Reversing camera dropping voltage.

[W0mbat]

Hi All,

I had a wired reversing camera put in and it was working well....for a while. Then it started getting intermittent faults like - no signal or a fuzzy screen. This would generally happen the first time you put it in reverse, then if you put in into drive or park and back into reverse it would work. Eventually it stopped working or worked very interminably.
I took it back to the place I got it from and they were great – rewiring, replacing the camera, the display screen and re earthing. In the end they gave up and sent it back to the manufacturer to have it tested on the bench.
As expected it has shown no fault. The manufacturer feels that it is a fault in the Navara that is dropping below 9v and needs a dc to dc charger to fix it - @ around $300. After reading though here I was just wondering if oldmates solution to unplug the small harness at the negative terminal would fix this issue? Do any others have advice to fix this?

Many thanks
W0mbat

 

[camo.b]

Yep i get almost 11v at the back where the reverse camera gets its power...solved that by driving a relay from the tail/reverse wire and then powering the camera and a extra reverse light from the relay...solved all my problems.

 

[Aussie Frontier]

When I installed my battery gear in the tub I found that the Tub wasnt earthing too well at all. i ran a separate earth cable from the battery and bolted that to my earthing point in the tub.Problem solved
I was getting around 6volts in the tub until I ran the new earth.
this could be whats causing your issues

 

[W0mbat]

Many thanks for that - the camera is great to have and I miss the peace of mind to know that no kids are behind me

 

[Old.Tony]

You will see less voltage drop with less current being used too (the higher the draw, the more the drop). If they're powered by your reversing lights, change out the 21W incandescent globes for 5W LED globes. That should vastly reduce the drop.

Also check that there's no corrosion in the base of the bulbs. It can cause some erratic behaviour!

 

[camo.b]

Good tip,Cheers tony !!

 

[BWC37]

When I installed my battery gear in the tub I found that the Tub wasnt earthing too well at all. i ran a separate earth cable from the battery and bolted that to my earthing point in the tub.Problem solved
I was getting around 6volts in the tub until I ran the new earth.
this could be whats causing your issues

Hi guys,

Noticed this myself. Am getting 6v at the camera. Where did you earth the tub back to the battery?

Might do the relay thing.

Cheers

 

[MrCBR]

When I wired my camera up I ran both the power from the reverse lights and the earth into the trailer plug. I have had no problems so far (don't know the voltage). I did it this way because I figured the earth would be good and I didn't need to cut any wires.