I am trying to set my back view camera in my Honda 2001. I could not figure out how to make electric configuration - I just want to avoid using tail light and my backup camera can keep running while I am driving (or I can put a switch).

Here what I have:

Pyle PLCM10 Rear View Backup Parking Reverse Camera

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According to manual the camera in left, black to cable has two input one for power and another to monitor. The (red and black) cable in the middle goes to power. The yellow tip black cable ( in the right) is extension that will take from back of the car to front where monitor will be housed. Yellow cable attached to it ground (I do not know where to attach it ?).

7" TFT LCD Color 2 Monitor

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I have minimum knowledge on wiring and car mechanical stuff. So I just want to power my monitor and camera. For monitor I bought:

Cigarette lighter plug (see the above photo assembled with monitor power input)

I did not know how can I power both monitor and camera. I also want to know if any other things to perform (such as earthing) to make the system perfect. Please suggest step wise.


Here is what I figured out:

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But still have following questions:

(1) What does earthing means ? How can I perform it appropriately?

(2) How can I connect two wires at the cigarette lighter source ? Any precautions ?

  • 4 close votes but not a single user, posted a comment asking for more information. We have been quick to close questions like this without providing any feedback to the OP on what we need in the question. This question is answerable with the current information. I will answer if I have time later – Move More Comments Link To Top Mar 19 '15 at 20:04

Look at the instruction manual for the camera. The wire (mostly likely black) it tells you to connect to ground, connect to ground. The wire (mostly likely red) it tells you to hook to the back up lights run to a switch that is fused and powered off a circuit that's hot in run and accessory.

You could also run the monitor off the same switch for simplicity. When you want it on you turn on the switch. Even if you leave the switch on when you turn off the car the camera and monitor go off.

  • See my recent edits - the camera and monitor have some documentation but not complete. I just want to avoid connecting to back light and install it easily. Few questions remaining, thanks – jon Mar 20 '15 at 19:50

Personally if I was doing this I would wire both components (camera and monitor) directly from the positive battery terminal. It'll look cleaner in the long run, as you won't have wires all over the cabin. However, this might make installing a switch more involved. That being said...

Grounding (what you referred to as Earthing), without getting into the electrical details (I'll leave that to someone else) is running a cable from your electrical part to the car's frame. The frame is connected to the negative battery terminal up front, so this makes a complete circuit on which electricity can flow. Just like when you jump a car, you can attach the ground to any point directly on the frame. On my 2005 Accord, that includes bolts hanging from the top of the trunk lid. Just make sure to sand any paint off of your grounding point, as this will ensure a good electrical connection. For the back-up camera, I'd do a bolt in the trunk, and for the monitor itself, it looks like it's already grounded via the cigarette lighter component.

The best way to connect the two components to the same cigarette lighter is to solder the wires together, but with something low-voltage like this you can probably get away with a wire splicer instead. This will form sort of a Y-joint that you can use for the positive (red) cables. Again, leave the grounding of the two parts separate - no splicing necessary. Make sure you wrap any exposed metal in electrical tape after splicing.

As another answer pointed out, the yellow cable is a standard RCA connector for transmitting the video. It connects your monitor and camera; it does not go to ground.


The camera's red/black cable is the power cable; the black wire goes to a ground (any metallic part of the chassis will do), and the red wire goes to a +12V that will be powered whenever you want to use the camera, so connecting it to the reverse lights, but you can also connect it to anything powered when you turn on the ignition if you don't mind it being active all the time (just don't connect it to an always-on +12V as it'll drain your battery).

The RCA cable (with the yellow round tips) is just a standard video cable and should be connected to the monitor.

I don't really see what this orange wire is supposed to do and it can be safely omitted. It looks like some kind of grounding wire (should be connected to ground, a negative terminal or any metallic part of the chassis) to try and reduce interference, but you can first try without it and see if it works (given that both the monitor and the camera are on the same ground anyway, I'm pretty sure they'll take care of grounding the negative part of the video cable anyway so this orange wire is totally useless).

About the monitor, you can indeed use a cigarette plug to power it (and if you want you can also power both the camera and the monitor with the same plug), just make sure the cigarette lighter is powered off when you remove the key, otherwise you risk discharging your battery. If that's the case, you can look at the radio's wiring to find a +12V which is only powered when the key is on.

For running both devices from a single cigarette plug, just solder their two +12V power cables to the tip of the lighter plug, as for the grounds you can either solder them to the side contacts of the plug, or just don't bother and solder them to a nearby metallic part (the entire car's chassis is grounded anyway). There is no particular risk involved with these low-power devices, but be careful when doing this with more high-current devices like a compressor or multiple lights as they'll drain a lot more current and a single cigarette plug may not withstand the current.

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