Mopar Backup Camera Troubleshooting

[Ken Dillinger]

I installed the Mopar OEM backup camera kit last week. First of all, let me say that the post in this group was a major help, reading it before hand made the install a breeze. I knew before hand that the connector drawings were from the wire side of the connector, not the interface side. But being a controls engineer, I knew to go by the pin number regardless of what the drawing looked like, always KNOW the pin position, never assume. With that said, the install was fairly straight forward. I only had the unlock wires to the tailgate which was expected, so I did have to run all of the harnesses. For the power, I was able to to get the 12v wire out of the distribution box easily and only had to remove some insulation, solder in the splice, slide the heat shrink on and re-install (ground was a no-brainer). Same for the purple bus wire, I was able to get the wire removed from the C5 BCM connector, remove some insulation, solder in the splice, slide over the heat shrink and reinstall. I did not have any wires in the back of the radio connector so installing the 3 camera wires in to the radio connector was no problem. On the intermediate connector from the body harness to the radio harness, all wire colors line up (for wires that exist on both sides of the connector). I have the 8.4 with nav, I verified I have the most current software in the radio, then took the truck to my dealer for XAC code addition. Twenty minutes later, I have a full functioning back up camera with guidelines that move with the steering wheel. The truck sat for a few days (working from home) then needed to make a grocery run and only get the blue screen, camera system not available message. Go out the next morning to check, it is working again. Go out the next morning, only blue screen again. I have physically disconnected and reconnected all connectors involved, making sure there weren't any bent pins. I checked the fuse.

The next step I can think of is to ring out all of the cables from camera to radio (and power and bus) and see If I loose continuity anywhere. Can anyone think of anything else to check? Like I mentioned, it did work and had a perfectly clear picture. Any other guidance would be appreciative.

Truck is 2015 Crew Cab Big Horn 4x4, Hemi 5.7

 

[R.L.K.]

Typically this would be a blown F95 fuse ....since you've verified the fuse then I'd do the following :


1) Absolutely verify your ground wire at the existing ground location with an ohm meter over to the right hand fender , should be less than 3 ohms .
Even if the ground test good go ahead and burnish to bare metal on all areas here then reinstall and paint it with an epoxy primer and or cover the entire surface with a non corrosive sealant.

2) because there's a bit of tugging and twisting the PDC during the install of the power wire solder & splice maybe revisit this area just to verify all is well and nothing has been pulled too much and may be causing intermittent power .

3)verify your power solder isn't a cold solder . Or just go ahead and unsolder clean wires and resolder

4) verify the + & - wire pins are securely installed in the socket at the radios C-5 connector ....
Verify the pin & socket fits well ( not loose ) at the radio and the connector under the dash that you have to populate per the installation instructions . You may have to take a tiny flat tip SD or a pic to manipulate the socket a bit to ensure a tigh fit.

Also at these locations make sure the factory crimps at the pins and sockets are well done and has all wire strands within them ....meaning with if harness builder stripped the wire improperly with a stripper of too small a size then there could be too few wires in the crimp to supply the load or ground path .


Hope this helps !



Welcome to the forum Sir ! I see this is your first post . There's lots of knowledge here and great guys and gals here who are eager to help .

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[Ken Dillinger]

Thank you kindly for the advise. I did the following:

1) Verified, have .3 ohm from fender to fender, cleaned up connection anyway
2) Revisited PDC, pin still inserted completely in connector, fuse still good, everything looks good here
3) Solder joint on PDC wire splice is good, solder joint has nice flow, re-shrink tubed
4) Not sure what this one is, do you mean the grey/orange and grey/blue wires (also a shield) wires installed into slot 31, 32, 33 at back of radio?

I rang out all of the wires from the camera connector all the way to the radio and other terminal points. The most resistance I have is .8 ohms through all transitions for all wires. This includes the purple wire spliced into the C5 connector on the BCM. This wire ultimately makes its way to the middle pin (blue wire) on what I'm calling the top row of the camera connector (round connector with 2 rows of 3 pins for 6 pins total). When the C5 connector is plugged in, there is approx 12volts on this wire, when I disconnect the C5 connector, there is nothing on the camera connector. What I don't know is what wires the power (connected at PCB) and ground connect to. Do they splice in to the blue and green wire in the body harness? Again, the camera typically has worked in the morning (or first start) and then doesn't.

Another thing of interest to me but i'm sure unrelated, I do not have a back up camera button on the the controls page of the touch screen, so I cannot turn on the camera without putting the truck in reverse. I do however have the options to turn on and off the grid lines in the settings menu.

