ZedZed

That's one of the best bits of news for a while. That will help a lot of people struggling with backup camera installation in manual cars. Great job!

ratt359

Nice work @tj90 ! We're getting there guys!

Joec500

So if we tap the red wire from the camera into this brown one on a manual car the unit should show the backup camera?

ZedZed

Yes. What should happen is that when you engage reverse, the brown wire goes hot and powers on the camera. When the camera gets power it sends a signal to the yellow RCA plug and when this signal is received, the HU switches to the appropriate input and displays the image seen by the camera.

andy2111

Awesome, you gotta love crowdsourcing the installation manual! Great work guys!!

I still dont understand why Chstek can't give us a cable with a "free end" as part of the loom, but in any case this is going to be a better solution than having a permanent +12V feed to the camera

Joec500

i will try setting this up today and report back!!

tj90

They probably will based on our work. When I got my HU I was surprised to see my optical MOST module already spliced into the harness. That was nice that SKY SHADOW seller on Aliexpress took care of that for the end user!

sletcher

Reminder for folks with a manual is you must have the parking brake off and in reverse for the reverse camera to trigger.

ZedZed

Good point about the parking brake being off. That's caught out more than one in the past.

Haidang

You are awesome @ZedZed, @Andy211, @tj90, @mamick and @ratt359…
I’ll pull my CHSTEK out to correct back up camera red wire🤣

Haidang

Hey Jimmykhs the leather conditioner I use is Meguiar’ this is what I have in my garage now but I love the method that ratt359 posted on #2878.

boxdriver

@tj90 Is your car a manual or PDK? I'm guessing the PDK.
I'm just wondering if connecting the camera power to the brown wire on a manual will change anything for the manual cars. That brown wire seems like it is the trigger for the HU to activate the camera on the screen. I'm guessing that it is an incoming feed from the car not an outgoing feed from the HU. How would having the camera powered by that be any different than the camera being powered by a constant 12+ red wire? It doesn't sound like it is the camera turning on that switches the HU to show the camera, otherwise those who have the camera hooked up the red 12+ wire, or to the fuse panel, would show the camera all the time on the HU, not just when in reverse. The only difference with using the brown wire is that the camera itself won't have power to it when it is not being used.
If somebody that has a manual car hooks up the multi-meter to the brown wire and test the reverse, then we could have the answer. Better yet, we would need somebody to test it that has the factory camera setup with it programmed in the car as well as somebody that didn't have the camera programmed in the car to see if that factory programming is what triggers the brown wire on the car in manuals.
Hopefully I am wrong here and all will work as it should for manual cars. Unfortunately, my unit hasn't come in yet so I can't do any testing myself. My current camera on my PCM3.1 has power feeding it all the time (thru the fuse panel) and the car (canbus?) is telling the HU when to show the camera, not the RCA from the camera.

Does anyone here have a manual car and have the backup camera working? If so, how do you have it hooked up?

tj90

@boxdriver Its neither PDK or Manual. Its a 2016 Cayenne automatic. You bring up a good point - probably worth the investment to probe the two wires as I have done to verify your particular situation. You are being a trail blazer in this endeavor and assuming all the risk. It was literally a 5 min operation to probe those two lines with the DMM and check to see if/when that brown line is energized. Its useful for debug because you verified function before cutting and splicing. When I wire my camera, I will be tapping off that brown wire and using an in-line fuse before wiring directly to camera. The power consumption is minuscule for the camera (3W?) so a fuse very low amperage (1-2A) will do the trick.
The advantage of hooking the camera to a switched power source is longevity of the camera itself. Yes, you could leave it on 100% of the time with the red lead, but from what Ive read is less than ideal. Not sure why really, CCD cameras are on 100% the time all over the place.
You suggested that the brown line is acting like a sense line or trigger. That would indicate that some sort of relay/switch circuit is being used. The switch is already in the car so not sure why they would have 2 switches? I doubt it as its redundant, increases circuit complexity and its not high power.

Joec500

I have a manual car and tapped the brown wire and NO GO. I’ll see what happens with a tap on 12V+

tj90

Parking brake off?