GEN 1 Keep blowing fuses trying to wire a dashcam!!!

Hey everyone,

Wondering if someone with electronics skills can provide any guidance.

I'm trying to hardwire a dashcam. I ran a 12V to mini-USB converter (came with dashcam) from the rearview area, across the headliner, down the A-pillar, and then into the passenger side fuse box. A pick of a similar 12V-5V converter is:

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I'm using an add-a-circuit in a delayed ignition switched fuse (can't recall the fuse number right now but it has a 10A fuse). I attached the red wire (actually black with a red stripe) from the converter to the pigtail.

Then I wanted to test to see if it would work so I touched the black wire to a grounding bolt and promptly shorted my fuse. I double checked all my connections and tried again, burnt up another fuse. I tried one more time, and voila...lost another fuse. Doesn't matter if the camera is connected to the USB or not.

What am I doing wrong?

I should mention that the first time I wired it up I was in such a rush that I did accidentally put the black wire into the pigtail which is a no-no...and promptly melted the fuse of course.

I was wondering if there was a short in the actual converter device. I measured the resistance across the red and black wires that are supposed to connect to the truck's power. It measured approximately 35 Mega ohms...which sounds lke a lot of resistance to me (i.e. it is not shorted)...

Thanks!

Roy

You could always test it by connecting the wires directly to the battery.

Perhaps @The Car Stereo Company has some advice.

@Yukon Joe
www.runraptorrun.com

My guess is that when you wired it up wrong (black wire into the pigtail, not sure I am following you there) something got fried in the converter.

what size fuse did you use?

The Car Stereo Company said:

what size fuse did you use?

Click to expand...

He said 10 amp

might have done some damage to the voltage converter. those things only have 1-3 amp ratings. a surge in power could have sent current through before the 10amp fuse blew. also need to check where it was tapped into to make sure its the correct wire

before I settled on BlackVue for my dashcam, I went through a couple others, and two of them fried on wiring - checking their blogs, everyone else found the same thing - the circuitry is so fragile that any attempt without really low fusing just killed it.

moved on to BlackVue to avoid this in the future.

Thanks for the replies. I used Fuse 38 which says "Delayed accessory, 110 V Power point, radio". I think I chose that fuse based on someone else's thread which I can no longer find. The fuse is rated at 10 Amps but I started with just a 3 amp fuse for the camera, which I immediately shorted.

Maybe @The Car Stereo Company is right. I have a cigarette lighter-USB adaptor...maybe I'll take that apart and try hooking that up as my 12V-USB converter. I figure I just open it up and pull out the positive and negative wires going to the lighter socket right?

Thankfully haven't fried the camera yet. It still works if I hook it up to the cigarette lighter adaptor.

---------- Post added at 01:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:10 PM ----------

Ironhorse07 said:

My guess is that when you wired it up wrong (black wire into the pigtail, not sure I am following you there) something got fried in the converter.

Click to expand...

When I say "pigtail" I am referring to the add-a-circuit. There is a single wire with a butt connector coming out of the fuse box once you install it. You are supposed to put the positive wire for your accessory into this butt connector but I accidentally put the negative wire from my accessory in the butt connector (pigtail) and then put the positive end of the wire from my accessory on the grounding point, which promptly fried my fuse. Basically reversed the polarity across my voltage converter...not sure if that should have actually blown the fuse though since it wasn't technically a shorted circuit. That's why I'm confused.

you can solder onto the leads of the 12v socket. its most likely a 12v to 5v converter. most are. in which case do not bypass any of the interns of the socket

Okay thanks guys, I used the cig lighter adapter took out the internals and used that and it worked fine. The original converter must have been either shorted already or I shorted it when I misconnected it. Camera seems to be working perfectly! There are other install threads around but if anyone has any questions i'm happy to help however I can!





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