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Tap into rear-view mirror power for dash cam?

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12K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  andym1978  
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#1 ·
Hi All,

I have a 2014 TAH Limited with Tech. I'm trying to get power to my dash camera with minimal surgery to the car and I don't want to have visible wires running around the dash. The camera is a basic Aukey unit with a capacitor.

There is a power feed for the auto-dimming rear-view mirror that also supplies power to the auto highbeam sensor above it. I've seen a thread about tapping into that power line for radar detectors (for 2013 Avalon), but here is my concern. The dash camera probably draws a little more power, especially on startup while it is charging the capacitor. I'm not too concerned about melting wires or blowing fuses, but rather wonder if the auto highbeam sensor will get proper power to initialize before the car finishes self test.

Has anyone done this and, if so, did you encounter any issues? If you found a way to route power that conceals the wire well and doesn't involved cutting the dash board, I'd love to hear about it.


Thanks.
 
#2 ·
I never liked the idea to over load OEM circuits and prefer to use supplied cables and power converters.
If your dash cam power cable is long enough you can run it from the 12V charging port in the cubby under the trim piece on the right (unclip its lower part just enough to run the cable down), down under the glove box (unclip the bottom cover and use velcro or zip ties to secure the cable), then up under the door rubber seal and then under the A-pillar cover (if you don't want to remove the cover, remove the door seal and slide cable under the cover and reinstall the seal) and under the headliner.
Start from the top and cubby, so you can hide the extra cable under the glove box bottom cover.
 
#3 · (Edited)
andym1978 said:
If you found a way to route power that conceals the wire well and doesn't involved cutting the dash board, I'd love to hear about it.
Click to expand...
Andy,

Check this out. Between the top of the windshield and the headliner is space where power cables can easily be hidden. Just put the power plug in your camera then run the cable vertically to that space. Push the cable into the space moving toward the driver side. Look for a seam at the top of the A-pillar airbag and tuck the cable in there. Now push the cable into the door molding moving down toward the fuse box. When you get down near the bottom of the dash, move the cable out of the molding and run it through the kick panel (you can remove that panel easily) and then to the fuse box. Trim your cable as necessary leaving a bit of slack, plug everything in using an add-a-fuse (use one of the two accessory circuit fuses which would be exactly the same as plugging into an accessory port) and you're done.

When finished the cable will be invisible except a couple of inches from camera to headliner.

Edit to add: Note this solution works best if you have a hardwire kit for your camera and if you need 'car off' power for parking mode. David's solution is the way to go if you'll be plugging into your accessory port with a cable/plug that came with the camera. Both get you to the same place, taking video of crazy driver antics.

Cheers!
 
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