed it through the hole from the inside of the engine bay, hook the end of the cables, and pull them through into the engine bay.

WIRING THE WiFi MODULE

You'll want to wire the module to a switched circuit, so the camera and WiFi module are only powered when the car is on. There are plenty of choices, but I chose Fuse #30, Seat Fans, for a couple of reasons: There's plenty of room for the add-a-circuit, and if something fails the only thing I lose is the seat fans. Tapping into a more critical circuit strikes me as a poor choice. Pull fuse #30. Insert that fuse into the bottom fuse slot in the add-a-circuit. Insert the fuse the came with the add-a-circuit into the top slot. Do not plug the add-a-circuit back into the fuse box, yet.

This next part is going to sound more complicated that it really is. The sheathed wire coming out of the black box includes a red wire for power, and a black wire for ground. The easiest place to attach the ground wire is to a stud mounted forward of the alternator (pictured below). You have a couple of choices here. You could split the sheath that covers the two wires, and connect the black wire directly to this stud, and run only the red wire into the fuse box. Or you can run both wires into the fuse box, and run the ground back out. I have another modification that has a ground wire running out of the fuse box, so I chose to run both the red and black wires into the fuse box, and connect to that pre-existing ground.

I would recommend running the sheathed cable, with both wires inside, into the fuse box, as the outer sheath offers some protection to the very thin wires inside.

However you run the ground wire, you'll need to attach a ring terminal to the end of it to put over the grounding stud.

Make sure you get one with a large enough hole to fit over the stud. DO NOT try to remove the nut that's already on the stud. Simply place the ring terminal on top, and apply another nut on top of that.

Either way, you'll need to run the power wire into the fuse box. I ran the wires from the black box along the hood release cable along the top of the passenger side fender, and used small wire ties to attach the wire to that cable, then ran them into the back side of the fuse box. Don't worry, the fuse box lid will still close and not damage the wires (at least if you leave the sheath in place). Now attach the red wire from the black box to the wire from the add-a circuit. You can use the crimp connector already provided. I prefer posi-tap connectors, so I cut the crimp connector off and substituted one of those. Finally, plug the add-a-circuit into the empty fuse #30 slot.

Here is the completed wiring, with the add-a-circuit inserted (white arrow). The red arrow points to the posi-tap connectors. The red one connects the add-a-circuit output to the red wire from the WiFi box. The orange one connects the ground wire from the WiFi box to the existing ground connection from another mod. Ignore the red, blue and black wires at the top of the photo.

Select a mounting location for the black box and wire tie the excess wires neatly in place. Clean the mounting surface of both the grill and the camera, then mount the camera to the grill using the supplied double sided tape.

Modification to Initial Install

The camera setup is still working fine, but the one thing I sort of didn't like about it is that the camera and WiFi setup are on whenever the ignition is on, even though I only need it when parking. I figure having them running all the time can only decrease their lifespan. So I wanted the ability to leave the system off, but easily turn it on before parking. The obvious answer is a switch to turn power to the black box on and off as needed, but just like with the display itself I didn't want to have to run wires into the car and figure out how to route them to a hidden switch.

Enter the wireless remote relay, which I'd use previously for a different mod:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000MXNJ7G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The simple way to install this would be to wire it inline with the power leads from the black box, and mount this box under the hood, too, but I wanted something a little cleaner. So I opened up the box, and removed the circuit board. This is small enough to fit inside the fuse box, where I already did the wiring connections.

Caution: The bottom of this circuit board has exposed electrical connections. The tops of the fuses also have exposed metal contacts. If these met, it wouldn't be good. I covered the bottom of the circuit board with a couple of layers of electrical tape.

You'll also want to do something to keep the circuit board from moving around inside the fuse box. I cut an ~ 3/4 inch thick layer of soft foam I had lying around to the dimensions of the circuit board, and put it under the circuit board, between the board and the fuse box. When the fuse box lid is put in place, it presses the relay down into the foam, and everything is held firmly in position. Here's the board in place (in the red circle):

Now we need to modify the wiring slightly. First, remove the Add-A-Circuit from it's slot in the fuse box. The red wire coming from the Add-A-Circuit now connects to the red wire from the relay (yellow arrow), and the white wire from the relay now connects to the red wire going to the WiFi black box (red arrows). The relay board has two black wires connected to it. These need to connect to the same ground connection as the black wire from the WiFi box (white arrows).

The blue wire is the antenna. Route it anywhere inside the fuse box where it isn't in the way. Now plug the add-a-circuit back in.

(Ignore the relay and wiring at the top of the pic. That's unrelated to the parking camera.)

Grab one of the remotes that came with the relay, and turn on the ignition by holding the start button for 6 to 8 seconds without pushing in the clutch. Walk back around to the fuse box, and press the On button on the remote. You should hear the relay click. Press the off button, and it will click again. If you're having trouble hearing it, put a finger on the gray box on the circuit board. You should be able to feel the click. If there is no click, turn off the ignition and recheck your wiring. Turn the ignition back on, and make sure you can hear the relay click.

Now, with the ignition on, pressing the on button on the remote will energize the camera and WiFi transmitter. It takes my phone about 20 - 25 seconds to recognize the WiFi, connect, and start the WiFiAV app. So I power it up when I'm entering, or about to enter, a parking lot, and everything is ready by the time I find a parking space. You don't need to worry about turning the relay off, because when you shut off the ignition it turns off automagically.

Now you just need to find a place to mount the remote. I mounted mine on the left wall of the cubby, behind the screen, right nest to the display. This was a challenge of it's own, though, as the material Chevy lines the cubby with won't adhere to anything. I tried several different double sided tapes, including carpet tape, and nothing stuck for more than about half an hour. I finally put a little dab of Velcro cement on the back of the remote, squished it against the side of the cubby for a second, then removed it and let the glue sit for a minute to get tacky, then reinstalled the remote and wedged the phone against it to hold it in place while the glue dried. So far so good

stevette said:

This is exactly what I've been trying to work up for my '15. Great instructions! I'm curious to know how the image looks when angle parking up to a curb or curb-stop. Easy even though the image is 180 out/reversed?

Click to expand...

Well, there aren't any angled curb-side parking spaces in Northern Virginia! So I had to pretend. See pics, and imagine the white line is a curb.

Inside image:

Outside image:

The image is reversed, but I found it didn't matter. When pulling into the "space," I just watched for what the screen was showing as the close corner. It doesn't really matter if it's left or right: You just need to stop moving when the closer corner gets close to the curb. It's less confusing in real life than it is looking at the photos.

What I did notice is that the since the red lines are in the center of the car, and not the corners, you need to use the beginning of the yellow zone as your stopping point when parking at an angle.