Reverse cam wiring advice

[junkman]

Hi everyone, first time post - just bought a big old Iveco Daily van and the bloke had been half way through converting his reverse cam to wireless. I'm not bothered about that, just trying to untangle the mass of disconnected wiring and hook it back up how it was.

I can't see any make or model description anywhere on it so googling the exact instructions is off the table.

Here's what's confusing me - I have the little red wire coming off the side of the video signal cable at both ends. All the online instructional things I read tell me this is take the power from the rear up to the monitor at the front. However, the monitor has its own separate red barrel-type power jack (this was itself seemingly fed to the rear in the original configuration). I would understand having one or the other, but not sure why there's both?

I've tried disregarding this red side wire, and all I get when going into reverse is a single flicker from the screen! Any help pointers much appreciated, cheers!

 

[HoneyBadger]

Breaking this down a bit, you would essentially have the following:

Screen:
This would have a feed coming from the camera, so a wire for that
Then power, two probably two wires, live and ground.

Camera:
Wire goes to screen
Wire for ground
Wire for live
Wire for switch feed (or this could be the live wire)

Ground goes to a metal patch on the car or even ground from reverse lights, live, and or switch feed for the camera I would tap into the reversing lights or power feed (For the screen)

 

[Meatball]

Here's what's confusing me - I have the little red wire coming off the side of the video signal cable at both ends. All the online instructional things I read tell me this is take the power from the rear up to the monitor at the front. However, the monitor has its own separate red barrel-type power jack (this was itself seemingly fed to the rear in the original configuration). I would understand having one or the other, but not sure why there's both?

I've tried disregarding this red side wire, and all I get when going into reverse is a single flicker from the screen! Any help pointers much appreciated, cheers!

The red wire on each side of the video cable allows you to run a reverse signal to your head unit / screen. You connect one end to the reverse light (positive) and one to the reverse signal input on the head unit. The video cable should connect to your camera and the video input on the screen.
-12v power (red?)
-Ground (black?)
- video in (yellow)
-reverse signal input (red?)

It could be your monitor is powered by the 12v feed from the reverse light when you select reverse gear?

On the camera end you should have
-12v from reverse light (red)
-ground (to bodywork / ground point)
-Video output (yellow composite)

When I added a reverse camera to my Civic I made it so the camera’s power input and red wire from the video cable were both connected to the reverse light. The red wire on the other end of the video cable then connected to my head unit’s reverse signal input. This made the head unit switch to the camera feed when I selected reverse gear

 

[junkman]

Cheers for the input guys. There's not any reverse signal input at the monitor for this red side-wire to connect to, that's the thing. The monitor has two rca/phono inputs and the red barrel power input. I believe the 2nd phono is for an optional 2nd camera?

The yellow phono is obvs the video feed, and like you said I'm powering the red 12v barrel connectors from the reverse light. So - sorry if I'm being thick - can someone explain the need for a separate signal input? If the reverse light turns it on, surely it needs no other signal telling it to turn on? And I can't see anything at the monitor to connect it to in any case

 

[Nasher]

When I added a reverse camera to my Civic I made it so the camera’s power input and red wire from the video cable were both connected to the reverse light. The red wire on the other end of the video cable then connected to my head unit’s reverse signal input. This made the head unit switch to the camera feed when I selected reverse gear

Same thing I did years ago on a Focus ST. The head unit should automatically switch as soon as the camera is powered.

 

[junkman]

Got it working now. Turns out the red wire was redundant. I'm sure you could hook it up in other ways that do make use of it, but my problem was a broken phono plug at the camera end. Unplugged it and it left the middle "male" contact snapped off inside the female side. Replaced both sides of that and now it's grand

 

[djbenjo]

you shouldnt really splice the reverse light feed for anything more than a switching signal