Which 2nd camera to use as a rear view camera?

[TobyQuest]

I bought a dash cam, one of the typical ebay jobs which is wired up as a reverse camera and unfortunately doesnt have a wide enough angle to show me if Im going to reverse into something and also the traffic behind me when Im driving.

Ive got bad visibility at the back and wondered whats a cheap solution to have a monitor and a pretty clear picture on whats going on behind me. I saw in a post someone mentioned getting a dash cam and mounting it at the back connected to a monitor. Certainly the lens would probably be much better than the typical reverse cameras are, but which dash cam can be mounted on the back, presumably outside like that?

 

[Mr Rusty]

I bought a 7” monitor and an RC 5010 number plate camera <Broken link removed>

Camera is mounted just above numberplate on my Nexxo 690 and while the picture is a little ‘fish eyed’ it does provide me with a pretty good view behind the van. From the outside the whole thing is very discreeT. I mounted the monitor (a 7” TFT version from 2seetv) in place of the rear view mirror, feeding the cable down the A pillar, out the van in the drivers footwell (there is a hole to the underside of the van here so no extra holes drilled, along the chassis and up to the numberplate ‘cutting’ through to the outside of the rear panel through a number plate light. Again this route at the rear meant I did not have to cut through the ‘skin’ of the van as the number plate and lights are set into a separate external panel. Power feed for the monitor is taken from the interior light (above the rear view mirror).

 

[TobyQuest]

Thats nice. Looks expensive for the size, but it all depends on the picture wuality? Is it decent?
What are those 8 small holes on it for?
Does the camera need to be mounted a particular way up or is there a way to mount it any way you like and still have the image appear correctly on the screen?
I would probably run the cables in the same way. Nice idea you had to mount the screen up high rather than on the dash

 

[Mr Rusty]

The 8 ‘holes’ are infrared lights - see http://www.risvision.cn/en/pro_detail.php?ProId=447

I don’t know which way the camera is supposed to be mounted, see pics 4, 5 & 6 for how I have done mine. I bluetacked the camera on first and checked the picture on the monitor before finally fixing it in place.

First 3 pics show how I mounted the monitor having removed the reversing mirror first.