Mirror delete, backup camera and monitor thread
 

I started this thread to look at alternatives to augment my rear view on the travel trailer design. I hope it can be used to showcase any new products or ideas regarding backup cameras, standalone monitors, mirror monitors, switching, DVD monitors like I have, etc.
If you have good ideas or questions about any camera/monitor/alternative mirror, post them here.
I realize many threads exist about this, but the tech moves on. Old links are broken, especially Ebay links.

First:
I want a standard centered backup cam on the trailer, and two side cameras. I only need to view one side cam and the backup cam during backing operations.
I can hang or pivot down the monitor in front of the current rear view mirror when towing, the inside mirror is not used with the trailer on.
Any monitor and switching suggestions? Wireless possibilities?

I was considering the idea of fabricating a custom bezel cover that would allow me to install two backup cameras focusing on the driver and passenger side areas that the side view mirrors would normally cover. I could then delete my side view mirrors completely. The only problem is, I think this set up would be illegal under current vehicle codes in my state.

So this is for your 96 Dodge Ram truck and fifth wheel right? Can you post a photo or two of your dash area? The hard part is finding the right place for the monitor.

I have several suggestions. First of all, to be open about it, I own a company that specializes in exactly what you're talking about - mobile video systems. The name of my company is Total Vision® Products. You can see some of our systems at www.totalvisionproducts.com. To let you know in advance, the systems I'm going to tell you about are mostly not on there. I hired someone to update the site because it is woefully behind where we are at the present, and they all but destroyed the whole thing for lack of knowing what they were doing. It's taken two months to put it back together and half the links still don't work right. Not enough hours in a day.

Anyway, what I would use for that application is a 7 inch quad monitor, if there is room to mount it somewhere. This type of monitor has a four input switcher built into it, and does a quad view of all four cameras, full screen of all four cameras and two sets of split screens. You said you want to see the back up camera and the right side camera as you back up, no problem, that's the most cost efficient and best way to do that. You plug the back up into port 1 and the right side on port 2, and you have them side by side on the split screen when you back up.

The disadvantage to that is you'll have to forgo the usual auto-reverse-default. What that means is that ordinarily when you put the vehicle in reverse, if you hook up the appropriate trigger wire to your back up light circuit, when you put it in reverse, it auto-defaults, full screen, to the back up camera.

I'm sorry Skyking, the timing for this is horrible, I'm going like a madman trying to get out the door to go to the SEMA convention in Vegas. The problem is I'm not at my shop and don't have access to pricing, but I can give you some educated guesstimates. The quad monitors run about $229, the back up camera about $129, the side cameras about $139 each, the trailer connector about $20, and about $75-$100 worth of cables.

You can also go on line and find all these items yourself, what we sell is the best or very close to it. We spend a lot of dollars and time buying and testing things and throw a lot of stuff out because it's crap or so-so. I have overhead and have to pay the bills so our stuff is not the cheapest, but it does come with 15+ years of experience and a guarantee you can count on.

Whether you buy something from us or not, I'm glad to give advice on systems so get a photo of the dash if you can and let me know if we can help. On the way to SEMA, should be interesting.

Thank you very much!
To be clear, I would need both side cams installed but never need to see all three cams at once. I would rather have the biggest split screen and chose between left or right side cams as needed.
When backing the far side is blind, the near side is totally covered by the mirror.

My video mirrors are about 3 years old, and the main challenge I have had is the camera longevity and the monitors dealing with heat. I now have LED backlit 7" monitors and they are much better than the first set which ran hot, and they get dimmer and dimmer as they heated up. The glare and loss of contrast in direct sunlight and the heat made them very hard to use.

The other issue is having a camera lens that is *too* wide angle. This adds a lot of barrel distortion and shrinks objects, so they look farther away than they are. I can deal with a camera with 100-120 degrees of view, but more than that is a problem, and less would be great, but you probably cannot find one with say 90 degrees or less. Having the camera be 4:3 image with the 16:10 screens actually helps "re-expand" the horizontal size of other vehicles.

Wiring needs to be robust. The cameras I have used all have power wires that are concentric rather than paired wires, so pinching them can cause a short. I had this blow the clutch cutoff switch fuse, so I could not start my car... So routing of wires is important, and relieving stress when the wires are bent (say at the door) is also important to consider.

What kinda MPG increase when removing the mirrors?
LM

I won't be removing my mirrors, but others may. I can fold mine in, and mount a small mirror on the edge when I'm not towing. I'd guess it would be a small change, maybe 2%~3%. Hard to see in the short run.

It has been a while, but I think that removing side mirrors and replacing them with the small airfoil stalks as I have reduces drag by 8-10% (both by reducing the frontal area and by lowering the Cd), and so the FE increased by about 2-3% -- I agree with skyking that this is a good guesstimate.

In the case of your box van, the drag removed vs. total drag would be negligible. Those percentages were for cars, where the frontal area change is more significant.

Having additional high-quality visual information of what is happening around the rig seems valuable enough. A TPMS is good, but nothing beats a pair of Mark I eyeballs for detecting all sorts of potential problems, moving or parked.

The alternative "solution" is mirrors large enough and of sufficient quantity to match what video could do.

