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Ah, good idea, if there are any power source near the battery that will turn on/off with the car, I can tap into that. When you have a chance, would you mind posting a picture of what the terminals of your battery currently look like after the hard wire has been connected?
Thank you and much appreciated! Your installer did a fantastic job and the wire barely shows in the picture. Am I correct to assume that the little red wire hanging on the side of the “+” terminal is your dash cam wire?
Well, I got constant power wired- so figured I would update the thread, took care of it today and all in all was pretty easy (with one notable exception detailed below that should allow you to all laugh at my misfortune).
Once I pulled the cover off the battery area in the frunk (just about 6 clips under and popped off quite easy, I also pulled off what I am assuming is an air vent- to give me access to where the wire was going to come through the firewall. (this was the 2nd of two plastic air filter parts that came off and gave me both access to the firewall pass through and the positive terminal of the battery)
Then from inside the car I pulled up the carpet on the passenger floorboard near the glove box (where the light is pointing)
I couldn't quite access the pass through well, so I took off the 4 clips holding the plastic trim up on the underside of the glovebox and took it off- there were 2 wires connected as well (speaker and light fixture- both were easy to remove)
This gave me much better access to the firewall pass through
I didnt want to cut any of the rubber of this grommet thing- so instead of risking damaging the rubber stopper/grommet- I pulled it free, and put the dashcam power cord around the edge of the stopper, and put it back (prob isnt the "best" as the power cord is now pinched up against the metal- but easier to replace dashcam power cord if needed, and so far working just fine and allowed me to not modify car at all)
When I passed it through this is where it was coming out from the frunk
I decided to wire on a female cigarette lighter adapter (the one I got came pre-wired with eyelets and had an inline fuse already https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00G8WLW2Y/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 )
.....
And this is where the fun began- I easily wired up the eyelets to the battery, and was pretty much home free, just re-tightening the nuts on the battery terminal with a socket wrench, when I managed to bump my elbow and nail the funny bone- which caused me to drop the socket wrench while on the positive battery terminal- which then fell- and managed to lay RIGHT across and contact the negative terminal- which immediately began arcing, the positive terminal eyelet of my adapter plastic metled and caught on fire.
I was not dumb enough to try and grab it off with a bare hand, instead spend about 8 second trying to use a piece of plastic to get it off the negative terminal- and failed, so ran across my garage to grab the first pair of pliars I could fine, ran back to the car, pulled it off (which by this time it had completely melted the positive battery terminal nut which is permanently welded in my 10mm socket wrench now)
But I got it pulled off- and would love to say that's where the story ended, but NO... as I was pulling the wrench away of course it falls out of the pliers into the frunk- and it was red hot, which immediately lit some of the carpet in my frunk on fire- so THEN I stupidly grabbed the wrench with my hand to save the car, threw it on the ground of the garage, and got a sweet burn on my hand from it.
Luckily the fire was very small, and only burned about a dime sized area of the carpet- which you really cant tell (looks like my kid left a lollipop on the carpet that left a sticky stain).
So- after a through investigation of the car to make sure I didnt damage anything (I didnt), and then a quick trip to the auto parts store to replace the bolts that I managed to smelt, it was back to buisness.
here is the picture shortly after the fire showing the melted positive terminal
And here is a picture after cleaning the terminals, re splicing an eyelet onto the positive lead and attaching them without fireworks
From there I was home free, I had some spare pipe insulation that I ran the wires through both to keep them snug and in place and minimize any rattles (haven't heard any at all so far)
And here is the insulation/wires tucked away behind the air vents and headed into car
From there, just put everything back together, grab a couple ice cubes to rub on the nice blister on your hand, and enjoy a dash cam with constant power.
Hope this helps some of you get yours wired in- if not, hope you can at least laugh at my misfortune, I sure did (AFTER I was certain I didnt kill my car- if I did, I wouldn't be posting on here, I would probably still be crying in my garage).
-Matt
Once I pulled the cover off the battery area in the frunk (just about 6 clips under and popped off quite easy, I also pulled off what I am assuming is an air vent- to give me access to where the wire was going to come through the firewall. (this was the 2nd of two plastic air filter parts that came off and gave me both access to the firewall pass through and the positive terminal of the battery)
Then from inside the car I pulled up the carpet on the passenger floorboard near the glove box (where the light is pointing)
I couldn't quite access the pass through well, so I took off the 4 clips holding the plastic trim up on the underside of the glovebox and took it off- there were 2 wires connected as well (speaker and light fixture- both were easy to remove)
This gave me much better access to the firewall pass through
I didnt want to cut any of the rubber of this grommet thing- so instead of risking damaging the rubber stopper/grommet- I pulled it free, and put the dashcam power cord around the edge of the stopper, and put it back (prob isnt the "best" as the power cord is now pinched up against the metal- but easier to replace dashcam power cord if needed, and so far working just fine and allowed me to not modify car at all)
When I passed it through this is where it was coming out from the frunk
I decided to wire on a female cigarette lighter adapter (the one I got came pre-wired with eyelets and had an inline fuse already https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00G8WLW2Y/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 )
.....
And this is where the fun began- I easily wired up the eyelets to the battery, and was pretty much home free, just re-tightening the nuts on the battery terminal with a socket wrench, when I managed to bump my elbow and nail the funny bone- which caused me to drop the socket wrench while on the positive battery terminal- which then fell- and managed to lay RIGHT across and contact the negative terminal- which immediately began arcing, the positive terminal eyelet of my adapter plastic metled and caught on fire.
