Installation Of A Pormido 998 Mirror/Camera System

[Gary Lewis]

Melissa, the tech at Pormido, doubted my ability to do this [...]

She should take a look to couple of threads on this forum!

About the rear cam position, I personnaly prefer a higher one.

Ball mount can vary, depending the trailer height. If for any reason the ball mount has to be flat or in raised position, a lower positioned cam becomes at risk of being "puched" or damaged by a wrong connecting trailer move.

Yes, Gary does tend to get into some technically-difficult projects, like a significant re-wire of Big Blue to bring the electrical system up to 90's standards with fuses and relays, and lots of grounds. And EFI waiting in the wings.

On the camera, I agree that height is good - to a point. Remember that I had to angle it down ~35 degrees when it was at the top of the license tag in order to be able to see the ball. And that angle is about as far down as I want to go or I'll start losing the view at the top. So I think placing it at the top of the license tag is going to be about the right height.

As for the front camera, I think you missed the discussion about filling those channels in the grille with plastic and epoxy, adding studs to the back of the plastic, milling the top/back edge of the opening flat, and then sealing it with an aluminum plate and RTV. Or, as I think about it, maybe a gasket glued to the plate so it'll seal up against the raised edge of that cavity.

But, there's a lot of work to be done 'twixt now and then to find out if it is even going to work. That's because I'm not sure that I can get the right angle of the camera with the clear opening in the oval. And since it is so hard to reach that area once the grille is installed in the truck, I'm going to mock it up on the work bench. I'll put the grille at the same angle it is on the truck, set up something to block the view like the bumper does, and put the draw bar in place. Then I can hold the camera in the cavity and see if it is going to work.

My guess is that I'll not only have to drill out the stud hole in the grille but also the hole where the stud was in the bezel. And I suspect that I'll have to make the clear spot even bigger in order to be able to have a clear field of view for the camera.

And that is assuming that I can get the clear spot clear enough that it doesn't distort the view.

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, Gary does tend to get into some technically-difficult projects, like a significant re-wire of Big Blue to bring the electrical system up to 90's standards with fuses and relays, and lots of grounds. And EFI waiting in the wings.

On the camera, I agree that height is good - to a point. Remember that I had to angle it down ~35 degrees when it was at the top of the license tag in order to be able to see the ball. And that angle is about as far down as I want to go or I'll start losing the view at the top. So I think placing it at the top of the license tag is going to be about the right height.

As for the front camera, I think you missed the discussion about filling those channels in the grille with plastic and epoxy, adding studs to the back of the plastic, milling the top/back edge of the opening flat, and then sealing it with an aluminum plate and RTV. Or, as I think about it, maybe a gasket glued to the plate so it'll seal up against the raised edge of that cavity.

But, there's a lot of work to be done 'twixt now and then to find out if it is even going to work. That's because I'm not sure that I can get the right angle of the camera with the clear opening in the oval. And since it is so hard to reach that area once the grille is installed in the truck, I'm going to mock it up on the work bench. I'll put the grille at the same angle it is on the truck, set up something to block the view like the bumper does, and put the draw bar in place. Then I can hold the camera in the cavity and see if it is going to work.

My guess is that I'll not only have to drill out the stud hole in the grille but also the hole where the stud was in the bezel. And I suspect that I'll have to make the clear spot even bigger in order to be able to have a clear field of view for the camera.

And that is assuming that I can get the clear spot clear enough that it doesn't distort the view.

Been thinking about this a bit. And I don't know how far I want to chase this dream of having the camera shoot through the Ford emblem. Or, maybe I should say have the "front" camera shoot through the emblem. That's because I'm thinking that I missed an opportunity...

I measured the rear camera's current draw at something like 275 ma on the red wire and 140 ma on the black wire. And that's obviously quite a bit more then the 260 ma on the red wire for the front camera, and it is likely why the guy that tried using a rear camera in front fried the mirror.

But, what if I used a relay? Have the red wire from the mirror pull in a relay, and have the relay then supply all of the current to the red and black wires on the camera. Typically a Bosch relay takes ~200 ma to pull in. So the mirror could easily handle that, and the relay could easily supply power to the camera.

Man, just having a waterproof front camera would make all of the difference in the world. Basically I'd be wiring now instead of testing.

[Gary Lewis]

Been thinking about this a bit. And I don't know how far I want to chase this dream of having the camera shoot through the Ford emblem. Or, maybe I should say have the "front" camera shoot through the emblem. That's because I'm thinking that I missed an opportunity...

