How many accessories can I wire to the dome light?
 

Hey everybody. I've read that a good place to wire a dash cam is to the dome light. Well, I don't just want to wire up one dash cam, I want to wire up three. One in the windshield, one in the back window, and one on the side window. Considering a fourth for the other side window.

I can probably manage take down the headliner, and I'm a pro at soldering. But I don't know a ton about electricity. Can I wire all these to the dome light, or is that a bad idea? And should I add an inline fuse, and what size?

On one of the cams look for a current draw rating.
If it doesnt have one, you can measure it with a multi-meter.
You would want to measure it while recording.

My guess would be less than 100mA = 0.1 Amps.
Then what is the fuse rating for the dome?
And - if you wire it into the dome light, wont that only supply power when it is on?

The actual dome I believe is actually dimmable by the ECU, so the car can provide less than 12VDC to the actual bulb.

You might need to pull the power from the rearview mirror because I believe that stays active with the car off.... have to check.

the dome light uses PWM, cool for LEDs, bad for other components, I killed an RBG controller this way. if you NEED to use the dome then you will need a cap to normalize the power (I used a 240uF when I did this)
better solution is to use a SSR, as its totally voltage controlled, and the dome light is only actually designed for a halogen bulb that ranges somewhere from .25~.65A from my research.

I have accessories driven off my dome light circuit but I now use SSRs to control them all.
Digikey has a nice assortment, be sure to get DC SSRs (not AC they will break)

Hey guys, this is the thread that made me think I could wire it to the dome light:

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...highlight=dash

If you can wire a radar detector there, why not a dash cam?

Edit: Upon looking at this again, it looks like he wired it to the auto dimming mirror, not the dome light.

Two concerns. A) I have a stripper with 0 options. Will I have the same wire back there? B) You mentioned above that this stays powered when the car turns off. I would prefer it if it turned off when I turned off the car.

You are installing 4 dashcams but you want them off when the car is off??

Are you building your own google video car?
I would think the most common use of 4 cams is for security where you want them ON when the car is off.

If you pull out the dome light, and reach back behind it (towards the rear of the vehicle) there is an unused taped up wire harness that the auto-dimming mirror would use if you had one.

That harness is accessory powered so it turns off when you turn off the car. You can tap into that harness for at least one dashcam, no experience with multiple ones. :thumbup:

If you want to turn off with the car, why not just power off the cigar lighter power hidden behind the glove box. It's pretty much made for your request.

I'm also considering that. I was hoping to hardwire my radar detector there, though.

This probably sounds pretty ridiculous, but does anyone know if it's a bad idea to wire four or five accessories up to one single cigarette lighter? Well, maybe five or six accessories if I ever have to plug in a phone charger to that cigarette lighter... :bonk:

<10A (IIRC it's a 10 A fuse.. Might be a 15)

4 dash cams??? I think you've been watching way too many russian dash cam videos my friend.