# Xtrons Reverse Camera Install - Mistakes Not to Make.



## John949 (Apr 12, 2017)

Lots of people say that installing a rear view camera is straightforward, I managed to make it quite a performance so I thought I'd post what I did wrong.

I thought about adding this post to the big rear camera install thread but that is mostly about RNS-E whereas this post contains many specifics to the Xtrons Android unit.

The camera I used was the cheapest I could find that claimed to be Audi specific (£8). It works fine but is not without some problems, firstly the fit is a bit loose for my taste and secondly when fitted about 40% of the view is obscured by the boot lid lip. I'll cover what I did about this at the end.

The camera has three connections: 1) A video connection which obviously has to go through the car to the head unit. 2) A power lead to supply 12V to the camera 3) a power lead for the number plate LED. The latter is the easiest to deal with as it can be tapped into the old number plate lamp wire. I chose to leave the original connector intact so that the original number plate lamp could be quickly replaced. The new LED is a different colour and seems not as bright so I have a small concern that the MoT man might not like it. Photo below










The 12v camera power lead was my biggest mistake. I spent quite some time feeding it down the boot conduit, removing the tail-light and then tapping into the reverse light bulb power and earth. If you do this the camera either doesn't work at all or flickers (when with the engine running) as the CAN unit plays around the supply voltage as part of its diagnostic testing. There are other posts that cover this and they suggest using a relay as a solution. There is however a better solution for the Xtrons unit as it has an output that provides +12V when the car is in reverse. It's a pink wire labelled 'reverse'. but be careful as there is another wire with a similar label that is the reverse signal TO the unit, which is used on non-CAN cars. On the camera that I bought there is a spare wire in the long camera lead (making 3 in total). If you connect one end to the pink wire from the head unit and the other end to power plug (centre pin) on the camera power plug then the job's a good 'un. There is no need to connect the power plug earth as it is internally connected to the camera signal earth. This is a much neater and simpler solution than using a relay.

Running the signal cable was quite time consuming. Others suggest running it down the sills, but I wanted to run it down the centre console as I wanted to run one of the USB cables back the other way so a would have a USB charging point for my phone by where the original phone adaptor used to be. Quite a lot of trim needs to be removed / loosened but it is not that difficult. Be careful levering out the gear lever surround, I managed to get my lever under the metallic bit instead of the entire piece and pulled a bit of it off. The following pictures show my threading tool (a short length of 6mm earth wire - green and yellow) in various places.
































































Do fully test it before you put the trim back!

The poor fit of the camera was annoying at first but actually forced me to think about the best alignment of the camera. I made a spacer from uPVC (easy to work) that both lowered and angled the camera slightly. I set it to clear the boot lip at the top and just have the bumper in vision at the bottom. The picture give some idea of the thickness and the angle.



















Hope this saves others from making the same mistakes.

Edit

Here are some pictures of the camera installed and the view in the screen (sorry not worked out how to do screen captures on the Xtrons yet.) The camera alignment seems to have moved a bit between the trial fit and the final installation. As you can see I have a small amount of the boot lip showing but you can just see the rear bumper in the bottom left corner. I'll try it for a bit and see if it's worth having another go at the spacer. For info the MG is approx 10ft away.


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## HOGG (Mar 30, 2018)

Where the pic of the new view?

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## SwissJetPilot (Apr 27, 2014)

Nice write up.  I've linked your post to the original Reverse Camera post under the section " ALTERNATE REVERSE CAMERA OPTIONS" on the first page.

https://www.ttforum.co.uk/forum/viewtop ... 9#p5734209

Any additional pictures you want to add to your post would be great. Especially a pic of the installed camera.


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## John949 (Apr 12, 2017)

Pictures added to original post as requested.


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## Steve in Ireland (Oct 13, 2017)

This was my post of my alternate choice of camera and position. My car is an early model, and has different number plate lights which won't fit the other type of camera.

https://www.ttforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1865879


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## SwissJetPilot (Apr 27, 2014)

Now I understand the fitment and dimmer light issue. The camera LED light is about a third of the size of the normal light on the right. This is the one I used. Since it's nearly identical to the OEM light fitment you can hardly notice it but for a slight shadow caused by the camera.


