Got a dashcam?
Want to get rid of all those annoying cables?
Want to know how to safely hardwire it?
Then keep watching...
Hi YouTube, my name’s Geoff and today I’m going to be looking at hard-wiring a Transcend
DrivePro 200 dashcam into my 2005 Toyota Land Cruiser LC4.
If you don’t own a Land Cruiser, don’t worry, the principles explained in this video
should be helpful to you, whatever vehicle you drive.
I was assisted in this video by Black ICE, a mobile Auto Electrician service based in
Wolverhampton in the UK.
If like me you don’t fancy handling the electrical work yourself and you’re within
70 miles of Wolverhampton, you could do worse than give Black ICE a ring.
But if you fancy tackling the job yourself, hopefully the content of this video will give
you all the assistance you need.
I just want to start off by saying this video will NOT be a review of the Transcend DrivePro
200 dashcam.
For a quality review, I’d recommend looking at Techmoan’s channel, a source of great
free online information.
This video is focusing on hardwiring the Transcend dashcam into my vehicle, but the principles
should apply for all makes of vehicle and dashcam.
The purpose of hardwiring is to help get rid of all the dangling cables that hang down,
covering the windscreen and dashboard.
It’s about relocating the power adapter from the cigarette socket to somewhere inside
the dashboard, making a sound electrical connection and tidying everything away safely.
I’m going to begin very quickly by talking about positioning the dashcam.
Obviously dashcams usually fix to the windscreen, but where on the windscreen?
Here in the UK there is legislation in place that can cause a vehicle to fail an MOT with
an incorrectly located dashcam.
Whether a passing policeman can issue a ticket or not I’m not sure, but I’d rather not
take the chance.
I’m not sure of the legal position within other countries, but hopefully the following
will just make good practical sense.
Essentially, as I understand, here in the UK you’re not supposed to mount a dashcam,
or satnav or phone holder either really, anywhere that it can impede the driver’s vision,
and this is considered to be every part of the windscreen that the wiper blades cover,
shown here in red.
Anything outside of this area, the green parts, is fine, but of course this is usually very
narrow or impractical.
Thankfully there is a useful grey area legally, and that’s the rear-view mirror.
Even though this technically obstructs the driver’s vision, it’s a standard safety
item and is therefore acceptable.
So if we place our dashcam INFRONT of the mirror, then legally you’re fine.
It’s also a very practical spot that gives you good camera coverage.
Right so let’s get started by looking at the cables.
We can begin with the cable leading directly from the dashcam.
We can hide this cable neatly at the top of the windscreen simply by inserting it into
the space that exists between the glass and the roof lining.
You might not have realised this is there, but it’s perfect for this job.
Either push the cables up with your fingers or use something flexible like a credit card.
I use my wife’s credit card – that way I know I’m saving money while I’m working.
Obviously I’m laying the cable in the direction of where I’m going to be fixing the power
adapter, in my case in a fuse box under the steering wheel.
You can see the cable tidies away nicely and we can apply the same principles to the door
pillars.
There’s plenty of space behind the plastic and rubber trims.
I repeated this process along the length of the door pillar until I reached the level
of the fuse box beneath the dashboard.
Then it’s just a simple matter of pushing the cable behind the plastic of the dashboard.
In my case here I was able to feed the adapter through the fusebox opening, pulling the adapter
and excess cable through.
On your vehicle you may need to remove parts of your dashboard or glovebox, etc, … whatever’s
needed.
With the cable neatly hidden, going from the dashcam, around the windscreen and into the
dash, it’s time to get don’t to the wiring.
Now some people advocate taking the power adapter apart, removing the transformer within,
and soldering from there.
For me unless space was at an absolute premium, I wouldn’t attempt that.
I would imagine the moment you dismantle any part of the unit, power adapter or not, you
invalidate the warranty.
As the DrivePro has a 2 year warranty, I didn’t want to go down that route, and Jay from Black
ICE recommended making use of a cigarette lighter power socket.
Doing this means that the warranty will remain intact.
It also means the unit can be easily removed later on or another unit can be plugged in
to the same socket if a replacement is purchased.
Here you can see Jay has inserted the adapter into the socket and he’s taping the two
together.
This is essential as there’s a lot of vibration in a vehicle and over time it would be possible
for the adapter to slip free of the socket.
