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Reverse Camera Connector PinOut


mikefoy6

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So I couldn't really find this definitively anywhere in the 30+ pages of the "OEM Nav Hack" thread. If it saves somebody a headache like I got, it is worth posting.

 

*this is from my 08 Spec.B Stock Nav unit*

 

This will allow the screen to automatically view the source at the molex connector when transmission is shifted into reverse.

 

 

--------------------------

 

The picture below will work, but please see post #21 on the following page for the correct pinout

IMG_0203.thumb.jpg.7c2ab231cc4eb97abb70c9115afbde0e.jpg

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So the words got kinda blurry when I uploaded the pic, the top left wording is "Positive From Camera"

 

Basically the center conductor from the camera goes to that pin.

 

Also notice the whole Nav unit is rotated 90 degrees in the picture, use the locking tab to ensure proper pins are used.

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I really want to do this but I'm interested in seeing (understanding) how to splice the RCA from the camera to this Molex.

 

Also, can you share pics with what camera you decided on and your install?

 

Thanks,

 

-Drew

 

So I couldn't really find this definitively anywhere in the 30+ pages of the "OEM Nav Hack" thread. If it saves somebody a headache like I got, it is worth posting.

 

*this is from my 08 Spec.B Stock Nav unit*

 

This will allow the screen to automatically view the source at the molex connector when transmission is shifted into reverse.

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Drew888,

 

its very easy to install. All you do is cut the end of your RCA from your camera off, You'll have a center conductor and the ground (shield wrapped around center conductor's jacket) exposed when you strip back the outer jacket.

 

Just attach the contacts for the molex connector to the center and the ground and plug in to the connector so it matches the first pic in this thread.

 

to attach the wires to the contacts you can crimp the contacts or just fold over the flags of the contact and solder it.

 

I'll post some pics and a video later.

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I got mine from eBay. Very cheep, A little larger than I would have hoped, but I didn't want to drop $100+ on a camera.

 

I was actually a little surprised by the video quality. It was a lot better than I thought it would be. The one I got has fairly impressive IR illumination as well. Plus our nav screens are the limiting factor, I dont think they have the greatest resolution.

 

It think it all comes down to personal preference, and how much you're willing to spend. They all have pretty much the same hook ups for wiring, power & ground for the camera, and signal & ground for the output So they all install pretty much the same way.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for putting up the vid! It's awesome.

 

That's the thing, our resolution is so bad you don't want to make things worse with a low res cam.

 

I'm interested to know how you tapped the audio RCA into the existing audio and also how you ran the cam cable from the license plate area all the way up (emphasis on the hole in the trunk lid).

 

I have been reading these cam threads since the beginning and was waiting to see the cleanest install and yours seems to be it!

 

Thanks!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry, been away for a bit.

 

I tapped the Red and White RCAs into the Aux input connector harness. If you didn't feel like hardwiring it, you could find a 3.5 to RCA adaptor and just plug it in as a regular aux input.

 

I had a pigtail 3.5mm cable that I used to test continuity through the connector and into the actual wire harness below the center counsole, Once i found the correct wires (right / left audio from the aux in jack) i just soldered the panel mount RCA connectors (in parallel with the Aux jack) directly into the harness below.

 

One catch, there is a cut out switch inside the aux in jack, it has to have something plugged into the connector to break contact so that the Head Unit will "see" the aux input.

 

As for the hole in the trunk, i was feeling gutsy and drilled in where the plastic meets the trunk. It wasn't too big of a hole and the over hang is there so its less exposed. I'll see if i can get a pic up for you soon.

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  • 4 weeks later...
I'm having a really hard time getting this, is there any way you can take some more pics of the wiring?

 

What part is stumping you? I just installed mine on Sunday using the RCA jack (every radioshack in my area was sold out of molex connectors) so I can show you how to do the power and grounding the e-brake.

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I wanted to splice the RCA cable to Molex but I couldn't find any at my nearby RadioShack and I didnt want to wait any longer so ended up just plugging it into the RCA jack and grounding the ebrake wire on the Nav harness.

 

It was really easy, the only dicey thing was drilling a hole in the trunk for the wire to pass through, but even that was not too hard.

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  • 3 weeks later...

While reading through the massive 550+ [now 650+] post "OEM NAVI Features Hack Thread" I found the link to the schematics and pored over those.

 

On the rear view camera input connector (4-pin Molex), there is a different pin for the camera video signal ground. The pin many people have been using (pin 4) is actually the enable input. Apparently, the cameras that people have been using tie pin 4 to ground at the far end (at the camera), so it ends up working.

 

So here is the pin-out for the rear view connector:

1 Video signal input (center conductor of camera's video cable)

2 Video ground (outer shield of camera's video cable)

3 "Guide" output (don't connect anything to this)

4 Rear Detect (rear camera enable input -- connect to pin 2)

Pin numbers are as shown in the service manual. See my picture here:

Pictures of the entire front and rear of the display unit, and mikefoy6's close-up with revised labels (and rotated so "up" is "up"):

1477238952_LegacyRearCameramolex.thumb.jpg.1eac80fa84d6c943cdccae841844ae68.jpg

To make your Molex plug:

  • Crimp a terminal to a short piece of wire. That will go into pin 4.
  • Crimp another terminal to the other end of the short wire, along with the shield from the camera cable. That is pin 2.
  • Crimp a third terminal onto the camera video cable's center conductor. That will be pin 1.

