DIY: BMW Advanced Car Eye Camera (Dashcam)

[VinnyA320]

Hey guys. This is one of my first DIY guides so please bear with me as this will at first be a work in progress. I tend to be very detail oriented so I'll try and make this as simple yet as helpful as possible.
I ordered this kit from ECS tuning as it is not available for purchase from BMW USA as it is a European BMW part. This installation was performed on a US 2015 F80 M3 Left hand drive.




Here is a link to the part from ECS:
https://www.ecstuning.com/Search/Sit...Eye/ES2784691/

Also, prior to starting this you will need a few things:
1) The official BMW install instructions found here :
https://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/at...5&d=1428352857
2) Torx T-15 screwdriver bit
3) Regular or Needlenose pliers
4)Extra plastic fasteners from BMW in case you break any of them during removal/reinstallation



5) Zip ties (included with dashcam but may need more depending on how many you want to use.)


The next part is what I call "prepping" the car for installation which is basically removing all of the panels that you need to run the cables for both the front and rear cameras. DISCONNECT THE BATTERY BEFORE BEGINNING ANY WORK.

Panel 1) A pillar: this is held on by one metal fastener and 2 plastic fasteners.



Panel 2) Right side passenger door footwell just above the M3 logo. This just pops off with minimal pressure.

Panel 3) Forward footwell panel (just forward of panel 2) This panel is attached by 3 plastic fasteners and you may need to use a decent amount of pressure to pop it out. The black plastic piece has a T-15 screw holding it in as well as 2 black clips that you can see. I accidently broke them so make sure you push the tabs in and slide those tabs out slowly after removing the screw. Once this piece is out you will have room to access the FEM module and wires you will be tapping.


IF installing rear camera as well continue with steps below:

Panel 4) B Pillar panel next to the passenger side seat. (This panel is attached by 2 plastic fasteners and slides down to remove.)

Panel 5) For the sake of numbering it is not a panel but the whole rear lower seat area. It is only held on by 2 fasteners which are attached to the frame of the vehicle. Simply slide your hand under the front part of the seat until you feel a plastic tab and pull up with a decent amount of force. Repeat for the other side and lift the seat up. You will also need to slide the seat belt buckles through the holes and also use a screwdriver to remove the central seatbelt from its buckle. It has a little red line on it to show where to push and release it.

Panel 6) Rear seat lower footwell trim. (just below where the rear seat is.)This piece is held on by one black fastener (not pictured) and 2 of the beige colored fasteners. A slight amount of pressure pulling on it will be needed once the black fastener is removed.

Panel 7) Rear seat side cushion (just under where the seat belt is.) This piece is held on by 2 frame mounted clips and is easily removed with little pressure.


Panel 8) Rear brake light assembly above rear windshield. This piece just pops off and can hang as all you will need to do is run the rear camera wire above it.

[VinnyA320]

Continuing on,
The car is now basically "prepped" and ready for the install. I started by mounting the front camera and running both cables for the rear camera and power for the front camera from there. Simply slide the cables up and under the headliner until you get to the A pillar area where you removed panel 1 and get your zip ties ready. Run both cables along the area where the current wire bundle is (see pic)


Then run the cables through the hole following the wire bundle and down to where the FEM module is.

In the picture you can see the socket has been removed and you are ready to tap the wires. (More on that later)

IF you are installing the rear camera leave the main "german" colored wires there and continue running the rear camera wire along the side of the car where you removed the panels. Lift up on the carpeting and sound deadening material to reveal the wire bundle locations and run the wires along them and using zip ties to keep the wire from moving.


Once you get to the rear seating area you can route the wire up along and under a black plastic cover that can be opened with a screw driver.


Run the wire up and along with the current wire bundles until you get to the back rear window area. Pull on the rear panel slightly to run the wire up and under it. (see pic)

From there you can then run the wire up and under the headliner like in the front area and then mount the rear camera.

You will now be finished running the wires BUT will have a few feet of extra cable from the rear camera wire. What I did was bundle the wire up and slide it just under the area where the rear seat is. (see pic)

[VinnyA320]

Now that you have all of the cables run it is time to tap the wires from the module. I recommend reading the BMW install instructions a few times to be familiar with the location of the socket you will be removing as well as the pin locations.


To remove the clips as seen above simply spread the black pieces apart with your fingers and slide them out as pictured above. The pin locations are all numbered.

Pin 33 is the thick wire and for that you will use the bigger wire tap provided. This is also where I recommend using pliers to help you clamp the wiretaps.
Pin 20 is the dark green wire
Pin 24 is a brown wire and also the ground wire. For this wire I cut the silver clip at the end of the camera side of the wire as it is not needed for this series car.
Final tapped wires:


Once you have everything tapped I suggest reconnecting your battery and conducting a function test to make sure the units all work before reinstalling all of the panels.





