Adding a front camera

Stig · Apr 15, 2017

bconrey said: ↑

I can't speak to the 4-way relay but can get you oriented on the rest of it. Also know that the guy who makes the kit was pretty responsive to my questions; if I don't resolve your questions with my reply you may want to try reaching out to him.

Generally there are two switched circuits but you can tackle it with one switch. The kit allows you to 1)operate the camera as Toyota intended or whenever you want, and 2)view the factory camera versus an alternative camera. I'll get back to switch specifics in a sec.

The dongle on the left intercepts the camera power-on signal. Two wires come out of that dongle - a power wire (for your convenience) and the circuit which must be energized to trick the head unit into viewing the camera when you're not in reverse. Let's call the power wire 1a and the circuit 1b.

The dongle in the middle intercepts the factory camera feed, allowing you to either pass-through the factory camera signal or use an alternative camera signal. The relay (far right) is the traffic cop that decides which camera signal to send to the screen. When the relay is not energized, the factory camera is displayed. When the relay is energized, it switches to the alternative camera feed (in my case, front camera, and in your case, multi-camera relay). Let's call the relay's red wire 2a. Separately you'll need to ground the black wire of the relay.

Ok, back to the switch wiring. You have a power feed (1a) and two circuits that need power sometimes (1b and 2a). You can accomplish this with a DPDT switch (aka on-off-on). The back of the DPDT switch has six connectors and looks something like this:

A1 B1
A2 B2
A3 B3

A and B are their own circuits, independent of each other. That, combined with on-off-on means the following:
- when the switch is in the center position, both A and B are 'off'.
- when the switch is in the upper position, A2 is connected to A3 and B2 is connected to B3.
- when the switch is in the lower position, A2 is connected to A1 and B2 is connected to B1.
If you're paying attention, you noticed that 'down' connected the top circuits. That's just how those switches work. Let's call A the camera-anytime power circuit and B the factory-alternative selector circuit.

So now knowing how the switch should work, let's review the scenarios:
- normal operation - seems easy enough, that means no change in camera and no power to the camera circuit. That's your 'off' or center position on the switch
- factory camera anytime - for this one you'll need to energize the camera circuit but you don't want to power the relay
- alternative camera anytime - now you need to energize the camera circuit and energize the relay

With all that in mind, you'll run 1a to A2 and B2 as you have two separate circuits that may need power. You'll run 1b to both A1 and A3 so that anytime you use that switch it energizes the camera-anytime circuit. Lastly, you'll run 2a to B1 so the alternative camera is selected when the switch is in the lower position.

I hope my lengthy explanation has eased your confusion and not made it worse. As I mentioned at the beginning, I can't speak to how the multi-camera switch works so I don't know what changes you may need to make from my explanation of the single camera solution. Good luck! Let me know if you need further clarification on anything above.
Click to expand...

Thanks, i emailed him and he walked me through the setup. Unfortunately one or both of the wiring harnesses didn't work correctly... So I'll be waiting on new stuff to try the install again.

TACOMA2NDGEN · Oct 17, 2021

Reviving old thread
I have a 2010 and I would like to add a camera to the front. Im trying to figure out what camera to purchase. Does it need to be 6vs? Or any of the “Toyota “ cameras on Amazon or ebay will work. I have a switchpro 9100 and would like to tie it into my rear camera anytime mod. It has the ability to change the switch configurations
Any info would be great thanks

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Adding a front camera

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