Vehicle is 2014 4.4 Vogue SE with 1700w Meridian sound system.

Last year, in another vehicle, a woman reversed into me, apologised at the scene and then lied when she got home to her insurer, or they did the lying for her, saying I hit the back of her.

Upshot was I had to pay 50% of her costs.

Determined this wasn't going to happen again, I installed these Blackvue dashcams in both my RR and my Lexus RX.

The kit consists of a powered front-facing camera mounted next to the interior mirror, to which is linked a rear camera by a long cable.

That cable supplies power to the rear cam and transmits the image back to the front cam, where it's recorded on an integral micro SD card.

In the Lexus, it works fine.

In the RR however, it seems impossible to have the rear camera connected without interfering hugely with both the FM and DAB radios (forget the TV - never seems to work).

I had the installation done professionally and called the bloke back to try and fix it but we couldn't.

Problem seems to be that the camera needs to look out of the rear window, obviously.

To do that, the cable needs to go through one of the two rubber gaiters between the tailgate and the car itself.

With the cable hanging loose it was fine but every time we brought it back to the centre of the roof adjacent the tailgate, ie where it had to be routed, the interference came back.

I tried ferrite cores but to no effect.

The auto electrician said he was out of ideas so he removed the rear cam and I've just got the front one now.

Blackvue are on v.2 of their cable, following widespread DAB interference problems in years past and the UK agent had no suggestions either. Actually, he wasn't surprised.

Maybe another brand or model would be OK but this just in the hope it might be of help to someone in the future.

Best,

Simon

thanks for the info Simon..

on my 2012 westie, FM is terrible when my self contained dashcam is active, and its down to the antennas in the side and rear screens being to sensitive maybe?..
as you say the dashcam must look out the back to be of any use so we are fubbered until someone thinks of a solution... ... - .- -.




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This isn't RF interference, as in something which induces noise into the aerials so no amount of ferrite cores is going to fix that.

The issue is about the cheapo PSU they come with which does not isolate the device or prevent it from injecting the interference back into the 12v supply. There was another guy on here had the same issue with a cheapo fag lighter to USB adaptor ruining his radio reception, something I also had in the work hack. I bought an Apple 15 quid job and all was peaceful once more.

If you were to use the thing on a quality switched mode power supply, or something with an isolating transformer in it the problem would go away. These plug in things normally have a 5v regulator with a small capacitor and sometimes a blocking diode and that simply isn't good enough to stop noise travelling back up the power line.

If you wanted t prove it, leave the cable where it causes the most interference but power it from a booster pack which is not connected to the car. That will tell you 100%.

Out of interest, does the power cord for it have a CE approval? This is one of the criteria, that the unit must be able to accept interference whilst still operating, but not give out any itself.

i think the chinese produce and print their own CE approval stickers Dom..  ... - .- -.




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China have their own CE stickers, font is exactly like the european one but the distance between the letters are somewhat different. The chinese version means "China Export"... "Plentraktoren/Garden tractor": 2008 L322 TDV8
"Project": 1990 90 County 300tdi

Mzplcg, your knowledge is clearly greater than mine.

PSU?

The front cam is powered through Blackvue's optional Power Magic unit, which supplies power dependent on dipswitch settings relating to a combination of battery voltage and time passed since key off, allowing the unit to continue to record whilst parked and switched off and unoccupied.

If it was a question of noise being transmitted back to the vehicle loom though, this would happen while the front camera alone was connected as well surely? Or are you saying the noise goes from the rear cam only, through the front cam, through the Power Magic unit and into the vehicle loom?

To clarify, the rear camera is fed power from the front one and returns the circuit and images back to the front camera. Unplugging the rear cam at either end solves the problem.

For info, all Blackvue stuff seems to be designed and built in South Korea, where dashcams look pretty much universal for some reason.

I'm not in a position to power up the rear cam in isolation but thanks for your interest.

Your last point - the now-redundant cable is looped up in the cars roof void as it seemed daft to pay the sparks to dismantle the interior again for no reason, so I don't know if it's CE marked.

Exactly the same kit works fine in my Lexus though, with the same rear quarter aerials/signal amplifiers. It's clearly not a universal problem.

PSU = Power Supply Unit.

Whilst it may not be a universal issue the LR product can be sensitive on this sort of thing as I've found before.

So, if the rear camera is causing interference it must be one of 3 things.
1. Faulty rear camera unit
2. Faulty cable connecting it to the front one.
3. Faulty PSU which causes more interference as it is supplying more load.

My money's on number 3. Can you try powering the whole shebang from a booster pack? i.e. Front & back. That will prove if it's the PSU or the cables.

If it turned out to be the cables you could screen them with a slip over metal braided tube. Ground it at one end and it should provide a shield for the RF interference.

Hi Simon,

i fitted the same cameras

http://www.fullfatrr.com/forum/topic38044.html

I've had no problems, TV works DAB works, theirs no interference at all, shame your not local you could have tried both my cams mate Dave

2012 Vogue Westminster 4.4

Ha! Funnily enough I'm in Norfolk at the moment (Binham) but going back south tomorrow.

Kind offer though

Im about 15 klicks south, Dereham, if you have to pass this way pop in mate, i'll put the kettle on  Dave

2012 Vogue Westminster 4.4

Far to the south now, but you are a gentleman!

Mzp I'm kicking myself for not swapping the rear cameras over between the two cars to see if one was faulty but I doubt it. It did work perfectly otherwise.

The auto-sparks did suggest earthed sheathing for the whole cable (used in racing cars apparently) but he said he could spend a lot of hours re-doing the installation at my expense but that it might not work at the end of the day.

My decision was just to just go without the rear cam.

As I say, I wasn't in a position to supply power to either unit from a separate source but I take your point.

thinking 'outside the box' , why not position the rear cam on the front windscreen facing towards the rear of the car..ok not ideal for 'clear' video but it should pick up most incidents.. ... - .- -.




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Appreciate the suggestion the rear cam is fairly fisheye and lower def than the front but if the sparks hadn't tidied up all the cable in the roof I'd have a go at it.

I've got the same dash cam in my L405. Did the same set up as philo2457 and no interference so perhaps its when you try to route the rear camera cable through the boot grommets? Personally it doesn't bother me that you can see the wire very slightly trail from the car roofline to the camera as the camera isn't exactly hidden on the rear window anyway.

My camera has already paid for itself as 3 days after I installed it I had a lorry cut across his lane on a roundabout clipping my rear quarter. Broke the taillight and scraped the wing/alloy. After the incident the lorry driver claimed I was in the wrong lane and said as much to his insurance company. When the company got in touch they claimed the same to which I politely asked for their email address to send a video to. Hours later I was called to ask if I had a preference where I'd like my car fixed and would a silver curtesy L405 be acceptable for the duration! Rear camera certainly saved lots of frustrating arguing and my no claims bonus!