Configuration testing, wind anomalies, all sorts of stuff comes to mind in understanding hitched rig performance.

That brings up my next question. Do you want to mount the side cams on the truck or on the travel trailer? If you mount them on the truck you lose sight of either side past a certain angle but you have them for the truck all the time.

If you mount them on the sides of the trailer all the way to the front, then when you back up at an extreme angle you still have 'eyes' on what would ordinarily be your blind side, but they don't see traffic next to the truck. The other thing is, if you mount them all on the trailer you'll need one more trailer connector to hook it all up. Or you use one big Deutsch connector. Not a big deal just details.

More details, which is what makes the difference between a good or great camera system, or just having cameras. The side cameras we use we order special with 50 degree FOV (field of view) lenses just for the reason you point out. Anything much bigger makes things look three times further away than they are, and so small you need a magnifying glass to see what they are. Cables are key to longevity. We used to have our specially built but found a supplier who builds them in large quantites and so are more cost effective. They use M12 connectors, which are water proof, metal at the joint, and factory overmolded for max strain relief.

When you run wires through a door or tail gate you do it like the factory does, you do it so when the door moves the wire is twisted lengthwise, instead of bending-cross sectionally Open your vehicle door, it will most likely having a harness inside a bellowed boot, you'll see what I mean.

There is not a mirror made that will show me the far side of my trailer when backing a corner. :D
That is what I'm after, enhanced vision while backing. Heading down the road I'm all mirror all the time, the monitor will likely be folded away.

Absolutely on the trailer front corners. With a 50 degree angle camera there I can see the spot that disappears in a back in. The single cam in the back plus the far side cam plus the near mirror = perfection.
My wife gets out and helps, but by the time she lets me know while backing a tight spot that I need to stop, I've wasted a lot of time. Better to see and fix things early on, rather than get totally bound up and try and fix that.
I have a wireless cam that can't quite penetrate all the trailer structure when straight on, I need to move the transmitter forward and try again. It hooks to my in dash DVD.
If I can get that functional enough, maybe a split monitor and cabling and two cams will do.

Trouble with blind-side backing, hey? There's nothing like it with a 13' tall 53' long trailer, especially into a narrow spot between two others. Avoid at all costs . . except when you have to.

While the camera[s] is [are] a good idea, it won't be perfect: depth perception will still come into play. One will still have to get out and walk back to check.

While traveling, it would be good thing to have "blind spot" coverage to supplement the mirrors, even if only at trailer rear.

I think you can't go wrong, overall, even with the addition of one.

We did that on a 53' reefer for a guy, he loved it. When I get back to Tucson I'll post some photos of that, it was cool. I was backing that thing all over the place. It also had a nose camera on the Kenworth cab, which saved his bacon once, side mirror cameras, a 5th wheel hitch cam, a windshield data recorder, a 4 channel mobile dvr and a camera on the back of the reefer. Tried to get some video of it and my camcorder died.

I was thinking you could link the selector switch to your blinkers. It would be kind of cool to just flip on a blinker and have the correct camera selected. Back in 2003 I worked in a car audio shop. We installed video all the time. The biggest thing to think about when installing the cables is twist rate, extra slack and taping together all connectors. Zip tie cables to hold points before and after the door boot. If your cables are exposed to a section of metal or other sharp surface, wrap them in electrical tape. Also avoid running power lines along same side as AV lines. Run them on opposite sides of the car.

Aside from an indash camera, they make video monitors built into rear view mirrors. It's the best place for a camera like this. The screens are still quite big and very clear. I suggest looking into them. It's a natural place for the camera and it's not illegal in some states where dash monitors are. You can also feed video to watch sponge bob on the rear view, if you really want to.

I think ORbywan and I can come up with a monitor that either folds down or stashes some other way, I'll get some pics going.

I think most of all you found the right guy!!

Skyking, I apologize, ever since I got back from SEMA we have been slammed. 14 hour + days, six days a week with an occasional Sunday off, once in a while, to go for a quad ride or work on my aero project. Responses to these threads usually show up in my email and I haven't had any so I figured everyone was busy also.

I managed to restructure the base of my boat tail and add a massive hitch extension, which so far is working like a champ. Haven't had time to post photos of that either, it's just been crazy.

Anyway, if you want to talk about this more or need more info I'm not dead, just going like a crazy person. Anyway, if you send some photos of your dash I'm sure we can figure out where to put a monitor. I just got some cool 5.6 monitors in that have four camera inputs. These days monitors that have more than two inputs usually have trigger wires on each circuit. You put power to the trigger wire and viola!, the monitor will default to that camera, thus the hit the left turn signal and the left mirror camera comes up on the monitor routine, and/or having your back up camera auto-reverse default when you put it in reverse.

I figured SEMA had been a good thing, so glad for you that was the case. There's a thread on AIR I follow that keeps me thinking of cameras and their improving abilities. Look forward to pics and more reports.

Many new cars have backup monitors with in-screen distance sensors that will turn green, yellow and red when you get closer to an object. This would be useful for long trailers so you don't have to get out and check. I'm not sure how hard it would be to get ahold of one of those systems or to set it up but it could be worth looking into.

That sounds great, I would not use the signal but a simple toggle, and go either left or right plus center rear cam. I'd only use the split screen mode.