satchel prefect
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Hi folks,
I just installed a digital rearview mirror/dash cam on my car and wanted to share the result and some of my installation journey.
This is a Pormido PR998. It is a 3 camera system with an LCD display that doubles as a conventional mirror and provides a touch interface. It installs like a normal dash cam, but can show any of the camera feeds real-time on the display. By default, it uses an inverted version of the rear camera feed, in effect operating as a digital rearview mirror while recording footage on all of its channels.
On to the result.
Rear view, camera mode:
Mirror mode--more or less like stock, but from up close to prevent background from blowing out image. From normal driving distance your view would be narrower but hopefully you get the idea of how much is blocking your view back there. Even moreso if you have a large child seat mounted in the center. The small bump you see at the top center of the rear glass is the rear camera, mounted to the upper plastic trim piece:
The front camera, mounted behind the mirror (and side view of the monitor strapped to the factory mirror):
I mostly worked from this great thread started by @MachDoc : https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...hardwiring-a-dashcam-and-radar-detector.5542/
For the rear camera wire, I went the low route, along the floor down the passenger side instead of the headliner. I also used the driver (left) side tube/boot from the roof to the hatch, using a zip tie to fish the wire through.
I viewed countless other threads and videos as well; apologies for not linking them all; I will just send a general acknowledgement to everyone who shared some knowledge on this. I was reading and planning for quite some time, so if you posted, the chances are it helped me, so thank you.
One thing that I didn't see mentioned anywhere is making a somewhat tidy hole with a grommet in the back panel for running the cable. You can see a close-up of the rear camera in the upper left corner, and the wire/coupler to the right of it:
I have been using this setup for a few years now, moving it from car to car, and it has not let me down. One thing that I am really impressed with, besides the unobstructed rear view, is how well it does wide dynamic range, which lets it capture lots of detail at night without getting blown out by headlights. I find this to be true of both the front and rear cameras.
I haven't driven much yet after installing on this car, but on other cars, the view is so wide that it almost makes blind spot monitors irrelevant. By the time a car approaching from behind you leaves the edge of the display, they start to become visible out the front side window. The display is also a touch screen that lets you pan up and down for a full 16x9 image, which means you can swipe down to check the view immediately behind your rear bumper, below the belt line where any mirror would be able to see.
Hope this helps. Ford: please consider including this technology as standard equipment on future vehicles, EV or not.
Update--Dealing with rain, trying an upsized rear wiper blade:
Rear camera is currently installed inside glass, mounted to the center upper trim piece. Even with treated glass, rain can be a problem. For this experiment, I used a sprayer to simulate rain. Here is what the factory wiper is able to clear:
And with the Trico 15-G, using the lower wiper setting:
Not great, but slightly better. Since the droplets along the top are spread out a bit more, it makes me wonder if water flowing off the sweep is pushing some of the smaller droplets away. If that's the case, the higher/faster wiper setting might clear it more. I will have to try that.
If worse comes to worse, there's always the option of disabling the monitor and using mirror mode:
Incidentally, I didn't have this problem with the Ioniq 5, which has no rear wiper at all, but the roof spoiler does allow the passage of air between the rear glass and the roof. Many are skeptical about how well that works, but for this use case, it does seem to make a difference. The top band of the glass on that car stayed largely clear, and when droplets were there, they didn't bunch together as tightly as on the MME. Our EV6 seems to have no problem at all, with the rear camera mounted in the same spot.
I just installed a digital rearview mirror/dash cam on my car and wanted to share the result and some of my installation journey.
This is a Pormido PR998. It is a 3 camera system with an LCD display that doubles as a conventional mirror and provides a touch interface. It installs like a normal dash cam, but can show any of the camera feeds real-time on the display. By default, it uses an inverted version of the rear camera feed, in effect operating as a digital rearview mirror while recording footage on all of its channels.
On to the result.
Rear view, camera mode:
Mirror mode--more or less like stock, but from up close to prevent background from blowing out image. From normal driving distance your view would be narrower but hopefully you get the idea of how much is blocking your view back there. Even moreso if you have a large child seat mounted in the center. The small bump you see at the top center of the rear glass is the rear camera, mounted to the upper plastic trim piece:
The front camera, mounted behind the mirror (and side view of the monitor strapped to the factory mirror):
I mostly worked from this great thread started by @MachDoc : https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...hardwiring-a-dashcam-and-radar-detector.5542/
For the rear camera wire, I went the low route, along the floor down the passenger side instead of the headliner. I also used the driver (left) side tube/boot from the roof to the hatch, using a zip tie to fish the wire through.
I viewed countless other threads and videos as well; apologies for not linking them all; I will just send a general acknowledgement to everyone who shared some knowledge on this. I was reading and planning for quite some time, so if you posted, the chances are it helped me, so thank you.
One thing that I didn't see mentioned anywhere is making a somewhat tidy hole with a grommet in the back panel for running the cable. You can see a close-up of the rear camera in the upper left corner, and the wire/coupler to the right of it:
I have been using this setup for a few years now, moving it from car to car, and it has not let me down. One thing that I am really impressed with, besides the unobstructed rear view, is how well it does wide dynamic range, which lets it capture lots of detail at night without getting blown out by headlights. I find this to be true of both the front and rear cameras.
I haven't driven much yet after installing on this car, but on other cars, the view is so wide that it almost makes blind spot monitors irrelevant. By the time a car approaching from behind you leaves the edge of the display, they start to become visible out the front side window. The display is also a touch screen that lets you pan up and down for a full 16x9 image, which means you can swipe down to check the view immediately behind your rear bumper, below the belt line where any mirror would be able to see.
Hope this helps. Ford: please consider including this technology as standard equipment on future vehicles, EV or not.
Update--Dealing with rain, trying an upsized rear wiper blade:
Rear camera is currently installed inside glass, mounted to the center upper trim piece. Even with treated glass, rain can be a problem. For this experiment, I used a sprayer to simulate rain. Here is what the factory wiper is able to clear:
And with the Trico 15-G, using the lower wiper setting:
Not great, but slightly better. Since the droplets along the top are spread out a bit more, it makes me wonder if water flowing off the sweep is pushing some of the smaller droplets away. If that's the case, the higher/faster wiper setting might clear it more. I will have to try that.
If worse comes to worse, there's always the option of disabling the monitor and using mirror mode:
Incidentally, I didn't have this problem with the Ioniq 5, which has no rear wiper at all, but the roof spoiler does allow the passage of air between the rear glass and the roof. Many are skeptical about how well that works, but for this use case, it does seem to make a difference. The top band of the glass on that car stayed largely clear, and when droplets were there, they didn't bunch together as tightly as on the MME. Our EV6 seems to have no problem at all, with the rear camera mounted in the same spot.
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