I was not dumb enough to try and grab it off with a bare hand, instead spend about 8 second trying to use a piece of plastic to get it off the negative terminal- and failed, so ran across my garage to grab the first pair of pliars I could fine, ran back to the car, pulled it off (which by this time it had completely melted the positive battery terminal nut which is permanently welded in my 10mm socket wrench now)
But I got it pulled off- and would love to say that's where the story ended, but NO... as I was pulling the wrench away of course it falls out of the pliers into the frunk- and it was red hot, which immediately lit some of the carpet in my frunk on fire- so THEN I stupidly grabbed the wrench with my hand to save the car, threw it on the ground of the garage, and got a sweet burn on my hand from it.
Luckily the fire was very small, and only burned about a dime sized area of the carpet- which you really cant tell (looks like my kid left a lollipop on the carpet that left a sticky stain).
So- after a through investigation of the car to make sure I didnt damage anything (I didnt), and then a quick trip to the auto parts store to replace the bolts that I managed to smelt, it was back to buisness.
here is the picture shortly after the fire showing the melted positive terminal
And here is a picture after cleaning the terminals, re splicing an eyelet onto the positive lead and attaching them without fireworks
From there I was home free, I had some spare pipe insulation that I ran the wires through both to keep them snug and in place and minimize any rattles (haven't heard any at all so far)
And here is the insulation/wires tucked away behind the air vents and headed into car
From there, just put everything back together, grab a couple ice cubes to rub on the nice blister on your hand, and enjoy a dash cam with constant power.
Hope this helps some of you get yours wired in- if not, hope you can at least laugh at my misfortune, I sure did (AFTER I was certain I didnt kill my car- if I did, I wouldn't be posting on here, I would probably still be crying in my garage).
-Matt
K-MTG
Sunshade Captain of TMC
I hope your hand and the car is fine...Any picks of the wrench? I am curious what it looks like.
I'll take some in the morning- not much to see- once it cooled- just a slightly deformed 10mm socket with a nut fused inside. It also caused the oil in the socket to leak out- but that wont show on pictures. I took the car for some nice long drives, tested everything I could think of, and charged it- so I am quite certain its fine (and really there is nothing it should have done- because the wrench was the path of least resistance so no other current went through the car, the only thing I could have damaged would have been the battery from thermal damage from the wrench if it was hot enough)
RayK
Active Member
Sorry to read about your misfortunes involving the socket wrench. Good to see that you maintained your sense of humor after all that. I'm planning to transfer an Anker Roav C1 dashcam currently in my Bimmer to the 3 when it arrives. The dashcam is essentially powered via a USB port; usually by the included USB-cigarette lighter adapter. I believe that there's a pair of standard USB outlets behind the panel where the smartphones are connected in the center console; what the Lightning and Micro USB cables plug into. Do you know if those outlets are constantly powered or are they switched on/off when the car goes to sleep? I'm looking for the latter as I only want the camera to record while I'm driving. It has its own built-in battery and parking/hit-and-run recording mode so I don't need continuous power. The only other question I need to resolve is the maximum current capability of those USB ports.
RVD98072
Member
I did a similar self install of my Blackvue 650 front and rear dashcam on my previous car (Nissan Leaf) but used a fuse to power it permanently.
I wanted a cleaner job for my MX so I bit the bullet and hired calibred customs to do it right with all of the wires hidden, etc.
For my M3, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do. I may go with a self install again to save some money so this post will come in handy.
Ouch on the socket wrench...
I wanted a cleaner job for my MX so I bit the bullet and hired calibred customs to do it right with all of the wires hidden, etc.
For my M3, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do. I may go with a self install again to save some money so this post will come in handy.
Ouch on the socket wrench...
So the power via those usb jacks are only powered on while car on/driving. There has been no found constant 12v power supply when parked in the cabin (hence me going in the frunk). The camera pulls such little juice relative to the battery, to me it was worth it- so if I am parked and someone backs into car etc I will have record of it if parked.
Bumping this as this thread was tremendously helpful in installing my DR-900S this afternoon. I initially contacted Calibred to do the installation. They quoted $300 for the install (with your own parts) but when I responded with available dates I never heard back. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as the interior trim in the Model 3 is extremely forgiving. Wires tuck in very easily and you can get extremely close to a hidden installation without the exorbitant installation fee, and an hours worth of work. I have the dash cam connected to an external battery (cigarette adapter > BlackVue B-112 external battery > dash cam), and have the battery stowed in the center console. I don't think heat will be an issue, but I'm going to keep an eye on the temperature for the next few days just in case.
The BlackVue app isn't too user-friendly, and you'll want to double-check that you didn't accidentally enable public view of your camera, but all-in-all, this is definitely an easy DIY and I would reconsider getting this professionally installed just to tuck away a few inches of cable in the AP housing.
The BlackVue app isn't too user-friendly, and you'll want to double-check that you didn't accidentally enable public view of your camera, but all-in-all, this is definitely an easy DIY and I would reconsider getting this professionally installed just to tuck away a few inches of cable in the AP housing.
I too experienced a similar experience after contacting Calibred. Decided to install myself. With the help of this forum the DR-900S install was done in my garage within an hour. Saved a ton!
So it gave me the errors and had to get the 12v replaced a while ago- guess I never updated this.
I changed and re routed into the cabin and spliced into the 12v cigarette adapter in center console for and 2nd outlet and have it plugged in hidden in center console and have a battery backup for parking mode
