Technical Hard wiring a dash cam

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Technical Hard wiring a dash cam

Powellj3

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Hi, I bought a kit to wire my dash cam into a spare fuse socket. The adaptors seemed to be capable of plugging in to only some of the fuse carriers. Typically only those designed for the yellow 20amp fuses and not the smaller red 10am or brown 7.5 and 5amp sockets.

The adapter is designed to piggy back on the socket and provide a live feed. It can be placed in a spare socket or one already in use.

The interior fuse box is behind the passenger glove box (uk car) -which needed some disassembly to drop down out of the way. It was a fairly easy job to tidily run. The wires behind trim panels. All I had to do was choose a fuse. This is my problem.

All of the fuses seem to be permanent live. I want one which is switched with the ignition. Obviously I don't want the camera flattening my battery by running when parked up.

Any idea where I can get a switched live from within that fuse box please?

Thanks

Jonathan
 
You'll probably find some fuses are switched, live only with ignition on.
Some unswitch and live all the time.
And some are inhibited, these tend to power down when load it placed on the startor motor or after X amount of minutes after the ignition is turned off or door is opened, like for a head unit.

Check the owners handbook, I know that in the Pandas handbook the fuses are marked if they are switched, unswitched or inhibited.
https://aftersales.fiat.com/elum/home.aspx?languageid=2
 
Thanks for the link to the manual. It will prove useful. But not for this. It doesn't say which fuses are live and when.

The piggyback fuse only seems to fit the 20a yellow fuse holders and those nearby that are vacant. They all seem to be live without the keys in the ignition.

I could cut into one of the other wires but not unless I know exactly what it does.

Any other ideas?

Thanks
 
It should be simple to work it out.

F43 is the washer pump fuse, if the washers only work with ignition on, that's switched.

The other common switched fuses are the rear heated screen, but that appears to be in the fuse box under the bonnet (F20) and Cigar/Power socket (F85/F86) again under the bonnet.

There are different sizes (in shape as well as amps) of blade fuses and therefore different type piggyback fuse taps.
http://www.my-car-computer.com/auto-fuses.html

It's not that clear on the diagram but I would hazard a guess F43 is a mini fuse.
 
Last edited:
All done and working. It was the 7.5a fuse second down on the left hand side.
 
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