Anyone installed Garmin B/up Camera as Front Camera?

[KPMH]

I have the same issue as some I've read about here where I park in front of my garage, think I'm 6" from the door and get out to look and I'm still 3' away....lol. Same issue when parking the truck in a parking lot. My **** always sticks out . I did research front camera installs but all writeups deal mainly with permanent installation of a camera and then trying to hook it to the Uconnect radio. That kinda stuff is really above my head and, honestly, interest to pursue. It would be nice but it looks too complicated for my interests. My question is if anybody has used a Garmin Backup camera system as a front camera. I use a Drive 52 unit and found this wireless camera accessory which is supposed to be compatible with my GPS

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/501486/pn/010-12242-10#devices

I was just wondering if anybody has done this? I realize there may be issues with stones, etc. hitting the camera but my main question is whether someone has done this and/or if it's worth is. The price of the camera looks like it's more than the GPS so not sure if it's worth pursuing.

Thanks for any info.

Pete

 

[kurek]

Yep.

When I bought my Ram in '15 I also bought a Garmin NuviCAM and installed it permanently on top of my dash. It's a 6" nav unit that also has a FM traffic receiver and a forward facing dash cam.

Since my Ram is a Tradesman it did not have a factory back-up camera. I installed (again in 2015) a Garmin BC30 reversing camera and installed it in the factory location at the tailgate handle. That's been working fine all this time. The resolution is poor but it provides the information I need.

Last year I decided I wanted forward camera too because I moved to a more dense city and parking's more of a challenge here. Because of when it was made the BC30 is the only camera natively compatible with the NuviCAM.

Now here's the bad part: there is no way to flip or reverse the image on a BC30 . The BC30 is intended as a rear camera so if you mount it forward facing it's flipped left/right. That is a hardware limitation of the camera and there is no menu option in the GPS to flip a BC30. I've confirmed that with Garmin directly, and since I'm the sort of dude who voids warranties & my career is on the hardware side of tech I also disassembled the BC30 camera and transmitter and tried to feed a different camera to it, tried to find a jumper pad for orientation flip in the camera itself, just not workable. The image is digitized inside the camera itself so it's not just a composite feed from the camera to the transmitter which means you can't just splice a different cam with a composite output and then use the transmitter.

What I ended up doing is cheesy... decided to just use the camera as it is. Left is right and right is left. Not real happy about it but it does work and I'm more interested in how close I am to a wall or parked car than I am in what's left or right.

I drilled out the ram head badge on the grille and hot glued the camera in from the back. It looks pretty clean that way, with the chrome it's hard to even tell it's been modified. The camera is selectable onscreen, another limitation with the NuviCAM at least is that only the reversing camera can be triggered automatically just by powering on the camera. All 2nd-3rd-4th cameras have to be manually selected onscreen. Operation has been reliable with those limitations but it's still poor user interface if you ask me.

If I had this to all do over again in 2021 I might try to find some other solution but overall I've been happy with the NuviCAM and with the REAR BC30.. they work fine. The front one "works", just lame that they never anticipated a forward application for it and didn't provide accommodation in software to flip it or to allow it to trigger automatically when supplied power like the rear one does.

If your GPS is compatible with the BC40 camera I think that one can be flipped/mirrored in software. But it is "always on" and uses batteries. Pick your poison

 

[KPMH]

Yep.

When I bought my Ram in '15 I also bought a Garmin NuviCAM and installed it permanently on top of my dash. It's a 6" nav unit that also has a FM traffic receiver and a forward facing dash cam.

Since my Ram is a Tradesman it did not have a factory back-up camera. I installed (again in 2015) a Garmin BC30 reversing camera and installed it in the factory location at the tailgate handle. That's been working fine all this time. The resolution is poor but it provides the information I need.

Last year I decided I wanted forward camera too because I moved to a more dense city and parking's more of a challenge here. Because of when it was made the BC30 is the only camera natively compatible with the NuviCAM.

Now here's the bad part: there is no way to flip or reverse the image on a BC30 . The BC30 is intended as a rear camera so if you mount it forward facing it's flipped left/right. That is a hardware limitation of the camera and there is no menu option in the GPS to flip a BC30. I've confirmed that with Garmin directly, and since I'm the sort of dude who voids warranties & my career is on the hardware side of tech I also disassembled the BC30 camera and transmitter and tried to feed a different camera to it, tried to find a jumper pad for orientation flip in the camera itself, just not workable. The image is digitized inside the camera itself so it's not just a composite feed from the camera to the transmitter which means you can't just splice a different cam with a composite output and then use the transmitter.

What I ended up doing is cheesy... decided to just use the camera as it is. Left is right and right is left. Not real happy about it but it does work and I'm more interested in how close I am to a wall or parked car than I am in what's left or right.

I drilled out the ram head badge on the grille and hot glued the camera in from the back. It looks pretty clean that way, with the chrome it's hard to even tell it's been modified. The camera is selectable onscreen, another limitation with the NuviCAM at least is that only the reversing camera can be triggered automatically just by powering on the camera. All 2nd-3rd-4th cameras have to be manually selected onscreen. Operation has been reliable with those limitations but it's still poor user interface if you ask me.

If I had this to all do over again in 2021 I might try to find some other solution but overall I've been happy with the NuviCAM and with the REAR BC30.. they work fine. The front one "works", just lame that they never anticipated a forward application for it and didn't provide accommodation in software to flip it or to allow it to trigger automatically when supplied power like the rear one does.

If your GPS is compatible with the BC40 camera I think that one can be flipped/mirrored in software. But it is "always on" and uses batteries. Pick your poison

Thank you very much, Kurek, for taking the time for your extensive reply. My Ram is a 2015 Tradesman but it does have the back up camera which I find most useful which got me into the front camera option. I never thought about the picture reversal if you use the Garmin backup camera in the front. Sounds like you got into it pretty deeply and I appreciate the benefit of your experience. I can probably live with the L=R and R=L situation as like you I'm more concerned about what's directly in front than on the sides. Unfortunately, my Garmin is not compatible with the BC40 either, only the BC30, so I'll have to live with the flipped image if I go that route. Good tip about the camera mount too. At least it sounded like the system was reliable though clumsy to use but not insurmountable and probably something you can get used to.

Thank you again. I'll definitely look into it and may just go that route as it seems a lot simpler that the other options.

Regards,

 

[Hookie]

I installed the BC40 camera,. Very simple install. 5 minutes at most. I love it

 

[KPMH]

I installed the BC40 camera,. Very simple install. 5 minutes at most. I love it

Unfortunately that camera won't work with my GPS. I'm still on the fence. May pull the trigger soon. Thanks