 

Tip: If you're decent at soldering, here's a way that will provide much better strain relief:

  • Crimp the pin 1 and 2 terminals onto two more short pieces of 18 gauge wire (instead of directly to the video cable).
  • Twist the other ends onto the respective conductors in the video cable, solder, and cover each with small heat shrink tubing.
  • Fold those junctions back onto the outer jacket of the video cable
  • Cover with larger heat shrink (plan ahead -- slide this onto the video cable before doing anything else).
  • You should end up with the end of the video cable transitioning to the 18 gauge wires (with a bit of a bulge near the end), and then the short 18 gauge wires go immediately into the Molex plug.

Example:
1561045035_Legacynavrearcameracable.jpg.16a2163638be85d5572e602f6363a647.jpg

See post #34, below, for more pics.

 

The "Guide" output (pin 3) is a signal the nav display unit sends to the OEM camera. It has something to do with the distance reticule graphics (perhaps it simply tells the camera whether or not to add them to the picture).

 

 

When I continued slogging through the thread, I found 'a.spider' had already explained the correct pin numbers back in 2008:

Note that the advice being given about which pins on the Molex connector are for video input and grounding are in fact incorrect. The video should be applied to pins #1 and #2, with the latter being the shield. Pins #2 and #4 should be tied together and none of the pins should be grounded.

 

Grounding either the camera end of the shield or a pin in the Molex connector would risk injecting ground noise into the video path since automotive grounds are anything but "clean" (I was an HDTV engineer many years ago). By using the connection that I described you will get the cleanest possible video signal.

I'm sure few people caught on because up to now nobody had posted a picture with the pin numbers labeled. :rolleyes:

 

 

ADDED:

For anyone who doubts the pin assignments, here's a portion of the schematic that shows the 4-pin Molex socket:

1948051677_Legacynavschematicrearcam.thumb.jpg.26f9e54b7b8a2852e3733b103b3eb857.jpg

You can clearly see that pin 2 is Ground and pin 4 is "REAR DET" (which is the input that tells the nav unit that a camera has been connected).

 

Here's a portion of the PC board drawings. This shows the small board that holds the Molex and RCA connectors:

544632324_Legacynavschematicrearcamsocket.thumb.jpg.54df1e8c3adcbb055ba67ffe007ff53d.jpg

I've added the annotations (in blue), plus a 3-D drawing of the Molex socket to show the orientation.

 

Again, you can clearly see that pin 2 connects to Ground (the huge expanse of copper that runs along most of that side of the PC board).

 

If you mentally flip the drawing of the board down so that you're looking into the 4-pin socket and aux RCA jack, you'll see that the pin numbers match the labels in my 3rd picture (the edited version of mikefoy6's).

 

ADDED: See Dispatch20's thread showing installing a camera in a sedan:

1116579353_SubaruLegacynavdisplay.thumb.jpg.c64007250b0b413c0fa1d30205b41fc6.jpg

83509514_Legacynavdisplayunit.jpg.347faadd67aa4d304ce863784a0ea70c.jpg

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Thanks for that!!

 

I'm hoping pics will still be hosted by the time I finally find a good camera. I'm looking the the best OEM like look with great vid quality (and the smaller the better).

 

So which cam did you install and how did it go?

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Need some help here. Using a Pioneer camera. Only looking for back up camera to automatically work in reverse. Most every other post shows the backup camera is hooked up as follows: use molex connector, only use pins 1 & 4, strip the rca yellow video wire from the camera, put the signal (center) portion of the wire into the upper right pin, and put the shield (ground) to the lower left. Leave the other two square holes (2&3) EMPTY; find a power source and that's it. And you get automatic backup camera activated in the nav screen without doing anything else. But now, according to the posts above, it seems like more is required - 3 pins need to be used. If anyone could exactly explain what is done with the molex connector, step by step, to get the back up camera working, that would be great.

 

 

See post # 9 here - which says differently

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/another-oem-navi-features-hack-thread-progress-and-documents-36342.html

 

Is it just pin 1 & 4 that is used or is there another pin that gets used.

i thought only 1 & 4 get used - 1 for the center pin (top right) and 4 for the shield (ground) lower left.

but now it looks like there is a need to use a pin #3 for another input from the camera.

 

Can anyone explain exactly what wires get hooked in through the molex for back up camera use in reverse. Thanks. Any help is great.

send me a pm if you can assist, thanks.

Thanks.

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Need some help here. Using a Pioneer camera. Only looking for back up camera to automatically work in reverse. Most every other post shows the backup camera is hooked up as follows: use molex connector, only use pins 1 & 4, strip the rca yellow video wire from the camera, put the signal (center) portion of the wire into the upper right pin, and put the shield (ground) to the lower left. Leave the other two square holes (2&3) EMPTY; find a power source and that's it. And you get automatic backup camera activated in the nav screen without doing anything else. But now, according to the posts above, it seems like more is required - 3 pins need to be used. If anyone could exactly explain what is done with the molex connector, step by step, to get the back up camera working, that would be great.

 

 

See post # 9 here - which says differently

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/another-oem-navi-features-hack-thread-progress-and-documents-36342.html

 

Is it just pin 1 & 4 that is used or is there another pin that gets used.

i thought only 1 & 4 get used - 1 for the center pin (top right) and 4 for the shield (ground) lower left.

but now it looks like there is a need to use a pin #3 for another input from the camera.

 

Can anyone explain exactly what wires get hooked in through the molex for back up camera use in reverse. Thanks. Any help is great.

send me a pm if you can assist, thanks.

Thanks.

 

My wire rig also came with another wire and it was labeled as a reverse sensor, this may be the same case for you. I just wired it in with my power so it always thought it was in reverse.

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