Rear View Camera Wiring - 2004 Monarch

[WisMonarch]

The previous owner put a wireless rear view camera system with the camera mounted on the bumper.  They abandon in place the original high mounted camera.  I would like to add a second camera, which the system supports.  I pulled the old camera but can't get voltage across any pairs of the wires that went to the old camera.  There is a white, red, yellow and blue wire in the cable going to the old camera, I hoped for power across the red and white.   I had both the house and engine batteries on, the engine running and the tranny in reverse when I checked for voltage.

Can anyone tell me where this cable goes and where it gets power from?

I'm hoping to get power to it whenever the engine is running so I can use the additional camera for rear view.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[bobdinsmore]

The other end of the cable on my 2000 Diplomat is inside the console to the left of the driver's seat where the parking brake is.

[Bob Wightman]

I have a 2004 Monaco Knight that had an old single camera B&W monitor (pretty standard for the time) that used a single coax cable.  When I upgraded to a 4 camera (2 on the back and one on each side at the front) I had to abandon the wire and run all new cables from the back to the front.  Since that cable has so many conductors showing it appears that somebody already replaced the wire with hat looks like Thermostat or sprinkler wire (cat see the end to see if it also has a coax wire for the video signal).  Your best option "may" be to just try to find the wire wherever it comes out and use it as a pull wire to pull in a new cable and run that cable to the front however they ran the cable for the camera down low.  Its a pain but it can be done, I love having my 4 camera color system with quad flat screen monitor in my dash where the old B&W monitor was.  Good Luck! 

[JJMonaco]

My 2002 Signature backup camera uses the shield as the ground.  The combination of the red and the shield powered up the camera.

Not sure if this is the situation on your 2004 Knight.  
All the Best,

JJ

[woodylmiller]

It could be that the wires/control were disconnected in the dash when they took the old camera out of service.  My system had a control board (for the triggers) in the dash for the camera system.  Is there a shield on the original wires, I can't tell from the picture.  

Woody Miller

09 Dynasty

[WisMonarch]

The rest of the story...

Thanks for everyone's input and suggestions, they did help! I got to work on it today, it was a warm 39F in Wisconsin today so this was my chance, and here is the result.

As you may or may not remember I wanted to change my rear view camera system to be on during all driving, not just in reverse and I wanted to install a second "high mounted" camera in the system.

Digging back into the dash as you all encouraged me to, I DID find another cable behind the middle of the dash that looked like the cable for the original rear camera and it had a S-Video plug on it.  I cut the plug off and sure enough it had the same 4 wires as the cable in the back.   The old camera system must have used S-Video.  Eureka!  I figured I'd just tie the four wires together in two pair, to provide good current at low voltage drop, and hook them to the ignition power wire I found under the dash (more on that later).   I'd be in business with power in back for the new 2nd high mount wireless camera mounted where the original was.  Then I found our why the previous owner (PO) must have replaced the original camera system - I got no power in the cable at the rear of the RV.  The S-Video cable must be broken between the front and back of the RV.  Bummer. 

On to plan B.  That was to temporarily scavenge some power from the clearance light about eight inches above the camera location.  I figured I just hang a wire down from the clearance light to the camera until I could come up with something better come spring.  But when I removed the clearance light I realized I could easily fish wire inside the back wall from the clearance light wire hole down to the camera wire hole and make this a permanent fix.  The light wiring even had open crimp connectors in the wiring I could put the camera power wiring into and just crimp shut.  YES.   Connected it all up and shoved the wires back in the back wall and all is good.  It all worked out very nicely.  I will have to do some more caulking of holes come spring.  (The outside temperature was dropping by now.)

Back to the power wiring behind the monitor.  The monitor and 1st camera would only come on with the tranny in reverse.  I really wanted it powered more than than so I could watch my Toad and see the traffic behind me.  (Did I say I'm new to RVing)  There was third unused wire in the cable to the monitor.  I traced that back and all three were connected to separate wires behind the dash; red, white and black I think.  I knew the power wire that was being used was only hot in reverse, what about the other one?  Could it be?  Yes it could, it was hot whenever the ignition switch is on.  Perfect.  Now I can turn the monitor on whenever the RV is running.

One last challenge the 1st wireless camera in the system, that the PO installed, was mounted down low on top the bumper.  I'm guessing because its easy to scab power from the cobweb of wiring under the back of the RV.  And sure enough they had found the backup lights power wire and connected the camera to that.  It made sense since the monitor was only powered up in reverse, but I wanted it on when driving so I could keep an eye on the Toad hitch.  (...new to RVing)  The wire from the camera was actually zip tied along the license plate light wire.  That was convenient!  I rewired the low camera to power from the license plate light wiring.

Now I can turn the monitor on whenever the RV is running and by turning on the parking or head lights the cameras are powered.  Now I just have to remember to drive looking out the windshield not looking at the rear view camera!

Thanks again for all your comments and encouragement!