Infra red reverse camera

[Kmg]

I am planning to install an IR reverse camera for my ZR6. I browsed ebay and found many choices. My questions are:

1. Are CCD camera a lot better than CMOS camera? Or just provide a little bit clearer image.

2. Where is the best place to install camera? There are cameras which can put on top of licence plate and fixed by licence plate screws. Most cameras require hole drilling. Should the camera be installed under the car or inside the boot?

3. Anyone installed one of the cameras in ebay and can provide feedback?

Thanks

[DJKOR]

I am planning to install an IR reverse camera for my ZR6. I browsed ebay and found many choices. My questions are:

1. Are CCD camera a lot better than CMOS camera? Or just provide a little bit clearer image.

2. Where is the best place to install camera? There are cameras which can put on top of licence plate and fixed by licence plate screws. Most cameras require hole drilling. Should the camera be installed under the car or inside the boot?

3. Anyone installed one of the cameras in ebay and can provide feedback?

Thanks

I have an IR reverse camera for mine. It came with my head unit, but it is one of the IR ones you can get from eBay as well. I have mentioned it, together with my a few words on installation here:

Reverse camera

To answer your questions:

1) There is quite a bit of discussion about CCD vs. CMOS. CCD's do offer better low light performance, but do cost more than CMOS. In the case of the reverse camera, if you were going for the best low light performance, CCD would be the way to go, but personally I don't think it's worth the extra money in this scenario.

2) This all depends on what you have to work with. If you read my tread posted above, you will see that I was quite restricted in my mounting options. I eventually used the most typical spot for camera mounting which is right above the number plate. Mine is mounted through the boot lid itself with an opening cut in the plastic trim surrounding it to enable the camera to have a decent view.

3) Well my IR camera is an eBay style unit, so I guess you can say that I've installed one. Day performance is excellent and the field of view is great. Night time performance in complete darkness is alright, but due to my mounting position, a lot of IR light is reflected back at the camera at a close proximity which clouds up the image. I will be working on a solution for this (sealing the surrounding area) when I eventually have some time.

[Kmg]

I am planning to install an IR reverse camera for my ZR6. I browsed ebay and found many choices. My questions are:

1. Are CCD camera a lot better than CMOS camera? Or just provide a little bit clearer image.

2. Where is the best place to install camera? There are cameras which can put on top of licence plate and fixed by licence plate screws. Most cameras require hole drilling. Should the camera be installed under the car or inside the boot?

3. Anyone installed one of the cameras in ebay and can provide feedback?

Thanks

I have an IR reverse camera for mine. It came with my head unit, but it is one of the IR ones you can get from eBay as well. I have mentioned it, together with my a few words on installation here:

Reverse camera

To answer your questions:

1) There is quite a bit of discussion about CCD vs. CMOS. CCD's do offer better low light performance, but do cost more than CMOS. In the case of the reverse camera, if you were going for the best low light performance, CCD would be the way to go, but personally I don't think it's worth the extra money in this scenario.

2) This all depends on what you have to work with. If you read my tread posted above, you will see that I was quite restricted in my mounting options. I eventually used the most typical spot for camera mounting which is right above the number plate. Mine is mounted through the boot lid itself with an opening cut in the plastic trim surrounding it to enable the camera to have a decent view.

3) Well my IR camera is an eBay style unit, so I guess you can say that I've installed one. Day performance is excellent and the field of view is great. Night time performance in complete darkness is alright, but due to my mounting position, a lot of IR light is reflected back at the camera at a close proximity which clouds up the image. I will be working on a solution for this (sealing the surrounding area) when I eventually have some time.

Thanks for the information

[Kmg]

I found the following 2 cameras:

rearview night vision reverse IR camera parking car 169

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAP...em=220259098905

Dimension: 75mm x 50mm x75mm

View angle: 120 degree

rearview reverse infra-red camera parking car w167

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-rearview-reverse-i...1742.m153.l1262

Dimension: 28mm x 63mm

View angle: 92 degree

169 has a wider angle but seems too big to fit into the hole above number plate. 167 is small enough but the view angle is too limited.

Anyone installed these 2 types of cameras before can tell me if 169 is able to fit somewhere else without fixing the whole unit outside the car, or 92 degree view angle is good enough?

Thanks

[DJKOR]

The style of camera that I have is the '167' one that you have shown. I'm not sure about the other Aurion's out there, but mine didn't exactly have a cutout for the camera. It appeared that AurionZR6 (who wrote up a detailed reverse camera installation DIY) had a cutout but your mileage may vary.

My Aurion had a area marked out for where a camera could mount, but I needed to drill and hack away at it to fit the camera. It was just a stencil in the plastic. In that sense however, the '169' style camera that you have shown may be too large to fit the standard mounting hole, but you could easily just hack at the plastic and make it fit neatly for a stealth installation.

[Kmg]

Thanks, is 92 degree view angle wide enough for Aurion?

[DJKOR]

If you choose to go for camera '167', this is what my installation was like. My camera installation required drilling one hole in the boot lid and quite a lot of hacking at the plastic trim that covers it. The opening for my camera is about 2 times larger than what it could have been, which was due to my chunky personalised plate. I needed to mount it further back which required more plastic to be trimmed away to give it a good field of view. With a normal number plate, the camera can be mounted such that it sticks out further which will mean the resulting hole in the plastic only needs to be large enough to fit the camera through.

I had to pull mine all apart today to trim more plastic to fix some blind spots and to add some silicone to water seal it, so I took the opportunity to take some photos.

The hole drilled into the boot lid:

The camera mounted with some silicone to water seal it. Was quite a mess to do:

This is what the cut out in the plastic trim ended up looking like. It's a pretty big hole, but there was nothing I could do because of my number plate:

The end result:

This is what the camera can see. As well I have taken a photo with my digital camera positioned in the same spot as the reverse camera:

[DJKOR]

Thanks, is 92 degree view angle wide enough for Aurion?

For me, the 92 degree viewing angle seems sufficient. It depends on how you want to use your camera. The main purpose of mine is to let me park properly. I always reverse park and prior to the camera, I would always have to open the door and stick my head out to gauge the distance. The camera had make it many times easier now.

If you need to to make sure you don't hit any kids behind the car, you will find that whatever the camera doesn't see, your side mirrors will. So with that combination, a 92 degree field of view seems fairly sufficient. I was going to reverse out onto the street and set up some makers and take photos to give an idea of what the camera can see, but I just dried it after washing it... and it's raining. I'm quite fussy about having a clean car.

Edit: Here are a couple of photos to show how close a small object on the ground needs to be to the rear of the car to be seen. Of course you can see objects that are closer to the car, so long as they are taller.

Edited July 24, 2008 by DJKOR

[Kmg]

ZR6 already has a 3 x 3 cm square hole between the 2 number plate lamps so it will save me some drilling time. 92 degree lens angle looks good enough from what I see in your photos.

Thanks

Edited July 24, 2008 by Kmg