I recently installed an Eclipse back-up camera in my truck. I spliced it into the reverse wire on the passenger side door jam. It worked great for a week or so and now the reverse ligts will not turn on anymore. Therefor, my camera will not turn on and my reverse back-up sensors don't work since they are both activated by the reverse lights. The first thing I checked was the fuse which in fact it was blown. It worked for half a day and stopped working again. Checked the fuse again, and it is NOT blown. Does anyone have any ideas as to what may be causing this problem?

 

A loose connection or a short in the wiring????


If you replaced the fuse with a bigger one, It may be toast.


If you spliced into the wires any where, that is probably the first place to look.

 

What were you powering with the stock reverse circuit ?

I hope this was only a +12V trigger, not the power to the camera.

If you blew the stock fuse, due to overload you might have toasted the reverse switch itself. The stock reverse circuit does not even like 1 AMP additional load on it.

Time to remove that off the circuit, check the fuse, and then check the harness for power, working your way back to the DTR.

Please provide some info on your truck ( your profile is blank ) as to the MY, cab config, trim level etc.

 

The camera gets its power from the head unit(avn5435). The wire that is spliced into the reverse wire comes directly from the head unit. So here is where is gets even stranger. As I mentioned in the original post at this point there are no blown fuses but the reverse lights would still not engage. If I take out the reverse light fuse and put the same one back in, everything works(meaning the reverse lights work). But it is only a matter of time before it all stops working again. Does this make any sense at all??? Someone mentioned installing a relay for the camera. Could that possibly help?

I am a pretty quick learner and am somewhat savvy but I am still a novice when it comes to this stuff, so any helpful tips you may have, please keep that in mind. Thank you for your help with this!

PS. I filled in my profile information.

 

You show either :
1. Install a relay with a different power source
or
2. Use the revere lights from the factory tow package. Thread with this info ( bob did his nto too long ago ):
https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=233512

The route Bob took is dirt easy, but if you want the setup at the rear of the truck, one of the pins in the 7 pin is the reverse circuit, which is a seperate circuit driven by a relay already.
Sticky in the Towing section has the info on the pin outs if you don't have your factory tow package instruction handy ( or in my 3rd gallery in my album ).

Good luck, let us know if you need anything else.

Steve