Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Has anyone here tried one of those reversing camera/monitor setups that clip over your existing rear view mirror? (A few people sell them on ebay, e.g. this) How do you find it?

Or, any other reversing mirror setups?

There are some cheap LCDs and cameras going separately on ebay but the convenience of having it right there on the mirror seems a winner. However depending on the size of the panel, perhaps it could be jammed in between the mirror and the roof...

thoughts and experiences?

whats wrong with a good old reversing morror, clips/sticks to the rear roof and hangs down on an angle, so you look through rearview mirror into that one and see whats behind you.

Toughnut had/has one at OBC it was very BLING..

how about a full control pan tilt zoom camera on a boom, mounted on top of your 4b, that way you can look 360 degrees around your vehicle and zoom in on stuff

I can build you one of these setups for a couple of grand... Little joystick on the dash... YAY

mrx78u wrote:how about a full control pan tilt zoom camera on a boom, mounted on top of your 4b, that way you can look 360 degrees around your vehicle and zoom in on stuff

I can build you one of these setups for a couple of grand... Little joystick on the dash... YAY

don't forget for a little extra why not go with NIGHT VISION!!!

Oh yeah good thinking... What do we name such a product *prepares patent application*

Add a .303, go hunting and add a whole new meaning to "pointless". Just like a video game

Actually if you look on ebay you'll find they already have night vision of sorts-- IR LEDs and IR-senstive cameras, for peanuts

russell2pi wrote:Actually if you look on ebay you'll find they already have night vision of sorts-- IR LEDs and IR-senstive cameras, for peanuts

Yes but when you pay peanuts......

Don't forget, you need a camera or screen that can reverse the image (left to right)!

I have an in dash screen that can do this from the remote. But I think some of the camera's on the market do this automatically. It could also turn the image upside down, which is handy if you wanna mount it off the roof as you mentioned earlier.

I Don't have a camera yet, waiting from them to get a little cheaper

and don't forget " Tyronne, when you reverse, things come from behind you!"

Seriously now,

IR illuminated cameras only work well in very specific applications. The first thing you need to look at is the cameras .lux rating. lux is a measurement of light, basically this means the lower the lux rating, the less light the camera needs to see... Black and white cameras have lower lux ratings and are very sensative to infra red light.

So basically what happens, is when the lux level falls below a certain point the camera will phase into black and white, and the IR leds will switch on, except with some cheaper cameras, where the IR leds stay on all the time.

Problems can arise for a few reasons. Firstly, IR light behaves almost identical to light in the visible spectrum. If you take a series of LEDs which are producing light, it will only be effective at a certain range (not much closer or further away.) IR sensative cameras, pick up this light really well, so basically if you have illumination reflecting too close to the camera, then you get massive amounts of glare in the image. If you have the illumination too far away, you will likely get a spotlighting effect. But what you get with LED's is a high level of light diffusion. (Try using an LED headlamp at long range) That's fine, so we've established that the camera works well in a small range field, no issue. However, switch on your reverse lights... Massive overexposure. The camera will try to adjust to the light level change, but cheap cameras don't do this very well. When I say cheap camera, I mean <$300. (Camera alone, no IR)

So, night vision camera... effectively useless in anything but a fixed location, where the distance to objects is at a controlled length. Oh, in CCTV installations, your suspect decides to walk a bit closer to the camera... and they turn white + you loose you background image.

Did I mention I was bored?

For comps give the navi a video camera connected to a 2.4GHz AV transmitter and an LCD screen in the truck

Is there anything in the rules to stop this?

Oh and toy80diesel, PM me if you like, I can get you a suitable camera cheap. You can get the monitor of ebay fairly cheap <$150, and the last one I did, could to horizontal and vertical flip. (H Flip, for reverse camera)

I just recently put one of these in a boat, so the skipper could monitor the rear deck, bilge and saloon. That was a fun job

Oh, that another thing. If you have a decent reversing light, and you get a D/N (Day/Night) camera with a fairly low lux rating, your reversing light should be enough light, no need for IR illumination anyway.

So mrx78u, what's a decent lux rating for a reversing camera? And how much can you get them for (pm if you like)?

I'd suggest a d/n camera, no more than .01 LUX. It should be weatherproof as well. Keeps the dust out as well, even if it's inside. Most suitable thing I can get is a tube camera, weatherproof. About 3-4cm in diamater and 9-10cm long. Cheapest way to go is for a low lux black and white camera. You'll find D/N will be alot more expensive

heh sounds like making it work at night is a lot more expensive than it's worth to me . Cheaper to just whack a big bright reversing light on

DanielS wrote:Toughnut had/has one at OBC it was very BLING..

Yeah I had one mounted on the top of the roll bar between the 2 center spotties. It worked a treat until I had all the camping gear on the back and all I could see were bags It was a colour camera and not IR. I have a couple of small spotties for reversing so it worked really well. It took a while to get used to looking at the screen to reverse.

Very much a grave dig, but do people recommend screens mounted on the rear view mirror, ie replacement rear view mirrors with the screen built in?

I've read they suffer from glare etc. A lot of the new cars come out with rearview mirror screens and they must be OK. Would an ebay version be of the same quality? I know the quality of the camera has a lot to do with it though.

Cheers,

yep suffer severly from glare, my mate had one in his supra an it use to give me the shits

The previous owner of my dual cab had done the conversion with no rear windscreen. A two channel TV, rear facing IR camera and one directly above the towball. Worked fine for him, but I'll be more comfortable once I've cut the window in.