I measured the rear camera's current draw at something like 275 ma on the red wire and 140 ma on the black wire. And that's obviously quite a bit more then the 260 ma on the red wire for the front camera, and it is likely why the guy that tried using a rear camera in front fried the mirror.

But, what if I used a relay? Have the red wire from the mirror pull in a relay, and have the relay then supply all of the current to the red and black wires on the camera. Typically a Bosch relay takes ~200 ma to pull in. So the mirror could easily handle that, and the relay could easily supply power to the camera.

Man, just having a waterproof front camera would make all of the difference in the world. Basically I'd be wiring now instead of testing.

Well, things are starting to become clear, so to speak.

Basically, what is becoming clear is that I don't know how to polish a round spot on the back of the Ford oval. What I did was to glue a piece of felt on the end of a 3/8" dowel, chuck that in the mill, and use chrome polishing compound to take the blue off of back of the plastic. And as you can see below, the view through is anything but clear. In fact, when you look at the plastic at an angle you can see concentric grooves polished in it from imperfections in the "pad" - in spite of me having trued the end on the lathe.

And given my doubts that shooting at an angle through a piece of plastic that isn't flat on the front will give a good image, I think I'm going to abandon this approach. Unless someone has a Better Idea - after all, it is a Ford.

So, you might ask, what is the plan, Stan? And that is to see if I can use a waterproof rear camera in place of the front camera. You'll probably remember that I discovered that the front camera has 4 wires and the rear camera has 5 wires. And the extra wire carries power in addition to the red wire that carries power, like it does on the front camera.

So, I'm going to install a relay, as shown in the diagram below. When the mirror supplies power to the red wire that will pull the relay in. And the relay will supply power to both the black and red wires. Plus, the relay will have a snubber diode so the back EMF of the coil doesn't blow up the mirror.

Thoughts? Better ideas?

And I think this is where the camera will go. The reason for placing it on the bumper is because if it was on the grille it be obscured by the fog lights when trying to look down.

 

[grumpin]

Well, things are starting to become clear, so to speak.

Basically, what is becoming clear is that I don't know how to polish a round spot on the back of the Ford oval. What I did was to glue a piece of felt on the end of a 3/8" dowel, chuck that in the mill, and use chrome polishing compound to take the blue off of back of the plastic. And as you can see below, the view through is anything but clear. In fact, when you look at the plastic at an angle you can see concentric grooves polished in it from imperfections in the "pad" - in spite of me having trued the end on the lathe.

And given my doubts that shooting at an angle through a piece of plastic that isn't flat on the front will give a good image, I think I'm going to abandon this approach. Unless someone has a Better Idea - after all, it is a Ford.

So, you might ask, what is the plan, Stan? And that is to see if I can use a waterproof rear camera in place of the front camera. You'll probably remember that I discovered that the front camera has 4 wires and the rear camera has 5 wires. And the extra wire carries power in addition to the red wire that carries power, like it does on the front camera.

So, I'm going to install a relay, as shown in the diagram below. When the mirror supplies power to the red wire that will pull the relay in. And the relay will supply power to both the black and red wires. Plus, the relay will have a snubber diode so the back EMF of the coil doesn't blow up the mirror.

Thoughts? Better ideas?

And I think this is where the camera will go. The reason for placing it on the bumper is because if it was on the grille it be obscured by the fog lights when trying to look down.

Sounds like a good plan. I like the relay.

That looks like a good spot. No matter where you put it, it will either never get hit by anything, or get hit right off the bat!

Too bad the emblem didn’t work out.

[Gary Lewis]

Sounds like a good plan. I like the relay.

That looks like a good spot. No matter where you put it, it will either never get hit by anything, or get hit right off the bat!

Too bad the emblem didn’t work out.

If I had a piece of some rod that was dead flat on the end I might be able to use it to polish the emblem's "window" flat. I'll check tomorrow to see if I have a 3/8" drill bit that is dead flat and, if so, give it another go. But I'm doubting I do, and if I do I'm doubting it'll work to make it optically "flat".

So that leaves testing the relay approach. But I don't really need to add a relay just yet. Instead I can put the red and black wires of the rear camera to the battery and connect the rest of the wires to the front input. Assuming that the mirror doesn't need to sense something on the red wire that should work. If it does then I'll add the relay just to give it a load.

[kramttocs]

If I had a piece of some rod that was dead flat on the end I might be able to use it to polish the emblem's "window" flat. I'll check tomorrow to see if I have a 3/8" drill bit that is dead flat and, if so, give it another go. But I'm doubting I do, and if I do I'm doubting it'll work to make it optically "flat".

