Adding a Rear-View Camera
Many new cars offer the option of a rear-view camera. Usually, it's a luxury feature. But I added one to my car in about 3 hours for a total cost of about $70. Here's how:
Parts List
- One cheap tiny video camera - $25
- Fisheye lens - $35
- Assorted cables and wires - $5 or so
- 7809 voltage regulator, project box, and a capacitor - $5
- USB Video input - I had this already, but they're about $50 or less.
Steps
I decided to screw the camera onto my license plate. I looked for a good place to run the wires into the car, and decided on the license plate lamp assembly. Pulling this off the car, I found a large enough hole to pass the video and power cables through.I pulled the trim panels off the inside of the trunk and had no problem running the wires all the way to my spare tire, where my CarPC is located. I reassembled everything and tested it out.
Here's a close-up of the camera. The goop it's covered in is silicone. Technically, it's not an outdoor camera, but it should work fine.
Here's what it looks like on the back of my car:
And finally, here's what the view from the camera looks like. The quality leaves much to be desired, but the price was right.
After wiring the camera in, the car PC setup has changed a bit since the photos from "Installation".
Some of the changes that were made based on the 1500 km I have driven since the Car PC was installed:
- Removal of the inverter from regular use. It generates too much heat and noise, and frequently doesn't start up properly. The router and hub are now powered by home-made DC to DC power supplies.
- Addition of a home-made audio isolation circuit. You can make one of these for pretty much free by gutting some old PC modem cards. It eliminated my noise problems in the car.
- Addition of a tie-down strap for the laptop. During the road trip it banged around and a lot of the connectors came out.
- Also in the above photo, you can see the MSI VOX BOX I use to get the video feed from the camera. (Top Right)
An updated shot of the underside:
