OT reversing cameras.

Dave R wrote:
"Fred" [email protected] wrote in message
...
David wrote:
"Fred" [email protected] wrote in message
...


My Nissan Maxima QX came with a factory-fitted sat-nav system, with
an LCD colour monitor that pops up out of the dashboard. I prefer
to use my TomTom as I can load up my own POIs etc., so I'm
wondering if anyone has tried adapting the LCD monitor of a
factory-fitted sat-nav to use with a camera instead? How did you
go about it?
My Nissan does have the rear camera, the console does have a SatNav
button. I've not got the SatNav but was an extra I could have had.
The next model up did have it as standard.
So I guess the neccesary connections might well be there.

Please reply to News Group

Ah, brilliant. Thanks David
Have a look through http://www.civinfo.com/forum several people have
posted about fitting cameras with instructions and pictures, and
also using the satnav lcd as a monitor

Hey, thanks Dave R - plenty of food for thought there mate )

Colin Stamp wrote:
Hi all,

Sorry about the blatant OT post, but I'm sure a load of TV type people
will know all about video cameras...

I'm upgrading the stereo in my new pride-and-joy Mondeo to one of
those fancy double-din navigation thingies. The car has nasty privacy
glass which makes it a real pain to reverse after dark, so I thought
I'd hack a hole in the back bumper and bodge in a reversing camera.
Gaffer tape will no-doubt play a vital role in the installation.

Anyway, the question is, which camera do I get? The aim is to have the
ability to get a reasonable view by the reversing lights alone, so I
guess low-light performance is going to be the main requirement.

A quick Google suggests that CCD cameras have better low-light
performance that CMOS, though the specs quoted for individual cameras
don't seem to tally with that. "Lux" values seem to range from 0.01 to
1 regardless of the sensor type. A lot of the cameras have IR LEDs, so
you don't get a "lux" value at-all for those. Of course, no range or
beam pattern info is given for the IR illumination.

So, would a CMOS camera do, or do I need a CCD one? Do I even need to
go to one of the more specialist black-and-white low-light cameras?
Are the "lux" values meaningful at-all? Are a few IR LEDs anything
like enough to light up a wide-angle camera's field of view
effectively?

And I thought buying the camera would be the easy bit...

Cheers,

Colin.
I have one these built-in to my Honda, not as brilliant as I thought it
mighht be but still useful. The reversing lights provide plenty of
illumination. Instaed of boring holes in your motor why not think about
something like this:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?...mera&source=15

This is a Maplin one but there are others, you might even be able to
wire it into your existing screen instead ofusing the one provided.

Bob

Colin Stamp wrote:
Hi all,

Sorry about the blatant OT post, but I'm sure a load of TV type people
will know all about video cameras...

I'm upgrading the stereo in my new pride-and-joy Mondeo to one of
those fancy double-din navigation thingies. The car has nasty privacy
glass which makes it a real pain to reverse after dark, so I thought
I'd hack a hole in the back bumper and bodge in a reversing camera.
Gaffer tape will no-doubt play a vital role in the installation.

Anyway, the question is, which camera do I get? The aim is to have the
ability to get a reasonable view by the reversing lights alone, so I
guess low-light performance is going to be the main requirement.

A quick Google suggests that CCD cameras have better low-light
performance that CMOS, though the specs quoted for individual cameras
don't seem to tally with that. "Lux" values seem to range from 0.01 to
1 regardless of the sensor type. A lot of the cameras have IR LEDs, so
you don't get a "lux" value at-all for those. Of course, no range or
beam pattern info is given for the IR illumination.

So, would a CMOS camera do, or do I need a CCD one? Do I even need to
go to one of the more specialist black-and-white low-light cameras?
Are the "lux" values meaningful at-all? Are a few IR LEDs anything
like enough to light up a wide-angle camera's field of view
effectively?

And I thought buying the camera would be the easy bit...

Cheers,

Colin.

I have one these built-in to my Honda, not as brilliant as I thought it
mighht be but still useful. The reversing lights provide plenty of
illumination. Instaed of boring holes in your motor why not think about
something like this:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?...mera&source=15

This is a Maplin one but there are others, you might even be able to
wire it into your existing screen instead ofusing the one provided.

