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How to hard wire a dash cam T6.1 Ocean

Califan61

Califan61

VIP Member
Messages
47
Location
Warwickshire
Vehicle
T6.1 Ocean 204
I have a Thinkware dashcam which I took out of my old vehicle, it's really good BTW. Anyway there are lots of post on wiring up, especially the earth. So I thought I would bring my experience and how I wired my up here with a few pics to fuses 42 and 53 using fuse jumpers. Remove the side window air vent, it pulls off easily. Remove the side panel as this is where the easiest earthing point is on the end of the dashboard, this does pull off once you release the rear most edge, use trim tools. You may need to partially remove the door seal at the lower side but this will easily go back on. There is a pic of the back of the side panel to help guide you.

My camera is centred on the dotted area behind the mirror and the cable is pretty easy to feed around and tuck in until you get to the A pillar vertical section. I tried just feeding it in behind the door seal but it didn't sit right so ended up pulling the door seal off which made it a lot easier. A word of caution - it's a swine to get back on around the A pillar handle! Take pictures as the seal is the same profile all the way around but goes different sides of the trim around the dashboard.

There are a number of possible earth points behind the side trim, I went for the lowest torq screw. I used ignition live at 42 (7.5a) upper jumper and permanent live at 53 (10a) lower jumper as recommended elsewhere. These are in the fuse board below the light control switch making for a neat installation hidden from view with excess cable tucked behind trim.

I have tested mine and it works fine in both parking and driving modes, time will tell if parking mode drains the battery too much.

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As a follow-up, I had pulled various fuses looking for the switched/permanent supplies and had some very odd warnings on the dash so thought it was to something to do with that. I then did some research on the transporter forums to find safer fuses to use mentioned in previous post.

Here is also some advice on how to set up your piggyback or fuse Jumper correctly. I didn’t realise this at the time as never used them before, although the dashcam worked I wondered why the radio was not working!


Every day is a school day!
 
Parking mode is more intense on battery drain than you would think so keep an eye on it. Luckily our BlackVue has a cutoff voltage.
 
Parking mode is more intense on battery drain than you would think so keep an eye on it. Luckily our BlackVue has a cutoff voltage.
Thinkware dashcam has this setting too, so hopefully OK
 
Well what a coincidence, just put our latest Vlog live which is all about hardwiring a dash cam in a VW Cali T6.1. Even added some comedy at the start of this one

Only a very small channel so would love you all too subscribe

 
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