So that leaves testing the relay approach. But I don't really need to add a relay just yet. Instead I can put the red and black wires of the rear camera to the battery and connect the rest of the wires to the front input. Assuming that the mirror doesn't need to sense something on the red wire that should work. If it does then I'll add the relay just to give it a load.

Looks sharp! Really like that flat adaptor plate

Relay sounds like the right move here. Maybe I missed it but is Pormido able to confirm that the black and red wires are always supposed to have/not have power at the same time? That's the only question mark I'd have on it.

Placement is a tough call. I'd lean towards putting it inside one of the grill openings like was photoshopped but I understand that wouldn't get you the visibility you want directly in front.

I do like the sliding oval idea

[Gary Lewis]

Looks sharp! Really like that flat adaptor plate

Relay sounds like the right move here. Maybe I missed it but is Pormido able to confirm that the black and red wires are always supposed to have/not have power at the same time? That's the only question mark I'd have on it.

Placement is a tough call. I'd lean towards putting it inside one of the grill openings like was photoshopped but I understand that wouldn't get you the visibility you want directly in front.

I do like the sliding oval idea

Thanks, Scott.

Pormido hasn't confirmed nor denied anything, except to say you can't use the rear camera in the front. But I didn't try the relay idea on them until yesterday and they are gone for the weekend. Perhaps in the morning I'll have an answer.

But I've played with the power to the rear camera when it is plugged into the rear connector and both red and black have power all the time the mirror is turned on. Pull the power to either and the camera's view disappears. Add the power back and it comes back on. So I'm fairly sure the relay will work.

As for placement, when I get the camera working I'll play with it in various places. But I need to remember that there's no option in the setup to turn the front camera's input over like there is for the rear camera. So I can't turn the camera upside down and let it hang from a crossmember of the grille. In order to mount it at a downward angle I'll probably have to make a wedge and mount the wedge to the grille and the camera to the wedge.

Sliding oval? You mean the DB7 arrangement where the machine gun comes out?

[taskswap]

And given my doubts that shooting at an angle through a piece of plastic that isn't flat on the front will give a good image, I think I'm going to abandon this approach. Unless someone has a Better Idea - after all, it is a Ford.

How would you feel about drilling an actual hole through the spot you just tried to polish? I'm wondering if you could epoxy or hot-melt a 1" acrylic disc behind there. You'd have a perfectly clear view then. You can get discs like this at hobby/craft stores and online (Amazon/Ebay). I use them for all kinds of things and it occurs to me they might help here?

So, you might ask, what is the plan, Stan? And that is to see if I can use a waterproof rear camera in place of the front camera. You'll probably remember that I discovered that the front camera has 4 wires and the rear camera has 5 wires. And the extra wire carries power in addition to the red wire that carries power, like it does on the front camera.

This may help or hurt, but thinking through Pormido telling you that you can't use the rear on the front made me think of another camera install I did on my camper. It had 5 wires that may line up with some of your mysteries. Three were what you already know, power, ground, and video. The other two were an additional power line and a "mirror" line.

So the thing is, all these cameras follow basically the same signal standards, so don't take my advice as gospel but I bet you won't blow your mirror hooking it up. What made rear-view cameras special was two things:

1. They typically were "turned on" by going into reverse. This was not done by a signal from the driver's area, to minimize wiring requirements. Instead, they were hooked to the back-up light and when they start producing a video signal, THAT tells the mirror to start displaying the feed. Sort of an "auto on" feature. But a lot of these cameras, they didn't want to draw main power from that back-up light so they provided an extra "real power" input. The back-up light line was just sort of the "on switch".

If you read reviews on things like this

https://www.amazon.com/NATIKA-Backup-Camera-Waterproof-Reverse/dp/B07H852D49?th=1

you'll see comments like "current draw from camera turning on has blown 2 backup lamps" that plagued cheaper units that lacked this option.

The other wire is "almost" certainly a "mirror" function, usually you'd tie it to +12V or GND (and I have no idea which) to "flip" the image on your camera. I wonder if this is why Pormido thinks you can't use the rear camera on the front - they might figure the image will be backwards. But if you have 5 wires you might have the ability to control this.

The other thing it could be is an audio line. Lots of backup cameras are made generically, for lots of uses, then just bought in the 100,000 unit lot by integrators and "packaged" into a rearview camera... or a camper camera. So it might be a function you don't need on a car but it's just there... because...

These are all guesses, but maybe some of it will help a little. :D

[Gary Lewis]

And given my doubts that shooting at an angle through a piece of plastic that isn't flat on the front will give a good image, I think I'm going to abandon this approach. Unless someone has a Better Idea - after all, it is a Ford.

