You can do that no problem. You will still want to hook up the reverse light power to the reverse camera trigger (which is then separate from camera power which should be any switched power). That's how I have mine setup - both front and rear cameras are available anytime the radio is on.

-Charlie

you lost me on that. the camera has an RCA for the head unit and a black/white power wire plug/wire pair. I was thinking that since I have to run the RCA all the way to the head unit, and it's powered by the ignition, why not run that power cable (red i assume) to the head unit's power cable? it would be on whenever the head units on. Black i assume would be to the cars negative or ground.

i don't know what you mean by trigger wire

I don't know what the typical life of the camera is, but having it on all the time will certainly make it shorter.

Use a diode so that you can have two inputs (reverse signal or brake lights, power from head unit whenever you want your rear camera on) to keep the input signals separated from each other. Otherwise, when you're driving along and you decide to view your camera to see what's behind you, you'll activate your reverse lights as your moving forward. Will confuse other drivers on the road.

Diode: Amazon.com

Attached is a wiring diagram I made up when I wired my backup camera. My particular head unit didn't have the option to turn on rear camera on demand, but did have a front camera on demand option. I used a splitter so that my rear camera fed both the front and rear camera ports on my head unit.

The head unit will have a trigger wire that lets it know the vehicle is in reverse. Camera has power/ground/RCA. Head unit has RCA and trigger wire. Connect the camera to switched power (that is on with the vehicle) and connect the head unit trigger wire to reverse lights to automatically switch to the rear camera signal when in reverse.

-Charlie

i think i understand. the trigger will kick on when in reverse. but when driving forward, i can manually tough the Pioneer's camera button to view as well. No need a special thing like a diode for that?

I gotta study up on this lol. I havent wired anything since my car's remote start and that was 8 years ago.

My radio did not have a camera power out but I can select front or rear cameras as desired at anytime, along with automatic reverse camera triggering. This means no need for diodes or other trickery, in my case.

You have to figure out what your stereo is capable of and wire it according to that.

-Charlie

ok i think i got it. I looked up the Pioneer manual. I know which wire is the reverse trigger. It says to connect that to the voltage-changing wire from the tail light (i haven't looked yet but i assume that may be obvious)

Is this wiring diagram right? just splice in the red wire from the camera to the tail light, black to ground (probably leave it near the hatch door to not require a long wire run) then RCA in.

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That will work to ONLY trigger the reverse camera in reverse (it will leave the camera unpowered if you try to view it when not in reverse). You can also find the reverse wire up under the dash - it is a red with yellow tracer wire. You can find it in/near the connector that connects to the harness that runs to the rear on the driver's side, and up in a junction connector behind the fuse box there (if you have an auto trans). Obviously check with a multimeter to make sure you have the correct wire before connecting the camera to it.

-Charlie

yeah i realized that after I hooked it up. That's fine, I've driven for 20 years without one so I only care about looking down at the bumper when backing into a tight space.

I've gotten too used to having one on so many other modern vehicles that I went back and added one. It is nice to be able to KNOW that there is nothing hidden back there below the rear window. Oh, and aligning trailers without opening the rear hatch for those rare times I tow...

-Charlie

It definitely makes backing up to a trailer much easier. Not as much hopping out and seeing how much further I need to back up. I've had trailer tires blow out before, so I like activating the backup camera as I'm towing down the highway to catch anything that might not look right.

after a week of use I'm actually not quite happy with it. It's not wide enough. I can tell what's 2' behind me at the very closest but it's not zoomed out enough. Could be because it's on the license plate vs above like on the top of the rear hatch. It's also from 2015 when I bought the runner so it might just be a crappy old camera style. It was just sitting in the shed all these years.

I'm debating getting a NATIKA style one and maybe mount it on the hatch top near the third brake light so I can look down at the bumper/hitch and see all the sides since it has a wider angle. I tested it out and I backed up today and purposely hit the curb with my tire but couldn't see the curb on the camera at all. so....darn.

I ended up getting the NATIKA style one, installed by the third brake light so it looks like an OEM mod, symmetrical to the rear windshield spray. I will say.....it was a HUGE PITA to do it that far out because my through-socket is only 5 inches long and you need to get the nut on the threaded bolt on that camera and there's no other way. and the wire got twisted up around the tool, must have taken me another 45 minutes just getting the tool back out. But wired it through one of the seep holes in the hatch shell and right down the rubber boot we're all familiar with. As a tip, I just slit the rubber boot and shoved the wire down real easy. Followed up with liquid electrical tape and regular tape so it's solid. image quality so much better and with that style, I can cut one of the installation wires so the image isn't reversed but rather straight on. I love it.

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