Anytime front camera issues

dang, seems like I've seen more and more people have controller or camera problems over time. As per this forum...

 

Emailed 2 or 3 times over a month

 

I'm thinking maybe it's just the camera and not thr controller since rear camera always works perfect but then again who knows

 

Yea they responded to one email clarifying issues about a month ago, nothing since. Not super helpful. I may just order a new camera on Amazon and see if that’s the issue.

 

I'd recommend trying to give Brian a call.
brian@anytimebackupcamera.com is the email I've had several rounds of contact with

 

Can you tell me how you mounted the fan? I hate that my camera doesn’t work when I’m
Idling for a while. It’s definitely a heat soak issue. I emailed Nakita and after replacing it. Figured out it was def a heat issue. What’s the point of a camera that doesn’t work when you need it the most?

 

There’s 2 unused holes in front of the condenser as if there should already be a fan there but isn’t. Most Japanese makes have the same fan, got mine from an old Mazda and just zip tied the 3rd hole.

 

If you have time, Can you please take a pic?
Thanks

 

Following. I was looking at that front camera set up, definitely want to see what comes of this thread. Besides the issues - do y'all like/use your front cams often?

 

I was having the front camera (Nakita) flashing to black screen when off-roading, I was able to verify it was due heat transfer. Mostly like caused by high temperatures, low air flow due to the slow speed of being in 4 wheel drive.
First I used wire heat shielding and sleeved the wire right up to the camera and the issue continued.
Next I solved this issue by installing 2 cheap 10” push/pull E-fans. I set both fans to “push” air thru the condenser. Another TW user said he did this and it solved his issue. Thanks for the idea @TurboFire10

My whole purpose of the fan install was strictly to move air while off-roading at slow speeds to stop the front camera from over heating and flashing a black screen. So with that being said I’m using the front camera switch to activate the relay for the fans. My A/C already blows ice cold so I don’t really need to use the fans for that although I’m sure it’s gonna be a benefit while their running.

 

Did you ever resolve this ? Mine is doing practically the same thing. I just installed it a week ago . All my connections are good and soldered

 

I forgot about this. I figured out my camera. It kinda acts weird.if i turn the camera on first then give it power it works but if i do it the opposite way its all scrambled

 

check your voltage drop. I was pulling my eyeballs out on this too. those tiny leads for power and video are around 30ga and cameras can draw over 1 amp. camera pulls the voltage down to about 4.6 volts. 5 volts is the minimum for most cameras. heat can affect wire resistance and the alternator can raise/lower the system voltage as it charges the battery or encounters a load. a bad crimp somewhere will do it too, but when the camera was working and i had the console apart, the wires were warm. i was sure i had a short somewhere and replaced the wires going through the firewall and it still fizzled at idle but blinked on during driving. hooked up a direct battery connection at the camera site leaving the video cabling as it was and bam, flicker free. i heard some other ppl mention using a power regulator or a capacitor to smooth things out. i'm going the route of a relay picking up the positive voltage to actuate the direct power..heres hoping it has enough juice to pull the coil down

 

Mine was doing the flickering thing or just a black screen. Wiggled some wires around under the steering wheel where the relay is on the harness and I think the connections on the relay weren't pushed in all the way? It now works fine after literally moving the wires around, something wasn't connected all the way, ran out of time for the night but tested it out with a short drive and it seems to be fixed.

 

Mine just started flickering while wheeling over the last month or so.. I'll have to check the relay wires to see if that's my problem as well. Never had an issue until I switched from the camera that came with the kit to the Amazon nakita camera.

 

That's interesting. I thought it was my camera, but I had a spare from a recent fiasco... long story... and tried swapping those but the tinkering with the wires under the steering wheel literally would fix it as I pushed the wires around in sync with when I would wiggle em around lol... not what I was hoping for when diving into this mod but fingers crossed that it stays working. Maybe the new camera has something to do with the fuse in the relay? Im not really too knowledgable on most things like relays and stuff but I was surprised that that's where my issue was coming from/ solved. I did notice the relay's black box was coming unplugged kind of easy before installation and there wasn't any info on where to mount it... if I have issues again I may velcro it someplace more secure. Good luck @jayanderson5

 

Update Copied from my other posting on a different thread;
I had gone through 2 kits... didn't hear back from the customer service and was wanting to go on a trip with the front cam... long story short both connections at the relay from the video inputs and outputs at the relay connection were messed up from anytimebackupcamera.com(non prewired) and trailgridpro.com (prewired).So here's the rest; needing to get it done quickly and not have a ton of wires dangling I found the issues coming from that area. The first one from anytime would work when I wiggled the connection where the 3 black cables were connection with the ground coming out of them and the 3 white wires into the relay... it would work then not work upon pressure when wiggling it... so I swapped the relay and the rca plugs and back to square one BLACK SCREEN on reverse when in reverse and when toggled to reverse. I was about to try one more thing and swap the relay box thinking it was that. Upon inspection, the kit had one strand of ground that was missed and inserted into the reverse input or output(I forget) I yanked it out and BOOM, problem solved. Put it all back in and no issues thus far. Heading out for a roadtrip this week and hopefully all is good. I asked both trail grid pro and the anytime customer service but when it came down to it they both didn't respond after a couple emails... I learned a lot here lol... So if your having a black screen or glitchy pic the problem could be from a strand of ground into the relay connections or bad sauder and ground separation. Probably sounds confusing but maybe it could help someone who doesn't want to waste a ton of time and may get lucky. Im sure if I had a shop install it would have been a pain to figure this out. I had one audio shop try to fix the connection at the relay but that was a waste of $50, next a notable Offroad overlanding shop wanted $155 to redo it with parts from both kits...im glad I gave it one more shot and again, who knows if they would've found that hairlike strand of ground that was stuck in the relay connection. Anytime really needs some better QC...

 

TacoZmtn - did you take a photo of that connection? I have the flickering head unit screen issue when operating the anytime front camera. My back camera appears to work normally unless the front camera is on... then the backup camera which I was told should override the front camera would come on. Nope. So Anytime Camera sent me a replacement camera and I connected that one and I am experiencing similar issues to my original ones. So I will take the dash apart and pull the head unit to see about the connections you mention. Weird, I asked the guy if he had other people with similar issues and of course, they said no. Glad I found this post thread. So if you have a photo of where that ground wire was... let me know. it would be great for me, as well as others and for ABC if there is a known fix before final installation. I would love to promote their product rather than complain about it. THank you

 

I don’t have any pics of the actual wires but see the pic with my yellow arrows. On the kit they are all heat shrinked together… I carefully cut the heat shrink off and each of the wires are plugged into the switch relay… the white wires have a sheathing of ground that all combine into the ground. One of the wires had 1 super thin strand of the ground plugged in with the white wire with the tab that plugs into the relay. Like I was saying I’m my previous post… it was literally almost unnoticeable it was so small… but after snipping it it instantly fixed the inference it was causing. The ground wrapped around the wires is really delicate so be careful if you try to do this. I have a spare non working relay at home and can take some pics tonight or tomorrow after work. Hopefully that’s some help if you go that route and don’t exchange or return it… although this was my second kit so maybe a roll of the dice on a new kit…

 

Has anyone had a problem with the camera becoming water logged/ blurry after heavy rain?