External Mounted Camera
  - DIY external, front bumper-mounted CMOS camera


This small little security camera has been stored away in its box for almost a year. Why not mount it on the front of a car?

SWANN Secuity Camera (380 line CMOS)
Phillips Head screwrdiver
Female-Female RCA connector (2 if you want to use the mic)
Computer thumb-screw, nut
Display/Recording Device (Camcorder, Portable TV, etc.)

Satoshi

DANGER

Any information presented or implied is for entertainment purposes only. A car and related parts can be very dangerous to work around. Please exercise extreme caution when performing any kind of repair or modification. Neither I or any affiliated parties can be held responsible for any problems or accidents which may occur.

The car. We will be mounting the camera on the lower right-hand side of the front bumper (to avoid any drilling) The exact location

Closeup of the camera. To mount the camera, a standard computer "thumb-screw" was placed on the inside of the bumper, and the camera secured to it with a nut. Run the cable from the camera up through the front lower air dam, and across an open area between the radiator support and headlight assembly

The wire is long enough to run across tho the windshield area. The 9V battery is mounted near the strut tower.( Alternatively, you could use some circuitry to run off of the car's 12V, but that's beyond the scope of this article) Run the wires under the weatherstripping, and into the nice compact space near the windshield and wipers. Leave the wires disconnected until you actually want to use the camera (same goes for the battery)

Using an RCA female-female connector, run another length of cable out of the engine bay, down the side of the pillar, and through the door. (It is safe to close it over the wire) The end result! The quality is not very good (low resolution, colors are strange, etc.), but it should produce some interesting shots from a rare prespective!

Sample Running shot Some artifacting due to physical connection issues

Sample Video - no sound (360x240 @ 256kbits/sec)