The final piece is the GPS aerial and that just runs from your front dashcam up and under your headliner to the opposite side of your rear view mirror and attaches there. You also will be provided with extra 3M tape for each piece if you need to relocate any of the cameras for whatever reason.
I hope this guide helps and I will continue updating it as needed.

[jwzimm]

photos are not working.

[halfbent]

Originally Posted by jwzimm

photos are not working.

[VinnyA320]

Originally Posted by jwzimm

photos are not working.

Pics should now be working! I was trying to find a way to not have all of the uploaded photos not be shown twice.(Once in the body of the message and then at the end in managed attachments.) Still have a few tips to add later.

[Reach]

Originally Posted by VinnyA320

Pics should now be working! I was trying to find a way to not have all of the uploaded photos not be shown twice.(Once in the body of the message and then at the end in managed attachments.) Still have a few tips to add later.

Host the pics on an external site such as postimage.org and then include them in the body with

[IMG]imagelocation.com/image.jpg[/IMG]

Your DIY is great, thanks for contributing it.

[halfbent]

awesome, thanks! Do you have pictures with the actual taps and wires in view?

In the pic you posted all i can see id the Y/R/B wires and the black taps but not the cars wiring.

Thanks

[VinnyA320]

Originally Posted by halfbent

awesome, thanks! Do you have pictures with the actual taps and wires in view?

In the pic you posted all i can see id the Y/R/B wires and the black taps but not the cars wiring.

Thanks

Unfortunately i do not have pictures with the wires in the taps. I did post a pic with them after they were tapped. If you zoom in enough you can see the taps for each wire. All the wires do is sit inside a notch on each side of the wire tap before you clamp them together with the exception of the thick wire which goes in the middle of the bigger wiretap. If you have any other questions feel free to ask.

[milk242]

Awesome diy! Really helped me remove all the panels. One thing to note is if you slightly pull off the glove box panel that is underneath the glove box, held on by 2 10mm nuts and 3 metal clips in the front, you can just slide the panel in a backwards direction that covers the electronics where you'll be tapping.

[jwzimm]

I just had this installed at the dealer. They ended up breaking a plastic clip but they are ordering it and will replace it. Total damage was $190 plus tax. Not bad if you don't have time or wherewithal to do this yourself.

[SamS]

Great write up and pics, thank you.

Any feedback on the actual use of the camera(s) themselves? How long is the parking function available for? Can you tweak that?

[jwzimm]

Originally Posted by SamS

Great write up and pics, thank you.

Any feedback on the actual use of the camera(s) themselves? How long is the parking function available for? Can you tweak that?

The camera is very simple to use. Almost off the settings can be changed on the touchscreen.

The parking function is set to 6 hours by default. You can manually edit the config file (on the SD card) to get up to 24 hours if you want. The camera also monitors the battery voltage and will shut down once a set threshold is reached (default is 11.9V but is adjustable as well).

I do miss some of the fine tuning changes you can do on a Blackvue though. For example, you cannot adjust the impact sensitivity independently between driving and parking modes. Another thing is the computer program isn't available for Mac.

Overall I like it though. It is a very clean and compact solution that feels like BMW OEM.

[SamS]

Originally Posted by jwzimm

The camera is very simple to use. Almost off the settings can be changed on the touchscreen.

The parking function is set to 6 hours by default. You can manually edit the config file (on the SD card) to get up to 24 hours if you want. The camera also monitors the battery voltage and will shut down once a set threshold is reached (default is 11.9V but is adjustable as well).

I do miss some of the fine tuning changes you can do on a Blackvue though. For example, you cannot adjust the impact sensitivity independently between driving and parking modes. Another thing is the computer program isn't available for Mac.

Overall I like it though. It is a very clean and compact solution that feels like BMW OEM.

That is great feedback. I'm a Mac user, so knowing this, I'm more hesitant to invest in this particular model. Did you have a Blackvue before? Just curious as to why you went with this one vs. others. I understand the BMW model is a relatively old unit, OEM'd from a vendor.

[jwzimm]

Originally Posted by SamS

That is great feedback. I'm a Mac user, so knowing this, I'm more hesitant to invest in this particular model. Did you have a Blackvue before? Just curious as to why you went with this one vs. others. I understand the BMW model is a relatively old unit, OEM'd from a vendor.

The Blackvue went with my old car. I was starting to experience some stability issues with it (would reboot randomly and sometimes just freeze and require you to pull the plug and let the cap drain down). It also did not have any voltage monitoring built in so in order to get the same functionality as the BMW unit you would need to get a second power adapter. I did not like the idea of further "hacking" into the car to install something like that.

Basically, the BMW unit is all inclusive and does what I want it to very well. The Mac issue is annoying but, honestly, how often do you need to review the footage from the camera? I have a small netbook I can use if needed for that.

