Installation Of A Pormido 998 Mirror/Camera System

[Gary Lewis]

(If there is any question about why I might clean this thread up and make it a locked how-to, this should answer the question.  However, I'm the main/biggest contributor to the rabbit chasing, and it is fun.  )

Yes, those videos are inspiring!  But Janey and I certainly won't get into anything like what Bob has done.  Nor will our son Bret and I.  Still, they are good to watch to help understand what to do and what not to do.

So, do you have a camera system on your B-II?

[Gary Lewis]

Got both cameras mounted and wired up today.  Now all that is left is to connect the power supply in the radio compartment of the Highliner.  

Pormido has two cable lengths for the mirror - 33' & 49'.  I think even 33' is way too much.  Here's what I had left over, so I'm going to suggest they also offer a shorter length cable:



And here are the cameras.

[grumpin]

Looks good and I admire your persistence!

[Gary Lewis]

Thanks!

I'm seeing the goal line.  I think I'm in the "red zone".  

But, I forgot about the transparency, or lack thereof, of the box's cover.  I have some plastic that I may try to graft onto the cover after I cut out a section

[Gary Lewis]

Well, the light I was seeing was from the end of the tunnel, but it turns out that the walls of the tunnel are wet and they are reflecting the light.  So I have a bit farther to go than I thought.

We took Big Blue for a trip to Owasso and back today.  And the first thing I discovered was that there's so much light coming into the cab that it is really hard to see things in the display - even with it turned up all the way.  You have to concentrate to pick out the display from the image in the mirror - if that makes sense.

So I installed one of the anti-glare screens that Pormido sent and that allows me to see things in the display, but it makes things milky.  And, there's no chance of using the display as a mirror as the film kills all reflections.

I've written Pormido to ask if they have suggestions, but meanwhile I'm having the windows tinted as that should cut down on the light.  The guy says he uses nano-carbon film and has one that passes 25% if the light, which meets the OK law requirement, so I'm having that installed this weekend.  Hopefully that will cut way down on the amount of light hitting the mirror - as well as the sun hitting Janey, who suffers from Sjogren's.

Also, the optical qualities of the cover for the front camera just aren't anywhere near good enough.  I'd hoped that the spot where the camera's lens is would be good enough, but it isn't.  So I'm going to have to cut out a section and glue on some plastic I have that does have good optical qualities.  

But here's a couple of pics of the mirror installation:

[Gary Lewis]

I forgot to tell the tale about getting it all wired up and it not working.  

Turned out that I was a bad 5A fuse.  Bad right out of the box.  Now I'm running a 10A fuse on the switched power and 5A on the always on power, both of which are way too large.  But I just ordered a fuse set from Amazon with 2A, 3A, 5A, and right on up fuses, so I will be able to put the right fuses in on Saturday.

Also, I have a date for Friday to get the window tint installed.

[grumpin]

Man, I had the same thing happen with a fuse, can’t remember what is was for, it was automotive, oh my son’s BMW.

Interior lights I think, couldn’t figure out what was going on. Looked like it wasn’t blown. Finally put a multimeter on it.

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, that's the way this one was.  Hold it to the light and it looks perfect.  Put the meter on it and it is open.

Really strange, but the GMRS radio is on the same circuit and it worked, so it was either the new fuseholder or the fuse itself, and the fuse was the easiest to check.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch I had a long text conversation with the guy that is going to do the window tinting.  He's local and his shop is not quite done but he can do the work in his garage.

He's going to use "carbon ceramic" tint, which is said to block 88% of IR and 99.9% of UV.  But we are still debating the amount of "transmissibility" to use, meaning the amount of light that gets through.  He's thinking 30% on the sides and 20% on the rear, but he's going to come by this evening to look the truck over and we'll discuss it.

This site shows the laws by state, although they don't really have a listing for pickups, just SUV's and MPV's.  And here's what they say of nearby states, with the order in each case being front windows and then back glass:

Oklahoma: More than 25% and any darkness

Arkansas: more than 25% and more than 20%

Missouri: More than 35% and any darkness on back window

Kansas: More than 35% and more than 35%

Colorado: More than 27% and more than 27%

New Mexico: More than 20% and any darkness

Texas: More than 25% and any darkness

Arizona: More than 33% and any darkness

Utah: More than 43% and any darkness

I am assuming two things.  First, that there is a reciprocity agreement such that if the tinting is legal in your home state you are ok in case you are stopped.  And second, that it is really hard to tell the difference between 30% and 43%.  So I'm thinking that his suggestion of 30% on the sides and 20% in the rear will be good.

