I recently got a 2012 mini s convertible and I ordered a license plate back up camera. Does anyone know how to remove the rear tailgate plastic panel or how to access the reverse light to wire camera to?

 

Digging up an older thread with no replies. I just bought a 2013 R57 and am installing a reverse camera. Where have people found to be the best place to tap into the reverse light wire? Best wire routing up to the head unit?

 

Mine is a R58 but should be similar for the backup light. I just made a connection to my backup light so when it got power, it turned on the camera. This didn't work initially, the camera was flickering. After some research I found a link (cannot find it now) that covered adding a relay to power the camera. This fixed the flickering issue. The link below is a similar article but not the one I used. It at least shows the wiring for a relay.

https://www.dvdgpsnav.com/blog/how-t...-installation/

I just bought a generic relay from my local auto parts store. It had the relay and the base with 4 leads coming out about 6" long.

I ran the rest of the cables through the inside of my car.

I am also attaching the instructions I copied from the link I used. I think it was from a youtube video but it has been a year or better since I installed it.

 

I ran it to the driver's side, under the back seat, under the door sill trim and to the fuse box. There's no good switched power source in the trunk that I could find.

 

I lied. There is a cigarette lighter socket in the hatch that I spliced into for power, but it's only on when the car is running. The video wire I ran up under the driver's side door sill.

 

Reviving an old thread, just wanted a shout out a thank you to DogfaceSGM, relay has been ordered and hopefully this will fix my problem. I'm sure it will.

 

If it worked when the car wasn't running and flickers when it is running, yes the relay should correct your issue.

 

Relay installed and all working as should.

 

do you know what color wires you connected, and where? I’m lost

 

Sure, put the relay in the little cubby area under the trunk light and 12V plug. There is a little hole behind the tail light that drops down under the car that I used to fish the wire through. Tapped the green wire at backup light for trigger (wht wire on relay), used the 12V plug for the constant 12V (red/black stripe-ylw specks---red wire relay) and ground (brown---black relay) and put the relay right on the bottom with double sided tape. Blue relay wire goes to 12V camera wire. Excuse all the wire taps from the previous owner, haha.

Purchased relay off of Amazon:

 

bluonyx pretty much covered it. The relay can be mounted where ever you see fit below are what wires of the relay that need to connect to what wires of the car

Relay Car
Black Good ground on the car. If mounting where he did mine has a bolt with no nut on it there that would be good.
Red To positive power source to power the camera, we both used the accessory plug power wire
White Connected to your backup light positive wire. This is what activates the relay to supply power to your camera. Sorry forget what color it is on the MINI plug. It is a whatever color wire with a whatever color stripe. Brown is GND and the other is your brake light
Blue To the positive wire for your camera. Ground your NEG wire to the body/frame

Hope that gets you between his and my descriptions

This is all covered in the attachment in post #3 of this thread.

 

I'd be curious if the OE Garmin can display a camera feed.
Think it's a Nuvi 22xx based on a quick Google. Doubting it's compatible.

 

so it looks like you’re saying the ground taps into the *constant* brown wire, and not the brown wire leading into the tail light pigtail?

this one?

 

Yup that's what I did. No problems so far with my setup.

 

Previous owner had a Garmin Drivesmart 50 system with a wireless backup camera. When I uninstalled it I was wondering why it had all this extra wiring and a relay and ripped it all out. Could have saved a lot of time if I had left the relay in and wiring the new camera up to it. Also the Garmin camera only working with Garmin systems, bummer.

 

Green/blue (car pigtail) — white relay

Red/brown (constant) — red relay

Red (camera) — yellow relay

Brown (constant) — black relay

Am I supposed to tap any metal for the ground? What about the black wire running from the camera?

Y’all are f*kin amazing

 

Forgot the model already, but per Garmin mine isn't compatible with a camera.
Might find a bluetooth solution that I can pair to my phone for a short term solution.

 

I grounded my cameras black wire to frame as well as the relay. Any good ground will work.