[Processing61]

I’m wiring a reverse camera and the supplied RCA wire has had to fit through some very small places and got ruined in the process, so I need to solder a new male rca head/connector on it.

I tried to deconstruct the moulding but didn’t do a great job of that. This RCA cable is a little different, at one end it has a female rca connection which the reverse camera plugs in and at this end a male rca which plugs into the stereo Rev camera in. It also has a yellow wire at the stereo end (front of car) “fly lead” for power, the supplier told me that this connects to 12v from the stereo (aftermarket android stereo), to power the camera, so not necessarily a trigger wire. Saves wiring relay/to reverse lights.

So I need to put a new male connector on rca and am wondering how to wire it, it’s hard to tell. So it has yellow fly/power lead and then the RCA wires which is shield/drain, yellow and red. It has two tabs to solder to.

Anyone have any advice?

Can anyone tell me if I can rotate pictures when on my phone posting on the forum too? Been on here ages and still haven’t figured it out

[jwilalex]

By far the easiest way of doing those cables where routing is nigh on impossible is to cut the wire several inches down from the yellow RCA, then do the routing with a nice thin wire, and then rejoin the 3 wires like for like again (video+ is the centre pin, video- is the outer metal barrel and the last wire is the 12v feed which just pops out either end of the cable run). The wire colours are irrelevant on the new RCA end as long as they go to the right point. As an aside the camera may get the negative feed from the video- so might not need to do an additional ground wire. Another RCA cable with fly lead is a couple of quid by its self off flea bay and will be easier to join to your existing wire, just cut the end off with several inches of tail to give work room. If you mess it up you’ve still got a spare on other end of new cable. Trying to faff with just the “plug” replacement will drive you nuts as far too fiddly.

[Processing61]

Originally Posted by jwilalex

By far the easiest way of doing those cables where routing is nigh on impossible is to cut the wire several inches down from the yellow RCA, then do the routing with a nice thin wire, and then rejoin the 3 wires like for like again (video+ is the centre pin, video- is the outer metal barrel and the last wire is the 12v feed which just pops out either end of the cable run). The wire colours are irrelevant on the new RCA end as long as they go to the right point. As an aside the camera may get the negative feed from the video- so might not need to do an additional ground wire. Another RCA cable with fly lead is a couple of quid by its self off flea bay and will be easier to join to your existing wire, just cut the end off with several inches of tail to give work room. If you mess it up you’ve still got a spare on other end of new cable. Trying to faff with just the “plug” replacement will drive you nuts as far too fiddly.

Thanks for the reply! Yes now I know it’s possible to re wire the RCA head and wires themselves, I will never be going through that again, routing the plug through it all. It was not fun and still got ruined in the process.

With this particular reverse camera the RCA that came with it only has one end with the fly lead, which is meant to connect to the stereo 12v camera power which looks like it just runs back to the camera and gets power that way.

I have actually got a spare RCA cable with red trigger wire fly lead at each end so I think I might give that a go like you said, solder the wires together rather than a new RCA plug/connector. Hopefully the red trigger fly lead wires can take power just like the yellow of the RCA that came with the camera.

So with the screen/drain wire of each end of the RCA, would I just twist and solder them directly together, just like the other wires?

[rbryantaz]

Originally Posted by Processing61

So with the screen/drain wire of each end of the RCA, would I just twist and solder them directly together, just like the other wires?

I was able to pull an RCA connector through the rubber on my e90 but I do remember it being very tight...

If pulling again I recommend using a section of PET sleeve over the end where you connect your pull line (it works like those old finger trap toys when pulling a wire). That way it doesn't want to turn around inside of the conduit and has the best chance of fitting through.

Cheap RCA wires can just be spliced, they are almost never a coaxial wire like a video cable really should be....

For splicing I would offset the splice of the signal (center) and the ground wire and shrink wrap both individually with the smallest shrink wrap then use a longer shrink wrap around everything where it extends by an inch or so past the splices. The red wire can also be spliced separately and again I would offset that from the other splices so that there is no way they can touch even if the small shrink wraps fail (but I also tend to do things with a lot of overkill).

Really the easiest solution is probably something like this:


(with a shrink wrap over the screws)

or a little better:


(use shrink wrap around the center conductor to make sure even if the ground connector moves it is still insulated)

But splicing on an end form another cheap cable will also be fine.

-Rich

[Processing61]

Originally Posted by rbryantaz

I was able to pull an RCA connector through the rubber on my e90 but I do remember it being very tight...