Bob

Sorry about the repeat post, thunderbird told me the first attempt could
not be sent.

On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:05:11 +0000, Dhropta Guli
wrote:



I have one these built-in to my Honda, not as brilliant as I thought it
mighht be but still useful. The reversing lights provide plenty of
illumination. Instaed of boring holes in your motor why not think about
something like this:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?...mera&source=15

This is a Maplin one but there are others, you might even be able to
wire it into your existing screen instead ofusing the one provided.


Thanks for the info and the link, though I'm not really after a
wireless one. They are curious though. I have to admit, I don't
understand how they're meant to mount. They mention number-plate
fitting but they look too bulky to sit behind the plate looking
through a hole. Surely that big plastic strap isn't meant to be
visible...

I think I'll get a small bullet camera and experiment.

Cheers,

Colin.

--
Threre's a spam-trap on my return address, just in case you hadn't noticed...

"Phil Cook" wrote in message
...
It's very unusual for a monochrome camera to adjust white balance.
That was me being what my mother used to call 'clever'.


Yeah. White balance affects the colour making orange tungsten and
blue daylight appear as neutral. I think Mark must mean his camera
software adjusts the exposure automagically to be able to see black
cats in coal holes as well as white cats in snowdrifts. ;-)
Here's me being clever again. The exposure for both depends on the ambient
light level. If the black cat was in a coal hole with the coal hole lid off
and sunshine streaming in the exposure woulds need to be much less that it
would be for the white cat in the snowdrift, were the latter unfortunate cat
to be trapped in the snowdrift at midnight during a severely overcast
moonless night in a place where there was no light pollution. Or perhaps I'm
jumping to conclusions. Perhaps that's what you meant.

Bill

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...

"R. Mark Clayton" wrote in message
...
Over ten years ago I bought a little black and white camera for my PC.

Low resolution (but adequate for reversing), wide angle and small.

The software automatically adjusted white balance, and I made the
surprising discovery that it would produce a daylight type image of the
completely dark garden opposite. Within a few seconds it would clearly
show details that I could not see after minutes of dark adaptation.

It's very unusual for a monochrome camera to adjust white balance.

Bill




It was managed in software. The image was adjusted until the average was
50%, so very dark scenes looked relatively normal with good contrast. Sadly
no drivers for NT or later.

In article ,
Colin Stamp wrote:
Plain ol' reversing sensors are much more use.

The car already has sensors front and back, and they're much more
useful than I thought they would be. I'd still find it comforting to
be able to see where I'm going though. There's also the worrying
number of back bumpers I see around sporting both sensors and dents.

Having sensors or cameras don't stop others bashing your car. A decent
towbar helps, though.

--
*He who dies with the most toys is, nonetheless, dead.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"R. Mark Clayton" wrote in message
...
It was managed in software. The image was adjusted until the average was
50%, so very dark scenes looked relatively normal with good contrast.
Sadly no drivers for NT or later.

Yes, I know what you mean, but that isn't white balance. White balance in
this context is when a colour camera adjusts so the scene retains a
reasonable balance of colours that more or less add to white. The colour of
ambient light varies a great deal and auto while balance attempts to
compensate for this, so pictures don't seem to have an overall cast. It
doesn't always work of course. I installed a cam a while back where the sky
seemed to change colour dramatically when a car went past. (Yes, I know it's
unusual to have sky in a CCTV shot.) The answer was to find a camera where
the auto white balance was very slow acting.

Incidentally the software-powered adjustments you mention are now sometimes
vaunted by the CCTV manufacturers as the latest thing -- 'dynamic' contrast
and gain adjustment.

Bill

Maybe 45 years ago my old man had something that fascinated me as he
parked his (?) large American/Canadian version of the Morris Traveller
at night, a big thing it was.

Anyway, it had a feature which picked up the illuminaton from the rear
reversing lights off of surfaces behind the vehicle and pre-dated
fibre optic of course, so that said, maybe you could use a fibre optic
bundle facing rearwards, the ends coming out on the dashboard? The
closer you get the more it glows.