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## John949 (Apr 12, 2017)

Should have made it clear that the number plate light in the camera is an LED (need to get the polarity right) not an incandescent bulb, hence it can be smaller for the same brightness (in theory at least). It is also a much whiter light.

Does the motormax unit protrude far below the lip of the boot? It looked to me that you couldn't drop the camera too much before it started to obscure the number plate.


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## SwissJetPilot (Apr 27, 2014)

Yes, I actually had to lower my licence plate a bit. But it's worked out quite well.


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## John949 (Apr 12, 2017)

Just been having a search and the offset type don't seem to be easily available anymore. Motormax are now selling one that looks similar to mine with a small LED, however it does seem to be set lower to miss the boot lip. The price seems a bit strong, 10 times the price I paid!


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## Jonah67red (Jan 17, 2019)

That spacer you have made is actually similar to what is supplied with the xtrons reverse camera and sticks to the underside of the camera sealing it when in situ and acting as a spacer.


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## mrphengyang (Nov 26, 2020)

@John949

Sorry to bring this thread back. Question on your wiring. So you used the red wire that is bundled with the long RCA cord to bring 12v power from the head unit to the camera power cord. (Camera power cord has a red and black wire) Assuming the 12v is connected to the red wire.

This is great and easy!

What did you do about the black ground wire for the camera power cord? You mentioned that you don't need to do anything with the ground cable of the power cord, so I just leave the black cable hanging free?

Any help on this is appreciated, thank you.









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## MT-V6 (Jan 11, 2015)

I've seen before that reverse cameras work without the negative connected, I can only assume it earths through the video output?

You could connect it to any earth point in the car, the tailgate actually has one inside which avoids running an extra wire through the hinge

Either way don't leave it hanging as it might short on something, so at a minimum tape the end up


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## mrphengyang (Nov 26, 2020)

MT-V6 said:


> I've seen before that reverse cameras work without the negative connected, I can only assume it earths through the video output?
> 
> You could connect it to any earth point in the car, the tailgate actually has one inside which avoids running an extra wire through the hinge
> 
> Either way don't leave it hanging as it might short on something, so at a minimum tape the end up


Thanks for the reply.

I just tested it and the camera does work even with the ground wire not connected to anything. I was very puzzled, but you're probably right that it's somehow grounded to by the rca cable.

I'll ground it anyways like you said.

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## John949 (Apr 12, 2017)

Both the camera and the LED need a ground connection. You can think of them as a signal ground for the camera and a power ground for the LED. Good practice would be to keep these seperate but my camera unit (and most others it appears) connect them together internally. The upshot of this is that if you connect either of the earths to ground then both the camera and the LED will work. Ideally you should connect both to ground.

If you want to know why it is bad practice to connect power and signal grounds together at the source then read on.

Power grounds wires (as the name suggests) carry a significant current and hence there is a measurable voltage drop along the wire. If we define the 0V point as the battery negative terminal, then if you connect a signal ground to the power ground some distance from the battery terminal, then it will likley be at a small positive voltage rather than 0V. Whilst this doesn't matter for most devices, those that rely on acurate voltage measurements can be affected, especially if you connect into an earth wire that sees big changes in current e.g. the earth wire for the lights. Best practice is to keep all power and signal grounds seperate - connect all signal grounds to a star point and then connect this to the battery negative with a short thick wire (or the car's metallic structure).

Hopefully the signal ground for the reverse camera is isolated from the other 0V lines within the Xtrons unit. If it isn't then connecting this to a power earth could be source of interference.


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## mrphengyang (Nov 26, 2020)

John949 said:


> Both the camera and the LED need a ground connection. You can think of them as a signal ground for the camera and a power ground for the LED. Good practice would be to keep these seperate but my camera unit (and most others it appears) connect them together internally. The upshot of this is that if you connect either of the earths to ground then both the camera and the LED will work. Ideally you should connect both to ground.
> 
> If you want to know why it is bad practice to connect power and signal grounds together at the source then read on.
> 
> ...


Thank you, very helpful!

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