A front camera

My car has a longer front nose compared with other my cars in the past and I

always have a difficulty to see the right and the left at a blind spot. I decided

to install a front camera which helps me to view those. I happened to succeed

to win the bid a front camera for Mitsubishi Delica. It was only 2100 Yen at

Yahoo Auction. The seller was clearly claiming that the camera was damaged

and selling it as a junk. That must be the reason why other people did not bid

so much. The camera looked like this below.

 

 

The frame is damaged as is above and the cover or the lens has scratches.

It has a cable and a 4 pin connector. I don't have any information regarding

the pin assignments. You should not expect a lot for a junk camera like this

but I love to revive junks and my new project now is to make it possible to

use this for the Celsior. The camera is not for Toyota but some technical

arrangements might clear the problem.

I first needed to know which pin is for DC and which pin for the video signal.

There is no information at all but there are only 4 pins and measuring the

resistances between each pins, you can guess the pin assignments. I found

2 are internally connected in the camera. One must be a video ground and

the other must be a DC ground. Strictly speaking I must distinguish those

2 lines but the distance between the connector and the camera is so short

that handling them together would not cause any significant problem.

Remaining 2 pins must be a video and DC+. Measuring the resistance

reversing the prove, I quickly found DC+ since the resistance varied a lot

charging and discharging a internal electrolytic capacitor. The remaining

pin must be a video line of hot side. To confirm my assumptions, I hooked

up DC+ pin to DC power unit and the Video hot line to a TV via a resister

22 Ohm each to avoid a problem limiting a current. This is a kind of idea I

always use to check things like this. Depending on the situation, I use 5, 10,

22 or 47 Ohm. I started to supply 6V not 12V since some cameras are

designed to work lower than 12V. The camera worked perfectly catching

the left and the right but the front was not very clear since there were

scratches. Bypassing 22 Ohm, the DC voltage change from 6V to 10 V

reduces the current about 30% and I quickly noticed there is a internal

switching regulator in the camera. At 5V, the TV screen showed some beats

and above 11V caused some flicker. With these results I decided to supply

8V to the camera using a home made series regulator which has PQR30RV1

of Sharp.

 

Anyway, the camera is now functioning and what I need to do now is to install

it to the car. Below is a photo how i set it up. Can you see that? It is in the

lower part of Toyota emblem. So much for today. I need to hook up cables

between the camera and the switch box but the time is running out today and

I will do it someday soon.  I will let you know the result.