If pulling again I recommend using a section of PET sleeve over the end where you connect your pull line (it works like those old finger trap toys when pulling a wire). That way it doesn't want to turn around inside of the conduit and has the best chance of fitting through.

Cheap RCA wires can just be spliced, they are almost never a coaxial wire like a video cable really should be....

For splicing I would offset the splice of the signal (center) and the ground wire and shrink wrap both individually with the smallest shrink wrap then use a longer shrink wrap around everything where it extends by an inch or so past the splices. The red wire can also be spliced separately and again I would offset that from the other splices so that there is no way they can touch even if the small shrink wraps fail (but I also tend to do things with a lot of overkill).

Really the easiest solution is probably something like this:


(with a shrink wrap over the screws)

or a little better:


(use shrink wrap around the center conductor to make sure even if the ground connector moves it is still insulated)

But splicing on an end form another cheap cable will also be fine.

-Rich

Thanks for the advice Rich.

My last car was a E90 and I managed to get the RCA through and like you said, it was very tight. But this is on a E91 and I found it even tighter.

Thanks for the tip about the PET sleeve!

So I did end up getting a new solder RCA connector head pretty much the same as what you pictured (not the screw terminal one) and had a go with that. I’ve probably done something wrong as when I deconstructed the last RCA moulding I still couldn’t tell what wires went to what on the RCA connector, in hindsight I shouldve just buzzed them through with a multi meter. So I wired them with a bit of a guess. So the colours of the RCA wires I had were a yellow fly lead which connects to stereo 12v power, this then went inside the RCA connector and met with a red, yellow and screen/drain strands in its own individual insulation. I got rid of the fly power lead and decided I would power the camera from the reverse lights (as it comes with two ways of powering it, with a power jack which connects to the camera and the jack has positive and negative wire coming off it to tap into the reverse lights. Or using the fly lead and taking 12v from the aftermarket stereo). Just as at the time I didn’t know what my options were. So I put the screen to near the hole in the pic and yel/red to the centre pin thinking that if I’m not putting power down the yellow (because I got rid of the fly lead), then I’ll put them both to the same place, I mean on this particular RCA there is not another tab for it to go anywhere else. So I will just be trying to use it for video signal.

I then tapped into rear left light cluster loom, brown for negative/ground and black/purple for positive for the power jack. I tested it, didn’t work, got a weird colour and a very jumpy screen that you couldn’t make anything out when the ignition was on and then engine was off and then nothing at all (black screen) when engine was on. So I coded the PWM_RFS value to FF,1F which gets rid of the pulse modulation and gives 100% of the power when the rear reverse light is activated, still nothing. Changed the PWM_RFS value back to standard for now. Last time I checked it was black screen whether engine on or engine off but when I used the brake with the engine off sometimes I would get a weird signal start coming through (but visually you couldn’t see anything coming out). I have made sure the settings are correct within the android stereo for the reverse camera.

Now, since wiring the power to the reverse lights I am getting an error on both rear fog lights not working (fog light rear left and rear right failure) but visually they seem to work fine so that’s not right. I wonder if it can sense a small draw and is doing something weird. Or maybe even that I’ve disturbed something while running the wire. I need to turn the power off/take the power away from the reverse lights and see if that error goes away first.

Also I can’t be sure I’ve wired the RCA connector correctly.

What I am going to do is make sure I have a solid 12V supply, so I’ve got a spare power jack with fly leads for pos and neg which I’ll put to a 12v psu, plug in the camera and then see if I’m getting signal (as I’ll be sure I’ve got a solid 12v power then) and then I’ll go from there.

[rbryantaz]

Originally Posted by Processing61

Thanks for the advice Rich.

My last car was a E90 and I managed to get the RCA through and like you said, it was very tight. But this is on a E91 and I found it even tighter.

Thanks for the tip about the PET sleeve!

So I did end up getting a new solder RCA connector head pretty much the same as what you pictured (not the screw terminal one) and had a go with that. I’ve probably done something wrong as when I deconstructed the last RCA moulding I still couldn’t tell what wires went to what on the RCA connector, in hindsight I shouldve just buzzed them through with a multi meter. So I wired them with a bit of a guess. So the colours of the RCA wires I had were a yellow fly lead which connects to stereo 12v power, this then went inside the RCA connector and met with a red, yellow and screen/drain strands in its own individual insulation. I got rid of the fly power lead and decided I would power the camera from the reverse lights (as it comes with two ways of powering it, with a power jack which connects to the camera and the jack has positive and negative wire coming off it to tap into the reverse lights. Or using the fly lead and taking 12v from the aftermarket stereo). Just as at the time I didn’t know what my options were. So I put the screen to near the hole in the pic and yel/red to the centre pin thinking that if I’m not putting power down the yellow (because I got rid of the fly lead), then I’ll put them both to the same place, I mean on this particular RCA there is not another tab for it to go anywhere else. So I will just be trying to use it for video signal.