One other feature I was not aware of until I had it installed is how the parking mode works. You can actually shut the unit down and conserve battery power if you park somewhere that you don't need the camera on for (like at home in a garage). All you do is push and hold the power button for more than 5 seconds and the unit shuts down. It will boot up and start recording automatically the next time you start the car.

[BMW603]

Thanks to everyone and Vinny for the DIY-- I have this BMW camera.. and a 2015 X5 I'm very comfortable with install but just need help with the 3 wires -- where the heck is my CAS control module? page 10/14 shows F0x,F1x connect branches A2-A4 as follows to CAS control unit A16 plug X13376/A16*1B - I assume my 2015 x5 d is a F15 vehicle?

[ian2828]

Huge thanks to Vinny for this. I've just completed the installation on my 2016 F30 (which has a similar wiring layout) and I wanted to share a couple of points.

My car is a right hand drive UK model. I discovered that the whole wiring arrangement is a mirror image of Vinny's left hand drive (so the FEM unit to tap into is in the passenger footwell on the left side). The FEM is also in the opposite orientation with the relevant wires further back, making it very difficult to use the wiring connectors supplied with the kit. I ended up carefully splicing and soldering the connections and covering with heat shrink tubing. This was all rather tricky with the restricted access to the wiring.

I'm fairly sure, however, that the wiring shown in the DIY is incorrect.

Originally Posted by VinnyA320

Final tapped wires:

Vinny's photo appears to show the red wire from the camera attached to the thick red wire from Pin 33 in the car, and the yellow fused wire attached to the thin green wire from Pin 20. I think these should be switched. Here's an extract from the BMW EBA instructions:



The image of the wiring at the top could be misleading. It makes it look like the red wire A3 is the fused wire. In fact, the fused wire is A2 (yellow - GE, gelb).

Ignoring the misleading image in the EBA and using the table, A2 (yellow) connects to Pin 33 (large red wire in car), A3 (red) connects to Pin 20 (green wire in car) and A4 (black) connects to Pin 24 (brown wire in car). It seems sensible that the fused wire to the camera connects to the large red power supply wire in the car.

This is the way I wired my car and everything (including parking mode) works perfectly. Maybe it doesn't matter in terms of the functioning of the camera, but I believe this is the correct way according to the instructions.

[VinnyA320]

Originally Posted by ian2828

Huge thanks to Vinny for this. I've just completed the installation on my 2016 F30 (which has a similar wiring layout) and I wanted to share a couple of points.

My car is a right hand drive UK model. I discovered that the whole wiring arrangement is a mirror image of Vinny's left hand drive (so the FEM unit to tap into is in the passenger footwell on the left side). The FEM is also in the opposite orientation with the relevant wires further back, making it very difficult to use the wiring connectors supplied with the kit. I ended up carefully splicing and soldering the connections and covering with heat shrink tubing. This was all rather tricky with the restricted access to the wiring.

I'm fairly sure, however, that the wiring shown in the DIY is incorrect.

Vinny's photo appears to show the red wire from the camera attached to the thick red wire from Pin 33 in the car, and the yellow fused wire attached to the thin green wire from Pin 20. I think these should be switched. Here's an extract from the BMW EBA instructions:

Attachment 1383764

The image of the wiring at the top could be misleading. It makes it look like the red wire A3 is the fused wire. In fact, the fused wire is A2 (yellow - GE, gelb).

Ignoring the misleading image in the EBA and using the table, A2 (yellow) connects to Pin 33 (large red wire in car), A3 (red) connects to Pin 20 (green wire in car) and A4 (black) connects to Pin 24 (brown wire in car). It seems sensible that the fused wire to the camera connects to the large red power supply wire in the car.

This is the way I wired my car and everything (including parking mode) works perfectly. Maybe it doesn't matter in terms of the functioning of the camera, but I believe this is the correct way according to the instructions.

Looks like you may be right. I'll try swapping the wires this weekend and report back and update the post accordingly.

[f32socal]

Great DIY! I ended up having it installed at a local audio shop because I didn't feel comfortable tearing apart my car. I am experiencing some issues with the camera though. It always goes into parking mode and I can't reliably get the driving mode to start. Any ideas? So far I tried to do a reset but it didn't seem to fix the issue.

[mrduder]

I just had this installed today and the parking mode isn't working. The system just shuts off completely. Is this being caused by a faulty camera or is this caused from it not being hooked up properly? Or a setting I'm missing? It works while driving, just not when parked. Thanks

[VinnyA320]

Originally Posted by mrduder

I just had this installed today and the parking mode isn't working. The system just shuts off completely. Is this being caused by a faulty camera or is this caused from it not being hooked up properly? Or a setting I'm missing? It works while driving, just not when parked. Thanks

Possibly not hooked up correctly. Check the post by ian2828 as he correctly pointed out the line locations.

[cncmastr]

Wow! Great guide!

Do you find it annoying to have it on the windshield on the passenger side where it makes it hard to open the sun shade?