Calling An Auto-Electrician Re A Dashcam

bluenose1940 · July 13, 2014

I think that I may have posted this thread in the wrong section originally as it had 121 views but no comments, I would have thought that someone might have had a comment to make and so I thought I would give it a try here.

Hi folks, I am thinking about fitting a Dash-Cam in my car and have
just had a thought. It struck me that the interior mirror must have
some sort of power going to it as the windscreen wipers automatically
work when it starts to rain. Knowing very little about car electrics I
was wondering if this power can be linked into to avoid feeding cables
all over the place to get to the cigar lighter.

I might be way off track here but initially it did seem logical to me. Any thoughts anyone?

steve2006 · July 13, 2014

I don't have the wiring diagrams for the IS250 model so I am going from the LS400 wiring.

On the LS400 the supply to the photochromatic interior mirror is fed from the Dome fuse (10A) this also supplies the interior lights.

The problem using this supply is that it is permenantly on i.e. not controlled by the ignition switch so therefore using it will mean the camera will also be on all the time which may be a good idea to monitor the car 24/7 but it may drain your Battery excessively.

If you only want the camera to operate when driving it may be an idea to find an ignition switched source for the camera and the sunroof contols would be a good location from which to obtain your 12 volts feed as this is a switched supply.

I don't have wiring details but if you have a multimeter it shouldn't be much of a problem locating the correct wiring,tapping into this and then dressing the cable to the camera unit.

Generally the current drawn on these cameras is small enough not to require a relay.