Hi guys,

I recently installed an after market backup camera to my 2013 Camry LE's factory headunit (one w/o navigation). When the system does work in reverse gear, the quality of the video is great.

Now is my problem -- when switched to the reverse gear, whether the ignition key being at ON mode (engine off) or engine revving mode, the head unit sometimes displays the video and sometimes it doesn't. Any advice would be appreciated.

Here's are some details:
1) Important finding -- when the HU does not display the video while on reverse gear, if I wiggle the car key in the key hole and saw the HU (radio) reboots, then almost all the cases I tried, the video does come back.
2) The radio is a Panasonic, model # shown on the front as 57076.
3) The camera's RCA connector hooks up to the HU's 16-pin connector (pin#8 & #16)
4) The backup camera draws power (+/-) from backup light.
5) The HU itself has a Reverse signal fed into the 28-pin connector (pin#2) on the back of the HU. I used a multimeter and checked the voltage is ~12V when in reverse gear and no reading when out of reverse. So no external trigger is needed.
6) I also tried the camera stand alone to a TV monitor, and certainly it works fine so I know it's not the camera issue.

Thanks in advance for help!

 

============================================

OK I figured out the problem. Solution -- the backup camera must be turned on prior to the Head Unit (radio) boots up. This is good news and bad news for me -- good news is that the camera works all the time when in reserve gear; bad news is that it's ALWAYS on, as long as the car is on and normal driving, even not in reverse gear. This will definitely shorten the camera's life for no good reason.

The observation I had before was a fact that -- "if I wiggle the car key in the key hole and saw the HU (radio) reboots, then almost all the cases I tried, the video does come back", that's because when the radio reboots, it'll be able to detect the camera, since at reserve, the camera is ON.

Another trick i can play is, if i switch to reverse gear within about 3-4 seconds following the key at ON position (cranking engine or not), the camera would work. This is so since the boot-up of the radio takes about 4-5 seconds. In other words, if the radio boot-up did NOT detect a camera present, the H/U will ignore this camera function even if the camera is turned on after that.

So long story short, to make it work, I have to power the camera NOT from the reverse light, but from a constant ACC supply. Lucky enough, the camera I bought works fine off the +6V power from the factory H/U. See picture below, Pin #7 on the 16-pin connector, although the camera manufacturer says it requires 12V (70°F temperature today, i'll see if in colder days, what happens).

If anyone can help me if I don't want to keep the camera ON all the time, that'd be appreciated. Really dumb for the H/U that has to detect camera being present only at the boot-up time.

 

Does the camera wiring have a trigger wire in addition to +/- 12v wires?

 

Yes the camera does have a trigger wire in addition to its +/- power wires. However, I found out that the trigger wire and the "+" power wire in the camera are connected to each other (same for the "-" wire and the RCA shell: they're connected to each other). That's why the camera seller in their instruction says one can use the "trigger" wire to connect to a 12V source neat the H/U. In fact I connected it to the radio's +6V source. 2013 Camry has its only reverse signal input (to Pin #2 in the H/U's 28-pin connector) so I don't need to provide trigger.

At another forum, a fellow noted that "The +6V line only has power during boot up or when car's in reverse gear." If so, then the way i wired will only power the camera at boot up and in reverse gear (since I used the +6V to power the camera and it worked fine as I tested). In other words, my camera will NOT be on all the time. Is this correct? Thanks