Giller
Established Member
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2024
- Messages
- 54
- Reaction score
- 111
- Points
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- Location (town/city + country)
- Lisburn County Antrim
- Driving
- MG4 (2022-2025)
The subject of hard wiring a dash cam direct to the fusebox or from the OBD port has been covered in a number of posts for other models of the forum but I thought this may useful as it's specific to the S6 and will also cover where I hid the wires as to be honest was one of the simplest I've ever done.
I'd used an OBD cable on my previous MG a 4 X Power and had no issues in the 2 years of use, went with the Nextbase cable as I have a Nextbase camera but other versions are available, check out Amazon, Ebay etc and you'll see.
First time I used an OBD cable was on the X Power, previously I'd hard wired directly to the cars fuse box to a switched circuit but to be honest was hesitant to do so on a EV, in both the X power and S6 it's so much easier than going to the fusebox, it's just plug in and your good to go giving a permanent live feed so if you want switched it's not for you, for servicing the garage just unplugs to access the diagnostics, also as it's a Nexbase cable no warranty issues.
OBD port on S6 is to the left under the dash, easy to access.
Cable was fed from left to right towards the drivers door, it runs over the cars trim panels above the pedal box so it's out of the way with no risk of fouling.
From there I used the join in the trim panels to move it under the deep door seals, there is a bit of a rebate right at the inner corner of the seal and it fit's in snugly in there, easy to push it over as you go using a plastic trim tool, first picture shows the cable position initially for reference, second with it in place, 3rd is as you progress upward, you don't need to remove the trim just open it up and move the cable to the right inside it.
Continuing upwards until I got to the join between the headlining and the pillar the cable was simply fed through again making use a a plastic panel to separate them but not remove anything, from there easy to continue across the windscreen feeding into the gap between screen and headlining which also exists over the rear view mirror and sensors although it's a bit tighter there.
I prefer having cameras to the side of the rear view mirror rather than under it but that's a matter of choice, given the seating position of the S6 it could have gone centrally and still been out of the drivers view, but there is a sensor on the rear of the mirror which it could have blocked plus getting the cable down neatly would have been an issue IMPO.
I'll be fitting the "proper" Nextbase rear screen camera which requires feeding a cable all the way to the rear and through the tail gate cable feeds but that can wait for warmer and dryer weather, for now I'm using the plug in rear camera from my convertible which is hibernating in the garage so at least I have a recording of what's going on behind me.
The Nextbase has a parking mode setting which is designed to handle a permanent live such as that provided bu the OBD port which means after not detecting any motion for a period of time it goes into hibernation mode and is not recording but wakes instantly when it does or there is an impact on the car, I'm sure other manufactures may have something similar but for me given the ease of connecting it makes the OBD option the best.
Hope that is useful.
I'd used an OBD cable on my previous MG a 4 X Power and had no issues in the 2 years of use, went with the Nextbase cable as I have a Nextbase camera but other versions are available, check out Amazon, Ebay etc and you'll see.
First time I used an OBD cable was on the X Power, previously I'd hard wired directly to the cars fuse box to a switched circuit but to be honest was hesitant to do so on a EV, in both the X power and S6 it's so much easier than going to the fusebox, it's just plug in and your good to go giving a permanent live feed so if you want switched it's not for you, for servicing the garage just unplugs to access the diagnostics, also as it's a Nexbase cable no warranty issues.
OBD port on S6 is to the left under the dash, easy to access.
Cable was fed from left to right towards the drivers door, it runs over the cars trim panels above the pedal box so it's out of the way with no risk of fouling.
From there I used the join in the trim panels to move it under the deep door seals, there is a bit of a rebate right at the inner corner of the seal and it fit's in snugly in there, easy to push it over as you go using a plastic trim tool, first picture shows the cable position initially for reference, second with it in place, 3rd is as you progress upward, you don't need to remove the trim just open it up and move the cable to the right inside it.
Continuing upwards until I got to the join between the headlining and the pillar the cable was simply fed through again making use a a plastic panel to separate them but not remove anything, from there easy to continue across the windscreen feeding into the gap between screen and headlining which also exists over the rear view mirror and sensors although it's a bit tighter there.
I prefer having cameras to the side of the rear view mirror rather than under it but that's a matter of choice, given the seating position of the S6 it could have gone centrally and still been out of the drivers view, but there is a sensor on the rear of the mirror which it could have blocked plus getting the cable down neatly would have been an issue IMPO.
I'll be fitting the "proper" Nextbase rear screen camera which requires feeding a cable all the way to the rear and through the tail gate cable feeds but that can wait for warmer and dryer weather, for now I'm using the plug in rear camera from my convertible which is hibernating in the garage so at least I have a recording of what's going on behind me.
The Nextbase has a parking mode setting which is designed to handle a permanent live such as that provided bu the OBD port which means after not detecting any motion for a period of time it goes into hibernation mode and is not recording but wakes instantly when it does or there is an impact on the car, I'm sure other manufactures may have something similar but for me given the ease of connecting it makes the OBD option the best.
Hope that is useful.
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