I then tapped into rear left light cluster loom, brown for negative/ground and black/purple for positive for the power jack. I tested it, didn’t work, got a weird colour and a very jumpy screen that you couldn’t make anything out when the ignition was on and then engine was off and then nothing at all (black screen) when engine was on. So I coded the PWM_RFS value to FF,1F which gets rid of the pulse modulation and gives 100% of the power when the rear reverse light is activated, still nothing. Changed the PWM_RFS value back to standard for now. Last time I checked it was black screen whether engine on or engine off but when I used the brake with the engine off sometimes I would get a weird signal start coming through (but visually you couldn’t see anything coming out). I have made sure the settings are correct within the android stereo for the reverse camera.

Now, since wiring the power to the reverse lights I am getting an error on both rear fog lights not working (fog light rear left and rear right failure) but visually they seem to work fine so that’s not right. I wonder if it can sense a small draw and is doing something weird. Or maybe even that I’ve disturbed something while running the wire. I need to turn the power off/take the power away from the reverse lights and see if that error goes away first.

Also I can’t be sure I’ve wired the RCA connector correctly.

What I am going to do is make sure I have a solid 12V supply, so I’ve got a spare power jack with fly leads for pos and neg which I’ll put to a 12v psu, plug in the camera and then see if I’m getting signal (as I’ll be sure I’ve got a solid 12v power then) and then I’ll go from there.

Normally the yellow would be video and I would use red for power.

I would get another length of wire (enough to get back to your multimeter lead) and connect it to each wire on the other end to know for sure what wires you are connecting. You definitely don't want to put 12v into the video input of the head unit! Connecting 12v to ground would be a direct short and is obviously very bad.

I have always driven power from the reverse output on the head units using an RCA that has the extra red wire on my android head units. This worked very well on my 10" units and the e46 Eonon unit. On all of those units the head unit had a wire that switched 12v based on shifting into reverse (the head unit knows that the car shifted into reverse). I would avoid using the tail light connection for the reasons you mentioned (PWM, bulb detect, etc).

The ground wire on all of the cameras that I have used was really the same as the video ground (you can ohm it out) and the current draw is small for the camera. So all that is needed is to connect the center of the barrel to 12v. I have ran them with and without the ground and noticed no difference so it is really just extra work to run an additional ground wire.

-Rich

[Processing61]

Originally Posted by rbryantaz

Normally the yellow would be video and I would use red for power.

I would get another length of wire (enough to get back to your multimeter lead) and connect it to each wire on the other end to know for sure what wires you are connecting. You definitely don't want to put 12v into the video input of the head unit! Connecting 12v to ground would be a direct short and is obviously very bad.

I have always driven power from the reverse output on the head units using an RCA that has the extra red wire on my android head units. This worked very well on my 10" units and the e46 Eonon unit. On all of those units the head unit had a wire that switched 12v based on shifting into reverse (the head unit knows that the car shifted into reverse). I would avoid using the tail light connection for the reasons you mentioned (PWM, bulb detect, etc).

The ground wire on all of the cameras that I have used was really the same as the video ground (you can ohm it out) and the current draw is small for the camera. So all that is needed is to connect the center of the barrel to 12v. I have ran them with and without the ground and noticed no difference so it is really just extra work to run an additional ground wire.

-Rich

Thanks again Rich!

Manage to get it sorted tonight. Tried external PSU and got a very jumpy signal and horrible picture but it was constant whether engine off or on, a little improvement. So I thought it must be the signal. I ended up cutting off the RCA connector I soldered on, and spliced the wires together instead. Tested it with external 12v psu which worked great. I did try to connect to the 12v camera supply from the stereo to the fly/power lead of the RCA but it didn’t work, I didn’t get any signal, just a black screen. Then I connected the camera back to the reverse lights and it’s all working fine engine off or on. Currently the PWM is at its default (with pulse modulation) as everything seems to be working ok. But I’ll know what to do if I get any issues when the engine is on in the future. Fog light errors have gone now too