I recently bought a new car and wanted to hard wire a dashcam into the car.

From reading different reviews and looking at which dashcams insurance companies in the UK recommend (Irish companies don’t want to deal with dashcams apparently) I decided to get the Nextbase 312GW.

For this project I bought:

1. Nextbase 312GW
2. Nextbase car camera hard wire kit
3. Transcend 32GB Micro SD card (Some people had problems with Sandisk SD cards and this camera and this one was recommended instead)

The first thing I did was decide where I wanted to put the dashcam, I put it on the passenger side as close to the mirror as I could get. The mount wouldn’t stick to the black part of the windscreen (as I wanted to put it behind the mirror).

Then I tucked the cable behind the trim using a plastic spudger tool (normally for prying open electronics) but it worked well and didn’t damage anything.

The fuse box is in the footwell of the passengers side behind a black panel. This panel is removed by two clips on either side (If you are using a lot of force you are doing it wrong). When this panel is removed the fuse box is up inside the cavity on the left side.

When you find the fuse box remove the cover and using the reference diagram on the lid find the fuse labelled “CIG” it is usually a 15Amp Blue fuse. The dashcam has to be wired to a fuse that comes on with the ignition and I thought that this was the best option. Remove that fuse from the car (There is a fuse remover tool in the fusebox under the bonnet, they can be hard to get out) and put it into the adapter supplied with the kit.

My car had a different type of fuse to the ones supplied with the kit, but most motor factors will have a 15Amp fuse that will fit the adapter (for about 50 cent). The adapter will be plugged back into the slot that the “CIG” fuse was taken from but first we need to decide what to do with the fuse box cover.

The adapter supplied with the kit will not fit under the lid as the fuses are right up against the lid so you have three options:

1. Leave the lid off (Easy but not recommended).
2. Cut a hole in the lid (Not recommended as it may reduce the value of the car).
3. 3D print a new cover for the fuse box.

I chose option 3 because I have a 3D printer and I didn’t want to “gunter” (damage) the car.

I designed a new cover with a hole over the “CIG” fuse in Solidworks.

The design is available on Thingiverse (here).

I 3D printed the design and installed it in the car.

I taped the original fuse to the original cover and cable tied the cover to the frame of the car for safe keeping.

I connected the adapter to the transformer for the dashcam and cable tied the wires to the car.

The last thing that you need to do is attach the ground (black) wire to the body of the car using one of the bolts on the body. If you have a voltmeter its a good idea to turn on the car and test the voltage between the red wire in the adapter and the bolt you have chosen to check that there is actually voltage across it (The first point I picked didn’t). Please be careful if you do this and ensure the parking brake is on and that the car is in neutral.

The bolt I used was at the very back of the passenger footwell.

Finally put the panel back on and you should be done!

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask,

Conor.

 

I am not responsible for any damage you may cause to your car by attempting the modification explained in this post. I am an amateur in this field and I just wanted to share my experience of hard wiring a dashcam. Please be careful when doing anything like this and if you feel that you are not able to do this I am fairly sure that Halfords in Ireland and the UK will fit Dashcams for about €40.