Taping the two tightly together prevents this… but obviously the tape can always be removed
if necessary.
Now at the end of the power socket are two wires.
You can’t see them on this photo, but the socket requires power in the form of a 12
volt positive and negative.
Here you can see that Jay has located a suitable “switched” positive wire – it’s the
blue and yellow one for all you Land Cruiser owners out there.
It was simply a matter of freeing the white connector from within the dashboard – nice
and easy thankfully.
Obviously the wiring colours can vary between makes and models, as will positions of cables
and accessibility, but essentially this wire is a main feed FROM the ignition switch.
For the dashcam to work properly, a switched live is essential, otherwise the dashcam would
be on permanently.
It’s also important to realise that this switched live is fairly heavy duty.
It carries current to multiple devices and as such it’s an ideal point for us to branch
off.
Don’t just randomly choose a wire.
Make sure there’s sufficient ampage in the wire you select to adequately power the dashcam.
Now here Jay is splicing this wire.
In other words he exposed the bare copper within a small section of the wire and from
that he connected another wire to become the positive feed for the dashcam.
To ensure a sound join he soldered the joint which he then covered liberally with electicians
insulation tape.
This is critical.
A loose live wire flapping around within a dashboard could cause electrical fires or
worse.
To the end of this newly soldering wire, Jay added a fuse.
Now purests will realise that the dashcam power supply already contains a fuse, but
Jay is a professional.
He wasn’t thinking of the dashcam here – he was thinking about the power socket.
He therefore following good, sound practice.
Again here’s a diagram that hopefully makes this a little clearer.
The other terminal of the fuse joins directly to the power socket, giving us a switched,
fused, live supply.
And of course into this socket goes the dashcam power adapter.
But of course we’ve still got to connect a negative supply to the socket.
In the drivers foot well, next to the pedals, you can see that Jay pulled back some of the
plastic trim.
Behind this trim, you can clearly see a small bolt.
This bolt screws directly into the chassis of the vehicle and as my car, like most vehicles,
has a negatively charged chassis, this is an excellent place to connect the negative
terminal for the power socket.
Jay simply used a ring connector attached to a length of wire, loosened and removed
the bolt, then reattached the bolt with the ring connector beneath it – this making
a stable negative connection, a process commonly called earthing or grounding.
Again hopefully this diagram will make things easier.
You can see at the bottom of the image there a nut or screw.
This is earthed to the vehicle chassis and is therefore negatively charged.
So from there a wire is connected to the power socket.
The power socket now has both a positive and negative connection and the dashcam adapter
is securely plugged and taped into this.
A quick turn of the ignition key proved that the connections were perfect and that the
dashcam was working.
Jay then took the excess cable, neatly looped this and taped all the slack together.
Everything was then slid comfortably inside the dashboard out of the way and completing
the job.
All sorted!
All wired up and no annoying cables wrapping around the gearstick.
Nice job Jay.
And does it work?
Yes.
Even when it’s dark and wet.
Even when people walk in front of my car and try committing suicide.
Works a treat.
If you watch Techmoan’s review, you’ll see that he mentions the amount of chrome
on this particular dashcam.
If you’re lazy like me and don’t want to take it out every time you leave your car,
this tip of his may help.
The chrome stands out and can attract the attention of would-be thieves.
Simply wrapping a little black tape around the chrome parts and even the large white
lettering makes a surprising difference.
It might not look too pretty, but the dashcam still works fine, it really does help hide
it from view, and we haven’t infringed the warranty with paint or other nasties… just
a bit of tape that can be easily removed.
So that’s it folks.
We’re all done.
I will be doing another video on fitting a rear-facing car camera, one that records what
the driver behind is up to.
Look out for that one.
I’d like to thank Black ICE for their excellent professional mobile service and recommend
anyone within 70 miles of Wolverhampton in the UK to check out their website and make
a note of their number.
Excellent service and top quality work – all done WHERE it’s convenient to you!
If you have any questions, feel free to get it touch.
I’m no expert, but I’m happy to offer whatever help I can.
Please check out my website www.vegoilcar.co.uk and learn more about the joys of travelling
on a free, environmentally friendly fuel.
I’d be very grateful if you could Like this video or drop a comment below and this helps
me get the good word of veg oil motoring out there and if you could subscribe, that would
be even better.
So again, that’s it.
Look out for my other videos, and thanks for watching.