Seneca backup camera Mod

[Rustynuts]

Our old Class A rear camera was great when I was hitching a trailer up but with the rear camera being up so high on the back of the Seneca and then add the "check your surroundings" warning across the bottom of the video screen, its pretty much useless using it to line up a ball to the coupler.....and have the DW direct me usually lead to an argument


Today I added an adjustable eyeball camera right above the license plate. Used a 50' video cable that also has a 12v supply wire to the front and fished it up into the cab and behind the dash. Opened up the dash and started sorting through all the rats nest and found the power supply/trigger wire cable from the factory installed camera control box. I used a "Intelligent Car Video Switcher 3-way Input 1-way output for the car camera" unit from Amazon to do the switching but there is one problem with these and all the others that I could find, when the original rear camera comes on, it it will always default back to the main rear camera and I need to be in reverse when using the hitch camera. The way around this was by using a push button latch switch that has both a N/O and N/C positions. I made up a harness and wired it through the switch so when the switch is off everything runs through the factory camera setup. When you turn the switch on, it cuts power to the factory camera control box and triggers the "Intelligent" switcher and switches the video source to the head unit to the hitch camera. Then when you turn the switch off, it reverts back to normal. Works like a charm!

[SloPoke]

Nice work... I considered this when I put our 4-ch DVR into our Seneca.. but ran out of inputs (that you solved.) I must be doing all the hitching up like you do... by myself.

well... maybe I guess that I have been doing it differently... I just climb up the ladder and point the rear camera down when I am hooking up the trailer. (and often forget to point it back up at the trailer after hitching)

[Rustynuts]

Originally Posted by SloPoke

well... maybe I guess that I have been doing it differently... I just climb up the ladder and point the rear camera down when I am hooking up the trailer. (and often forget to point it back up at the trailer after hitching)

But I don’t have a ladder . I have my camera pointed down as far as possible but as you can see in this pic, that stupid warning is is right over the hitch. I even emailed Garmin to see if there was any way to remove the warning but they said “no, it’s for your safety” really?

[Crossingover]

Another nice mod to your Seneca, kudos to you (and the fortunate subsequent owner of your rig if/when you sell). I need to trace the wiring from my parking brake valve/switch back to the Equalizer jacks panel; how is the yellow square knob removed?

[MD3]

I ran into the same issue with hitching up and not being able to clearly see the hitch. I also wanted my main rear camera to be pointed out backward to see what's going on back further....

I did a license plate backup camera on mine with a small separate monitor that I have sitting temporarily on my ashtray.

Instructions stated to hook up the power line for the camera to the backup light wire but I wanted to be able to turn the camera off and on without having to shift into reverse so I tied the camera into the running lights.
Works great to be able to hook up my trailer solo also works good for when I am flat towing and want to get a quick visual of all the connections.


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[MD3]

Originally Posted by Crossingover

Another nice mod to your Seneca, kudos to you (and the fortunate subsequent owner of your rig if/when you sell). I need to trace the wiring from my parking brake valve/switch back to the Equalizer jacks panel; how is the yellow square knob removed?

On mine, the yellow brake knob has a roll pin holding it on. I just push it out by hand with a punch of the same size. I use a pair of pliers to push the roll pin back in to reassemble.


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[Rustynuts]

Originally Posted by Crossingover

Another nice mod to your Seneca, kudos to you (and the fortunate subsequent owner of your rig if/when you sell). I need to trace the wiring from my parking brake valve/switch back to the Equalizer jacks panel; how is the yellow square knob removed?

Thanks. I know on the 2018.5 and the yellow knob just unscrews in the standard lefty loosey, but I believe the earlier model have a pin you need to drift out to remove it.