I am thinking of removing the rear shield wiper and put a reverse view camera in the hole.

Those that have done this, what is the spec of the camera you have used?

I have found these two cameras on eBay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1

What is Minimum Illumination? 2 LUX is ok? or 0 LUX is better?

One of them has 120 degrees of view angle, the other one only 53 but with infrared night vision.

One has a 24mm screw thread diametere, the othe 34mm, which would fit better?

Thanks

 

I have done many rear view cameras.

Lower lux is better, and very important in a rear view camera. 2 lux is very poor for nighttime conditions, but will be fine for day time. 0 lux means that no light must be present to be able to see with the camera. A 0 lux camera is typically much more expensive, but very worth it. Im not talking about a 0 lux camera which uses infrared LED's to make it seem like you are seeing in darkness, Im talking about a highly sensitive camera.

Also you have two choices on camera chip, CMOS or CCD. Buy CCD with greater than 400 lines of resolution. It should be listed on the ad.

Last, the angle of view. Bigger number means you can see more. Just like a circle, if you could see all the way around you, you would be able to see 360 degrees. A camera that can see 90 degrees can see 1/4th of the circle. A camera that can see 180 degrees should be able to see everything behind you from the bumper back, including everything directly out to the sides.

I looked at both of the ebay links you had, and I would not recommend either one. A good rear view camera is going to cost about 150. Any camera that has infrared is a joke in it because you are only going to be able to see about 1-2 feet with the infrared and everything else will be really dark. The 2 lux looks to be pretty low res. Resolution matters when you are squishing everything down with a 150 degree lense. You could get away with a low resolution camera if you had a standard 1:1 lense on it, but then it wouldnt be avery good hazard avoidance system.

I mounted a camera in the jack point on my xB. The jack point is a little plastic piece that pops out of the drivers side rear bumper. Its a cheap piece to replace if you screw it up. Even better, theres a fairly accessible gromet to get your wires through under the bumper. The windshield wiper mount should be fairly easy to do also.



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Check out Ebay Item number: 4582498865

Its the same camera I bought for my xB 0.5 lux without infrared, 420 lines, CCD. It gets a little washed out when headlights hit it, but produces an awesome night and day picture. I can parallel park in spots 10 inches longer than the length of my xB.

One more pic:

 

nice mirror

 

bra, that's solid! how much did it cost u to do all that?

 

Good info there, edlin, but it's a tow point, not a jack point. You screw the tow adapter in there. It is located under the spare in the styrofoam.

 

FINALLY!! Someone that knows what that hole is for! Ive been asking everyone and the best I could come up with is a jack point. Thank you Max!

The way I put the camera in, I can pop out that little plastic piece with the camera and still have access to the hole (since i figured it was important in some way). My camera sticks out a little bit, about half an inch (which I think looks better than flush anyway) because you can only put the camera body in so far before hitting the frame.

Whole thing cost me about 300 bucks. 150 for the mirror, 130 for the camera +S/H. The mirror has a high-res TFT in it which is why it costs more than most of the 89.00 ones on ebay. I figured it was pointless for me to get a high-end camera without a high-end monitor.

 

I just bought one of these

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...MEWN%3AIT&rd=1

is it ok?

The Yan Lab one seems nice but so expensive. I guess you get what you paid for.

 

how did you route the wires from the back to the front? i took off my rear wiper and i am planning to mount the camera in the hole

 

thats cool, they also sell them that are built into the plate frame, that may make it alot easier and just as hidden

 

That will probably work for you, it appears to be a CMOS camera with 380 lines and a 120 degree lense. It doesnt say what the non-infrared lux requirement is. If it doesnt work out, it should be fairly easy to swap for a different one once you have the wires run..

The wiring you are going to do will need to go through the hatch gromet.

first pull the hatch gromet out from between the hatch and the car on the passenger side of the hatch. Its just rubber on both ends, no screws, just pull it out. You will then see a hole on the hatch which appears to go into the side of the hatch next to the window. Since you have already removed the panel from the hatch to get to the windshield wiper hole, you will have ready access to that hollow area where you can fish your wires down. You might want to get a coathanger to help push/pull the wires though to the hole near the car.



Once you get the wires through both sides of the gromet and into the car, they will come out in the headliner. Pull off the interior panels and route the wires to where you need them to go.



These pictures were actually from a tv antenna I mounted in the hatch, but the wiring principle is the same.

 

I have a question. I just finally received my pioneer nd-bc1 camera, but im not sure where to mount it on the xb. the camera has a power cable running off of it with a connector on the end that plugs into a box that has the power and ground. Then from the box goes the rca cable for video. Would I be able to cut the end off the power connector from the camera so i wouldnt have to drill as big of a hole?

 

I mounted mine in the 3rd brake light, just off to the left side. I like this better because you cannot see the camera unless you look very closely thru the glass. The brake light cover also hides everything on the inside. The stock tint does not seem to affect the picture very much. Nobody has any idea it is there unless I tell them.

 

You can cut anything, just make sure you dont cut too close to the connector so you have enough room to put it back together.