Here are some pictures of a Factory rearview camera and factory trunk closer I added.

Location of Camera


Removed liner to run wires


Camera Module location. Not mounted yet but it is on left wall.


Location of Rear Sam. Power to camera module goes here. Spot 141. Not such as good location for the battery! What a pain to get to!



Calibration of rear camera. Homemade tool

 

Is that your S550? If so, when did you get it?

 

Not my car. A friends car.

 

Can this be done at the dealer? Can I bring my car in to Mercedes Manhattan and have them retrofit a FACTORY rearview monitor and have it work the same way as if it came from the factory in Germany?

 

Npe, it seems Sunman & Steve are the kings..

 

I am not sure if your dealer will undertake retrofits. most dealers say it's not possible or no, they can't do it, or it's impossible. See if steve is coming to NY first. email him at steve@mbenznl.com If he is not coming, I can probably make it.

 

Maybe you can do a right up for the DIY poeple on the forum...

 

it would take me too much time to do a write up but feel free to ask any questions.

 

Will this work for the 2000 S430??

 

2007 and later only.

 

 

Nice job.

 

I have a question for rear camera. In bad wheater conditions; raining, snowing camera will be covered with dust. Is there any cleaning system on camera or you have to clean the camera by yourself and by the way is there any chance to enable camera while going forward???

 

there is no cleaning system for the rearview camera.

 

could you explain what is needed for auto trunk closer conversion?

 

pump, trunk lid harness, main harness, rear switch, control module, front switch, foam padding to cover pump, programming. I think that covers it all.

 

the stock camera system does not have an "always on" option but there is a module that can be used to give the same functionality as well as the option to have the camera on independantly. the system works identically to the factory backup camera. the module turns on the camera input via CANBUS and has an option to allow independant activation via the steering wheel. the system also will support a video input so the front monitor can show video/dvd/etc.

 

if you are referring to the nav-tv interface, it's plain crap. We integrated it on a s65 and ran across so many problems. we felt we were the guinea pigs. The car has a factory camera and nav-tv told us it would interface fine with this car. It did not after numerous calls back and forth. The factory camera is a much more nicer system and will draw lines on the screen to help park.

 

no, we actually build our own interfaces now but i do agree that the nav-tv unit had *alot* of problems...we picked one up when it first was released. did you have the programming issue with the distronic failures? that was a fun one getting fixed. i ended up having to reverse engineer the sds coding for 211 to fix it on one vehicle. i did an analysis of the device and found that the unit broadcasted the "camera on" message every 8 msec which is far too often and overloads the bus. also the unit did not properly sleep with the rest of the CAN network but instead would wake up every second or so and then sleep again. it had all the makings of a product that was out to market to quickly. they also sell a backup camera that that failed as well and had to be sent back. when i checked the power supply it had no stiffening caps across the voltage regulator.

at any rate, i wouldnt qualify it as 'crap' but i do beileve that there are some major bug/reliability issues with some of their products. particularly when you look at the CAN and other network interface products that are coming on the market there tends to be issues with most if not all of them. many of the reasons for these issues stems from a lack of understanding of how automotive network systems need to be engineered; CAN in particular is a difficult network to engineer for. a device may work well for many days but even if there are sporadic problems it is still enough to cause alot of customer complaints. ive seen the same issues with interfaces made from other manufacturers as well; very very buggy and lots of "oh yeah, it might do that" types of behiviors.

i do give companies like navtv credit for trying to build and market these devices since there are very few companies that are even trying much less trying competantly.

 

on our car, dynamic seats no longer worked and we had an error with the central display. That error would not go away after removing the unit and they would not take credit for the failure.

 

yep, the problems stem from the cluster reprogramming; the module had two sets of programming codes that they obviously pulled via a log of what SDS was doing on the central can. the first was to add aux to the command and the second was reprogramming the cluster to turn on the reverse camera option select. the problem is that they used the set of codes from whatever their test vehicle was (with whatever options it had); if you had additional options it would turn them off. the way sds does it is it reads a coding string and then makes adjustment on a bit by bit basis selecting a particular feature on/off.

in our case it was a vehicle with distronic and esp. the cluster started throwing a bunch of errors and the client took the vehicle in for service where the techs promptly started to freak out; when they tried to recode via sds the cluster wouldnt take any programming. it only finally took programming after pulling power and letting the vehicle sit. it was a huge mess.

its funny that you mention the multiple calls and such since the one thing taht they could really work on is their tech support manner. it has a distinctive 'tier one' ring to it with them asking questions like "well did you hook up the wires?"