Hey all. Yesterday my 4yr old daughter and I did a hardwired dashcam install and I snapped a few pics along the way in case anyone was curious as to what as involved. I used a typical fuse tap for power and grounded it right next to the interior fuse box. A good video for fuse taps is as that explains the basics pretty quickly. Of course the dash cam went up on the windshield right below and behind the rear view mirror. These pics are mainly about how I got the power line up there so I didn't have to use the 12v plug in the middle console.

After getting the fuse tap installed on the ACC fuse with it's own 5amp fuse, I verified it turned on and off with the car. The first step was to remove the pillar where the airbag is. I used a regular car panel removal tool. Basically it just pops out towards the inside. Start at the top and work your way down. The bottom part kind of hooks in; you'll see when you take it off.



Here you can see the clips it uses to snap in to the frame



Then I used my trusty wire coat hanger, running it through one of the openings in the front down to behind the fuse box:




Then gently wiggled it down so I could see the loop in the coat hanger that I used to put the end of the USB charging cable through to fish it back up:




I suggest taping the top of the cable to the coat hanger to make it as thin and smooth as possible. Once you fish it back up, you should be able to pull the power cable end that plugs in to the dash cam up as far as you need.



I then routed the cable along the headliner of the car, just long enough to plug in to the camera. The headliner is fairly flexible so you can stuff the cable up in there without much trouble. To ensure the cable didn't get caught up with the airbag should it deploy some day, I zip tied it to the existing wire management going up the pillar:



Once that is done, a final power on/off test to be sure everything is ok, then put the pillar cover back on, bottom first, and just kind of whack it back in to place.
Hope this helps if anyone is considering hardwiring their radar detector, dash cam, disco ball or whatever

 

Cool write up, I've been considering doing this too.

 

Can you specify please what fuse are you using to power the dash cam. I'm thinking to use fuse #19 ( DEALER OPT ACC 5A ). What about ground wire , did you find a good place close to fusebox? TIA.

 

I know this doesn't really pertain to what you are doing, But could you see what size that dash speaker is please.

 

https://maxima.org/forums/8th-genera...tallation.html

If you look at this thread I posted in the 3rd picture you can see the ground and Fuse I used. The fuse you're talking about is 2 spaces left of the one I used and should work perfectly fine, just check the specs of whatever camera you're looking to buy and see what the max current draw is (I highly doubt it'll be over 5A).

 

You should use the DEALER OPT <b>IGN</b> 5A instead. If you use the ACC one, it will keep the radio on when you shut off the car. Hope this helps.

EDIT: Not sure if you will get the same issue with the radio as I had in ACC, because I used a power bank in between the dash cam and the car to allow the camera to run at all times even when you switch off the car. The power bank is powered only when the car is started. Let us know if you experience the issue using ACC directly to the dash cam.

 

Here are some pics of which fuse I used and where I grounded it:



Original fuse on the right closest to the metal plugs, fuse needed for whatever you are adding on the side next to the pigtail.




This is in the ELEC PARTS (ACC) slot. You can see where it is grounded to the bolt in the top right.




I used the ELEC PARTS (ACC) slot as this is only powered when the car is running and turns off as soon as the car is turned off.

 

Sorry, I didn't take the speaker grill off while I was in there, but according to Crutchfield.com it takes something like 1/2" tweeters. I'd open it up myself before buying anything just to be sure, though. Also keep in mind that these Bose speakers use a different OHMs than almost all other speakers, so a regular one will be much quieter and not all that useful.

 

The dashcam I used doesn't have any sort of battery feature, once power is cut it is off in that ACC location for me, so I'm guessing yoiu are correct in that the battery bank you had was causing the radio to still get power.

 

Thank you guys, this helps me a lot Looking forward to install my dash cam probably next weekend .

 

Hey, could you please help me locate the fuse to turn signals? Both RHS and LHS? I have a Nissan maxima S, and it comes without turn signal lights on the mirror, I bought new mirror units with turn signals and mounted it on my car, now I want to tap into the connection of turn signals, I would really like your help here on this. Thank you.