Hmmmm

 

[Ken Dillinger]

I finally got it. All of the harnesses and connection points tested good. However, I was not getting 12vdc back to the camera on pin 1 of the camera connector. I ran a wire from the battery and tucked it into the connector at the bottom of the tailgate, on the camera power wire. Camera came on without issue. I was tempted to just tie in to the reverse light power feed and be done with it but something told me to check the PDC one more time. The power wire was soldered in just fine, good insulation with heat shrink tubing, blah blah blah. I decided to check the connection at the fuse (fuse itself was fine). When I checked continuity from the fuse base to the power wire at the camera, nothing. I wiggled some wires and it rang out (for those of you that don't know what ringing out wires means, some meters make a sound (ring) when you are checking continuity or resistance and you have continuity/low resistance). What it turned out to be was pin 13 on the C7 connector at the PDC was not making a good contact to its mate. You would never tell it visually but I tweaked the connector so it would connect tighter to its mate and now it comes on everytime thus far even after driving it several times. Man I am so glad I didn't have to take this thing to the dealer for diagnostics. Thanks to R.L.K. for your input above.

 

[R.L.K.]

Thank you kindly for the advise. I did the following:

1) Verified, have .3 ohm from fender to fender, cleaned up connection anyway
2) Revisited PDC, pin still inserted completely in connector, fuse still good, everything looks good here
3) Solder joint on PDC wire splice is good, solder joint has nice flow, re-shrink tubed
4) Not sure what this one is, do you mean the grey/orange and grey/blue wires (also a shield) wires installed into slot 31, 32, 33 at back of radio?

I rang out all of the wires from the camera connector all the way to the radio and other terminal points. The most resistance I have is .8 ohms through all transitions for all wires. This includes the purple wire spliced into the C5 connector on the BCM. This wire ultimately makes its way to the middle pin (blue wire) on what I'm calling the top row of the camera connector (round connector with 2 rows of 3 pins for 6 pins total). When the C5 connector is plugged in, there is approx 12volts on this wire, when I disconnect the C5 connector, there is nothing on the camera connector. What I don't know is what wires the power (connected at PCB) and ground connect to. Do they splice in to the blue and green wire in the body harness? Again, the camera typically has worked in the morning (or first start) and then doesn't.

Another thing of interest to me but i'm sure unrelated, I do not have a back up camera button on the the controls page of the touch screen, so I cannot turn on the camera without putting the truck in reverse. I do however have the options to turn on and off the grid lines in the settings menu.

Hmmmm

Hmmmmmm in deed. I'd say recheck fitment of pin & sockets [emoji848] [emoji848][emoji848][emoji848][emoji848]

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[R.L.K.]

I finally got it. All of the harnesses and connection points tested good. However, I was not getting 12vdc back to the camera on pin 1 of the camera connector. I ran a wire from the battery and tucked it into the connector at the bottom of the tailgate, on the camera power wire. Camera came on without issue. I was tempted to just tie in to the reverse light power feed and be done with it but something told me to check the PDC one more time. The power wire was soldered in just fine, good insulation with heat shrink tubing, blah blah blah. I decided to check the connection at the fuse (fuse itself was fine). When I checked continuity from the fuse base to the power wire at the camera, nothing. I wiggled some wires and it rang out (for those of you that don't know what ringing out wires means, some meters make a sound (ring) when you are checking continuity or resistance and you have continuity/low resistance). What it turned out to be was pin 13 on the C7 connector at the PDC was not making a good contact to its mate. You would never tell it visually but I tweaked the connector so it would connect tighter to its mate and now it comes on everytime thus far even after driving it several times. Man I am so glad I didn't have to take this thing to the dealer for diagnostics. Thanks to R.L.K. for your input above.

Sometimes it is the invisible things that cure all [emoji106]
Man I've been there too dad gum may times .....
I'm so glad I could be of some amount of help ! You didn't need any help at all ...it was easy to see from your original post you would figure it out ....sometimes people like you ( &me ) just need a bit of a push [emoji16]

Your 2nd & 3rd post reminds me of myself .
Thanks for the kind words , but most of all I'm very glad you figured it out !
Great Job !

Remember my friend there are LOTS of very helpful and technical guys here on the Ramforum.com MUCH MORE technical than I am [emoji106] and much better for sure ....aka @Mpgrimm2 & @ Rick's Ram to just name two ....so many more

Always strive to post lots and help anyone you can [emoji106]

Again Great Job !

R.L.K.

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[R.L.K.]

Unfortunatly Dealership technicians would likely never have figured this out .

Folks like you figure these things out .

I have a dealership near me that would figure this out ..I'm fortunate in that way ...even though I'd likely just do it myself [emoji16].
they are impressive electronically. But .probably $500 ++ dollars later in troubleshooting [emoji16]but from what I've seen here and abroad most dealership techs would simply not spend the time required to troubleshoot this properly ....step by step

Again Great Job !

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