THANKS FOR ANSWERING. I am wondering what causes the interference. could be the ground, could be the draw, could be some frequency of the camera, I am not sure... No proper instructions on the camera.
BTW, what were the ratings of the fuses you tapped into?
I used first F4 which I believe has a 10 A but I used one of those parrallel fuses where you open your own circuit. and put a 5 amp in, I believe the camera has even an additional fuse which is 3 Amps or so, not sure about that.
I just realized you said fuse 15/16 maybe thats why it is not switched for me. I will try later tonight.
Any bare metal surface is ground.
I worked around cranes where the metal was a switched ground not always ground, thats why I think maybe it is not always ground, I used the same spot you did, I posted the pics above
I did figure this out, I kept staring at it and then went "why not just remove these clips first" and then felt like an idiot as it snapped in immediately. Thank you for stating this early to hopefully save someone a headache!
Fantastic wire up. I just spent a week with thinkware and Blackboxmycar regarding OBD connection and nothing will work with electric cars. I just order the Micro 2 connection and should be ready to go. Thanks for the hard work.This is a lengthy tutorial with photos showing how I added my dash cam and radar detector to my Mach-E
A few points before we get started:
- While this is not a difficult project, it is not for the faint of heart. Messing with a brand new car could potentially void your warranty or cause more serious problems.
- There are sharp metal edges behind all of the pretty stuff - wear gloves!
- This is my fifth or sixth vehicle doing similar upgrades. The rest were 2 BMW's, an Audi, a Tesla model S, and 2 Subarus. This car was by far the easiest to do but that also could be because I have more experience.
- Never pry plastic panels with a screwdriver. Either use your fingers or a simple plastic pry set similar to this one on Amazon:
- When you do pry these plastic components with your fingers or a pry tool, occasionally the little plastic retaining clips may break. While you can buy these from Ford, AutoZone sells them in bunches of three or four at half the price. I found out the hard way that Tesla was charging large sums of money for clips that I could easily have purchased for a Subaru at less than $.50 a pop.
Obtaining switched and constant 12 V power
The radar detector needs a switched 12 V power supply and the dash cam needs both a switched 12 V supply and a constant 12 V supply to record problems while the car is parked. In previous vehicles, I had no trouble finding both switched and constant power somewhere in the overhead mirror compartment but could only find switched on this car.
I also do not like to overly strain the built-in wires. When possible, I prefer to run new circuits from the fuse box up to the windshield to power both toys. That is what I did in this case. There is a fuse box behind the passenger kick panel. With a little experimentation, I found high capacity circuits of both types. Page 278 of the owners manual will show you how to remove that kick plate.
From page 279 of the owners manual:
While I previously would simply tap into an existing wire, I like my toys to have their own fuses in case something goes wrong. I recently started using these "add a tap" products to make tapping-in easier and safer. The existing fuse gets moved into the bottom slot and a new 2.5 amp fuse goes to my toys.
The physically smaller fuse it is called a Micro 2 and the larger one is called a Micro 3.
Here are the links for the add-a-taps:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082YZWSSY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R8R2T7T/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I normally have extra three conductor wire around the house however I had to purchase some for this project. I normally like 20 gauge wire but somehow accidentally bought 22 gauge wire. This is definitely capable of carrying enough power for these two small devices.
Routing Wires
I was able to easily route this wire up towards the mirror housing. First I removed this side panel using a small plastic pry tool. It is held on by six plastic clips:
Next, I carefully pried off the A column cover with the pry tools. There is an airbag in here. Any wires you run must go behind the airbag. I prefer to zip tie them to ensure they do not fall in front of the airbag.
I next removed the cover over the mirror housing. I did this with gentle finger pressure pulling downward to release the 5 clips.
Next, I connected the appropriate switched power to my radar detector, switched and constant to the dash cam plug and both to negative. I prefer to solder all wires and cover with shrink wrap tubing. I also have serious OCD therefore labeled everything however in this picture you cannot read the labels because they are facing away from you. Red is constant, green is switched and the white is my negative.
I almost forgot, speaking about the negative lead, I could not find a good metal anchoring point anywhere in that fuse box. Everything is plastic in there. Therefore, I found a nice piece of steel in that side compartment below the A column. There were two round holes. I took a metal machine screw, washer and nut and fastened the raw white wire directly to that piece of the frame. Again, with the OCD, I used thread locker liquid on the bolt to ensure it never came loose accidentally.
At this point, I connected the red and green leads to the add-a-taps below in the fuse box, plugged everything in, and made sure everything worked as I expected with the car on and off.
Connection to Rear Camera
The next step was to run the video lead to the rear camera. Fortunately, the ceiling liner is not strongly attached to the roof as in the other cars I had to work on. Simply pull down gently using a pry tool to work under the rubber gasket. Going between the front and rear doors around the B column required a little work. Instead of using my fish tape, I took a small diameter wire hanger to thread the wire through. Once the wire hanger is visible on both ends, I simply used electrical tape and pulled it through. Note: I could not pry the B column cover off easily and didn't want to risk breaking anything. Likewise, going to the trunk, the plastic holding the liner in place felt too sturdy and I simply used fish tape to pull the wire all the way into the trunk.
To make the job as neat as possible, I also pried off the plastic cover noted in the photo above. It is held on by six retaining clips. I then mounted the rear camera as high up as possible on the window.
Normally, I would run the wire to the rear camera through the "boot" between the main compartment and the hatch. This is the first car that I was not able to do so. The boot is sufficiently deep under the liner and into the hatch, that no amount of manipulation with fish tape would let me get a string through there. Therefore, I will have that little bit of wire hanging down between the liner and the hatch on the right side but it is not visible when I look in the rearview mirror.
Once that was done, it was simply a matter of putting everything back together. The only difficult part was getting the A column to sit properly. Work slowly. There is a vent built into that column that has to be seated at the base in order for the column to fit properly.
The final result:
Please write with any questions. I am happy to help out anyone trying a similar project.
Jeff
The 12V battery only charges if the charging circuit is powered on first by the ECU which is powered by the 12V battery. If the 12V battery dies you will have an 85 KW doorstop.
Are you sure about that? 10 days left in the garage not driven with dashcam on the entire time. Got home and battery still measured 12.1 V
It was usually difficult to get wire through these on my other cars. This car required even more effort and I did not want to risk water entering.
I was able to work behind the a-pillar trim and reattach them without damaging the connectors. I am 100% confident that they will remain attached if the airbag goes off. If you damage them, replace the connectors.
12.12 volts is a 40% charge.
Here it says it periodically maintains the 12V
