Reverse Camera - recommendations please

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wsc

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Hi there - I have a W204. Looking for an aftermarket reverse camera, anyone have a link to one they bought and they found good? (from UK seller, or Aliexpress/China).
Does it matter much if its on the boot release vs on the left hand side near the LED lights. I plan to wire myself along with CarPlay unit I will install.
 
I have one of these on my CLK. It works well and was cheap. I liked the small connector plug so.it's easier to get through the rubber gaiter to the boot lid but critically for me was the ability to turn off the awful guidelines that don't help in any way.

Cheap camera

Took a week or two to arrive from China
 
I bought a cheap (£22) wirless one of ebay from a uk chinese supplier....

Kit is pretty good and included a screen which I mounted next to the main display in the center of the dash board. I am very impressed for the money. The only issue is it suffers from interference in some places from other wifi signals, but most of th etime works fine, I could change it to a hard wired set up as it was in the kit.

I mounted the camera under the rear bumper where a tow bar would be, the wiring for the proper place in the boot lid looks quite a challenge to get to but certainly possible.
cheers
 
I have one of these on my CLK. It works well and was cheap. I liked the small connector plug so.it's easier to get through the rubber gaiter to the boot lid but critically for me was the ability to turn off the awful guidelines that don't help in any way.

Cheap camera

Took a week or two to arrive from China
Thanks, that is where I am stuck. I am going to be buying one of those boxes to retrofit CarPlay/Android Auto to my NTG 4.5, and I am not sure if that superimposes gridlines or not, so don't want to to end up with 2 gridlines.
I like this one for my W204 as it is flush with the trunk: Car Rear View Reverse Parking Camera Trunk Handle For Mercedes Benz W204 W212 | eBay but it looks like it has permanent gridline....!
 
I think it will be permanent. Generally they have a wire that you can cut to turn them off. Mounting one of these in a CLK is a massive pain as so many sellers sell one in the number plate lamp but it absolutely does not fit (I've tried a couple of times and the CLK just seems to have a unique shape lamp). On top of that there is a real problem with depth behind the trim so this was as flush as I could make it. The one you linked is probably not going to be as flush as you think. I cut a similar one into my CLK Coupe some years back. The Cabriolet is much harder to work on.
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This it the one in my current car that I linked earlier:
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The field of view is pretty good I think for something so cheap.
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Thanks. Okay a few ebay sellers coming back to me saying the trunk camera has the wire to make it without gridlines, waiting for a few more to reply and lets see.

I am now curious about front camera.............
 
Why aftermarket - because of price, or the guidelines (or both)?

I had an original MB camera restrofitted by www.comandonline.co.uk, as per the original fitment it fits into a recess in the boot lid trim (new trim bit was required).

In spite of its age (well, it would be 10 years old tech now), the image quality is considerably better than what I have seen so far on most other marques fitted with a reverse camera.

That said, it's relatively pricey, and does not have the guidelines.
 
Why aftermarket - because of price, or the guidelines (or both)?

I had an original MB camera restrofitted by www.comandonline.co.uk, it fits into a recess in the boot lid trim (new trim bit was required).

In spite of it's age (well it would be 10 years tech now), the image qualiry is considerably better than what I have seen so far on most other marques fitted with a reverse camera.

That said, it's relatively pricey, and does not have the guidelines.

Price mainly, its £500 region which is insane! I would say rip off price tbh, given you can buy a camera from eBay for £8-£30 and install it yourself. Quality I can't comment just yet, but that OEM camera module must be 12 years old now so I am hoping technology has come a long way (iPhone 1 launched in 2007 and look where we are now :D ). Camera is not a must for me, but given the price it makes sense to put it in.
Guidelines I don't care about too much, just curious to find one where I can turn it on or off, as I will be installing some kind of Android/Carplay system which should be able to show gridlines themselves.
 
I bought and fitted this camera, it's a neat solution and I preferred the idea of this compared to replacing the light fitting (this is more central). It's ok but the quality of the picture isn't amazing, not sure how much that has to do with the camera though as I had a good look at the specs of all available cameras and they are all pretty much the same. From memory I think you can snip one of the wires and it removes the gridlines, I've kept them on though.

Also there are plenty of guides to help you fit this and I found it pretty easy, I originally was going to go down the bluetooth/wireless route as people said it was hard to get the wiring through from the boot but I was put off by interference and lag stories, it was actually very easy to get the wire through in the end.
 
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Ok thanks, found one on AliExpress which had proper fish eye vs the others not being so (at least that's what they say!) and joint to the trunk lid. About $21 let's see how it goes, now for the wait since it's coming from China.
 
Ok got mine! I am using a fuse tap to connect to my SAM to power the camera. What fuse slot should I be using for the power? (on a facelift W204 C63). Does it matter which way round the fuse tap goes into the slots?
 
On mine, there is a specific wire out of the reverse unit. It's live when reverse is selected.
 
Hi,
Yes the orientation of the fuse tap does make a difference it will work in both orientations but only one way will the fuseways of the tap be in circuit.
 
Hi,
Yes the orientation of the fuse tap does make a difference it will work in both orientations but only one way will the fuseways of the tap be in circuit.
Do you know which way is the correct way? :D Is the attached the correct way?
 

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Hi,
This Utube video explains it its reference to +ve -ve of the fuse holder can be a bit confusing but it just refers to live side and the load side of where fuse sits
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