Back Up Camera - No Video

Hi Tacomaworld,

I drive an automatic ‘17 TRD Off-Road 4x4 with a technology package & JBL audio. Randomly, I seem to have stopped getting back up camera video. I have a

$900 Pioneer DMH-WC6600NEX Digital Multimedia Receiver With Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, 9" Floating Capacitive Touchscreen, Modular Double-DIN, Built-In Bluetooth, WiFi and Amazon Alexa

Pioneer DMH-WC6600NEX with a Maestro RR as well as a front camera which I installed back in 2020. I haven’t identified any other systems not functioning. Front camera, radio, BSM, parking sensor, reverse lights still work fine. I do not have the anytime camera mod.

When I shift in to reverse, the Pioneer switches to the camera, but its black.

I’ve tried the following to no avail:

• Pulled battery ground terminal wire for 10 mins
• Pulled fuse ECU-IG #2 (7.5A)
• Visually inspected wiring inside tailgate and under the bumper passenger side (no photo)

Next step is verifying wiring behind the Pioneer, but it’s highly unlikely the video cable is disconnected. Any other suggestions before I pull this thing?



thanks!

 

Try cleaning the connection(s).

 

What are you using for the adapter to the factory wiring? Oem camera is 6v. It needs a voltage regulator somewhere in line with it

 

I’d bet a dollar it’s the connection behind the head unit. I had the same issues a couple years ago with the same head unit. You think it’s plugged in all the way but it’s not.

 

Maestro RR harness, I believe it’s the TO2 harness rev 1.8. I haven’t had a problem in 3.5 years.

Gotcha. I’ll check it out and reply back! I hope this is it!

 

Will wait on the updates.

 

Alrighty, I pulled the Pioneer and the backup camera wire was still connected (brown on pioneer harness to yellow on Maestro Harness). I had put electrical tape around the connection when I did the original install and it hadn't budged:



I traced the wire to the factory harness and the brown side back to the pioneer. Both seem to be fine. This leads me to believe there is an issue on the factory side i.e. either the camera is dead or there's a wiring issue.

Thoughts?

 

This is gonna sound like a joke, but is there electrical tape over the camera lens? I had a friend 'prank' me by putting electrical tape over the lens on my Jeep. Took me longer than I'd like to admit to figure it out.J

 

That was the first thing I checked! Lens is clear, I’m also not getting the factory parking lines either, just black screen.

 

Crap. I owe you a dollar

 

how about a beer when I drive through OK

just got off the phone with idatalink, they suggested probing the blue/yellow wire on the 18-pin connector of the RR module for 6v. If no voltage, the RR module went bad. This seems unlikely as all other functions work. Wonder if there is an easier wire to probe than pulling my pioneer again.

 

Just reading through this, my first thought would be to go straight to the Maestro and test the wire that goes to the backup camera 6V feed to see if the Maestro is outputting that. I have read other threads or seen YT videos where people’s Maestro (only seen it on RR, not RR2) stop outputting the proper 6V and have no power. Rare, but happens.

If that is what happened, you can buy a cheap 6V camera adapter from Best Buy for car audio and just splice it into your Maestro harness pretty easily.

 

Excellent idea! Cheaper than replacing the RR. If anybody has any wire clip / wire piercing probs recommendations, send them my way!

 

Yeah, it’s this dude for $20.

I had 2 Nissan Frontiers before the Tacoma and i was running the Kenwood and RR that I installed in the beginning of my thread, in both of those trucks first. The Frontiers didn’t have true Maestro support for the vehicle, so the RR compatibility was only universal, meaning it only did SWC and gauges - not the vehicle specific stuff like what door is open, TPMS, etc. As such, iDataLink at the time did not offer a plug and play harness. So I did not even know about how the RR powers the radio in most other vehicle applications. To go along with that, I was using an HD kenwood camera in those trucks, so I never had to deal with anything 6V power related.

When I got to the Toyota I figured that out, and also learned that the Maestro provides the 6V on vehicles that iDataLink sells harnesses for that need 6V for their cameras. So when I powered everything up, my camera didn’t work, and I assumed my RR was not outputting 6V. So I spliced one of those guys in - still didn’t work. Eventually I realized the radio was set to HD cam instead of NTSC…once I found that it worked great. I never bothered to wire back up the Maestro 6V circuit and left the one I linked installed.

Eventually I wanted to clean things up again so I bought a new HRN harness and combined with the RR2, I am using the Maestro’s 6V output instead of the spliced in one from before. But I can confirm that one did work great, so go for it if that is the problem.

That was a long way to tell you the $20 part works fine.

 

My pioneer is set to NTSC, I verified that but it hadn’t changed.

 

Yeah, my money is on the Maestro 6V output. Luckily easy to test and easy to fix if that’s it.

The install in the first frontier was done by a shop, and I learned from what they did. They had to set the cam to HD deep in the settings, which I didn’t know about. So the radio stayed set to HD until I installed in the Tacoma (using stock camera, which is why it needed to go back to NTSC) hence why it took so long to find and fix since I didn’t know about that setting.

When the 6V adapter install didn’t fix the problem, I had no idea what to do from there lol, that’s when I started digging in settings and eventually found it.

 

This thread by @Dano007 on TW which suggests your fix @BLtheP

Funny enough, I checked the location of the blue/yellow wire and it was already in the 18-pin plug. This must be the case for the V1.8 revision of the TO2 harness which I have, but not the newer ones where it may be in the green 10-pin.

Confirmed the following:

• Blue/yellow wire reads constant 6v
• 6v and ground on both sides of all connectors in the dash.
• 6v at camera pin
• ground at camera pin
• continuity from CV+ (red wire) at camera harness to yellow RCA center pin
• continuity from CV- (white wire) at camera harness to yellow RCA outer ring

I also swapped the front camera rca to the rear camera input - video works.

Pretty sure I have a bad backup camera.

 

i would agree with that assessment.

 

Yeah, sounds like a bad backup cam at this point. My money was on the Maestro but with ruling that out and testing the wiring it can’t be anything else.

Surprised it failed, don’t hear about that often. I wonder if it being on 24/7 from the aftermarket setup wears the camera out faster over time. Not like it matters or is a big deal every 4-5 years, but food for thought anyways. I’d still rather it be on all the time for the function. I use that a whole lot.

 

Well, I received and installed the replacement today. No video. The donor Tacoma looked pretty smashed up based on the VIN. They are going to send another camera they had, also from a 2017. Will update...