How would you feel about drilling an actual hole through the spot you just tried to polish? I'm wondering if you could epoxy or hot-melt a 1" acrylic disc behind there. You'd have a perfectly clear view then. You can get discs like this at hobby/craft stores and online (Amazon/Ebay). I use them for all kinds of things and it occurs to me they might help here?

So, you might ask, what is the plan, Stan? And that is to see if I can use a waterproof rear camera in place of the front camera. You'll probably remember that I discovered that the front camera has 4 wires and the rear camera has 5 wires. And the extra wire carries power in addition to the red wire that carries power, like it does on the front camera.

This may help or hurt, but thinking through Pormido telling you that you can't use the rear on the front made me think of another camera install I did on my camper. It had 5 wires that may line up with some of your mysteries. Three were what you already know, power, ground, and video. The other two were an additional power line and a "mirror" line.

So the thing is, all these cameras follow basically the same signal standards, so don't take my advice as gospel but I bet you won't blow your mirror hooking it up. What made rear-view cameras special was two things:

1. They typically were "turned on" by going into reverse. This was not done by a signal from the driver's area, to minimize wiring requirements. Instead, they were hooked to the back-up light and when they start producing a video signal, THAT tells the mirror to start displaying the feed. Sort of an "auto on" feature. But a lot of these cameras, they didn't want to draw main power from that back-up light so they provided an extra "real power" input. The back-up light line was just sort of the "on switch".

If you read reviews on things like this

https://www.amazon.com/NATIKA-Backup-Camera-Waterproof-Reverse/dp/B07H852D49?th=1

you'll see comments like "current draw from camera turning on has blown 2 backup lamps" that plagued cheaper units that lacked this option.

The other wire is "almost" certainly a "mirror" function, usually you'd tie it to +12V or GND (and I have no idea which) to "flip" the image on your camera. I wonder if this is why Pormido thinks you can't use the rear camera on the front - they might figure the image will be backwards. But if you have 5 wires you might have the ability to control this.

The other thing it could be is an audio line. Lots of backup cameras are made generically, for lots of uses, then just bought in the 100,000 unit lot by integrators and "packaged" into a rearview camera... or a camper camera. So it might be a function you don't need on a car but it's just there... because...

These are all guesses, but maybe some of it will help a little. :D

I think the clear disk might work, but I think the hole may need to be 1/2” in diameter and I don’t think that will look very good.

Which gets me back to the waterproof rear camera - man that would be a much easier and cleaner installation - if it works. And I think it will.

And I’ll bet you are right on the “mirror” wire. It will surely be the white one as both front and rear can be reversed. But it will be tied to 5v or ground as the system never sees 12v.

As for the backup circuit, the backup camera wiring can be connected there, and that does two things. First, it brings the rear view on the screen. Second, it puts guidelines on the screen. But it doesn’t power anything. The cameras are actually powered all the time the mirror is on as it always is recording their output.

Anyway, thanks for the input!

[Gary Lewis]

I think the clear disk might work, but I think the hole may need to be 1/2” in diameter and I don’t think that will look very good.

Which gets me back to the waterproof rear camera - man that would be a much easier and cleaner installation - if it works. And I think it will.

And I’ll bet you are right on the “mirror” wire. It will surely be the white one as both front and rear can be reversed. But it will be tied to 5v or ground as the system never sees 12v.

As for the backup circuit, the backup camera wiring can be connected there, and that does two things. First, it brings the rear view on the screen. Second, it puts guidelines on the screen. But it doesn’t power anything. The cameras are actually powered all the time the mirror is on as it always is recording their output.

Anyway, thanks for the input!

Well, we are on a roll!!!! Got this back from Melissa at Pormido:

Hi Gary,

I just got the message from engineer right after I sent below email, as long as you can handle the connection well, 2 backup cameras are workable for the mirror:)

In addition she sent new firmware that allows zooming the rear camera. Not sure I need that, but why not?

I must say that I highly recommend Pormido for a company to work with on things like this. I've lost track of the number of messages Melissa and I've traded, but it must be around 70. She's always been quick to respond and both courteous and helpful.

And the timing is working out well. Our kids get here on Wednesday and we'll have company until January 5th. So no mirror/camera work will get done during that time. But I will get the 2nd camera on order and should easily have it by the 5th.

Also I have to order a relay. That's 'cause all of this works at 5v and the Bosch relays don't always pull in at that voltage. And I'm thinking about this HiLetgo 2pcs 5V One Channel Relay Module Relay Switch with OPTO Isolation. As it says it used an opto isolator so there's no chance of hurting the mirror from back EMF. But the downside is that I probably ought to put it in a small box.

Anyone have a better idea?