Hi All ,

planning to hardware dashcam , front facing camera only. I see there’s a fuse box either side of the dash. Has anyone tapped into these when installing their camera? If so which one . Thanks .

 

Not sure what years yours is, I ran the wire along the headling where it meets the screen and then down the A pillar, then it tucked into the area on the right hand end of the dash. I cannot remember which point I joined to but I took the earth and fixed it behind a convenient fixing bolt to ground, the live I fitted an inline fuse holder and put a spade end onto the wire and stuck it into a point that was live when the ignition comes on. I just used a 12V neon to determine which place to put it.

 

I have just been out and taken these pics. The reason there are two red wires going into the spade connection is that I also have my TomTom connected in via a cigar socket , seen on the right under the earth bolt point I used hidden behind the panel as well.

 

Brilliant thank you exactly what I was after . Mine is 2017 .I was intending using a piggyback fuse connector. Was going to use one of the exist 5amp fuses the one with the weight sensor for airbag potentially .Being an amateur I’m not familiar with your method though with the spade connector.

 

When you take the cover off you will see what I mean, I looked at the possibility of fitting one of the "proper " fuse type things, called a SAM connector , I took a photo but my Merc dealer could not supply one, by carefully looking and using a basic 12V neon screwdriver I could probe which "slot" became live with the ignition.
I had some basic wire connectors and male and female spade type connectors so I used a male spade crimp terminal and crimped it on the live connection wire from the dash cam and pushed it into the slot, a perfect fit.
For the earth connection I used a circular crimp terminal, removed the bolt shown in the picture and put the crimp loop behind it and retightened the bolt. As the loop in the terminal was a little small I just snipped the loop and opened it up a little to fit.
Due to the fittings in the fusebox area you may not be able to use a piggyback type fuse connection which is why I did what I did after looking at the options
I will put a couple more pics up here in a minute from my ipad.

 

Here you will see the SAM connector that I could not source from anywhere, even from my Mercedes’ dealer ! And also a photo of an in-line fuse holder and also the loop crimp for the earth and the small male spade type crimp for the live, you will also need a crimp joiner to join the live wire from the camera to the other “ tail” of the fuse holder. , I can’t remember what size fuse I put in but I guess it was only 5a or so.
I did not want to connect into any other fuses so as to not upset any electronics at all.
Best of luck, it was easy and maybe an hours work or so.
halfords will do the connector etc or Amazon I guess as well.
you may buy a crimp set complete with crimping tool for probably around £10 or so

 

Thank you .Inhave a crimp set which came with various connectors also spade. Thanks again very helpful.

 

Glad to help, I think once you look again you will see where I connected to , if you look at the SAM connector you will see a silver spade sticking out by the chaps thumb, this would probably have pushed into the same slot that I used a spade terminal for as I could not find a SAM connector, , let me know if you get on ok with the task.

 

Right I have all the components now. As a temporary measure though I ran the cable down the passenger side under the glove box and plugged it into a usb socket that I fitted to the front ashtray. As a bonus you can’t see any cable so it may become a permanent solution, despite all your kindly provided advice … To be continued …

 

Great idea, if it works then I would also just leave it, on my 2004 x350 jaguar there is a cigar lighter outlet inside the glovebox, I did exactly the same as you by running the cable down the passenger side pillar and into the glove box to plug in there .