[Bruce moose4x4]

Have you thought about getting a piece of glass cut the size of you front camera box and just using silicone to hold to box. Sure it would be possible to break it. but would be fairly easy to replace if you have several cut at once.

[grumpin]

Good idea for clarity Bruce.

[Gary Lewis]

I actually have some plastic that is very clear.  I've played with it a bit and it looks like it'll work well, but I plan to get the truck out tomorrow and put it next to the lens and see what the resulting image looks like.  I think it'll work well and will let me have the cover ready for the trip we are taking late next week.

However, I don't want to spend a lot of time as I asked Melissa today what the status is on a waterproof front camera and she said "I'm pushing engineer with the front waterproof, but recently the test is failed, so they are continue to work on, we're very careful & do many many tests before starting to sell, as we cannot afford big returns..."  In other words, they could come out with the right camera at any time, and I don't want to put a lot of effort into getting this one "right".

[Bruce moose4x4]

Sounds good, maybe they'll get the weatherproof front camera on the market real soon. Have a good weekend.

[Gary Lewis]

Thanks, Bruce.  She said today that "I understand how urgent you need the front camera, we've been working on it, I will follow up closely with engineer, keep in touch~"

And, speaking of communications with Pormido, she sent a link to the latest firmware and I installed it today.  It gives the ability to zoom in/out on the rear camera, but their implementation is a bit different then expected.  I assumed that I'd use two fingers on the display, but that didn't work.  Then I realized that I have new icons on the display, one of which is the zoom button.

In the picture below the zoom button is in the center group of icons and is the one on the far right - the white square in a yellow square.  That toggles zoom on or off, and in the setup you get to decide how much zoom you want when you toggle it on.

And the icons to the far right appear to be as follows:

Lollipop: This apparently shows green when the GPS has a fix on you.  But when looking at the GPS status page in the system there are two different ones: fixed and differential.  Today the status was showing differential and the lollipop was green, so maybe that's the best?

Oval: That has a number in the middle of it and it appears to show the length of each movie segment that is recorded.  The options are 1, 2, & 3 minutes.

Card: I don't know what that signifies.  When that picture was taken I had a card in the system, so I would have expected it to be green.

Battery: I don't understand this symbol as if there is no power the mirror is off.  So I would think that the only time it can be on is when there is power.

Anyway, I wrote Melissa a note asking about the icons and expect to get a reply soon.

[taskswap]

Looks great!

That zoom behavior sounds like how my RAM works (2021 model). There's no "zoom in/out" slider or adjustment. It's just a toggle - zoom in, zoom out, a fixed amount each time. I wish it was finer grained but it works out in the end.

[Gary Lewis]

As it turns out there's a new version of the owner's manual available to match the new firmware, and Melissa sent that to me.  And the way the rear camera zoom appears to work is that you pre-set the amount of zoom in the settings, and then toggle zoom off or on while using the system via the icon.

I haven't found a need to zoom the camera, but may over time.  What do you use it for?

[Gary Lewis]

Here's a report after having the window tinting installed and then taking the truck on a 720 mile trip.

First, the window tinting did the trick.  No need for the diffuser film on the mirror as it is rare for there to be a problem viewing the display.  In fact, about the only time there's a problem is when the sun is reflecting off the toolbox lid that's right behind the rear window.  But that's only at certain angles of the sun and truck, and even then you can see through it pretty easily.

And, the cameras and display work very well.  I'm happy with it and glad that I installed it.  For instance, you can see a much wider angle in the rear view than you can with the mirror itself.  There's a blind spot where a vehicle can hide on your rear quarter and you can't see them in the side mirror nor by turning your head since the B-pillar blocks your view.  But the vehicle shows up in the rear camera's view!  Also, the display is very bright even at night - even w/o my nice LED backup lights.

In addition, the view through the less-than-optically-clear cover over the front camera isn't as bad as I thought.  We watched quite a bit of the front camera video last night of our offroad adventures and you can see pretty well.  Yes, I still want the waterproof front camera, but for now this one's working.

So now I'm condensing what's in this thread into a how-to which I'll put in the Resources & How-To's/How-To's folder.

[Gary Lewis]

Well, we are a bit over a year on after the last post and I can say that the Pormido mirror/camera system is wonderful.  But I've still been bugging them about getting a waterproof camera for the front.

Back in early Feb they said that they had one that they were testing and that it would be available from Amazon at the end of March.  But on March 15th I sent them a note asking how it was going and they said that it didn't pass their tests.  Apparently there was a problem with the cabling "because the temperature around the engine is too high".   I replied that I've run the cable on the outside of the frame and have had no problems at all, and asked if I could just purchase the camera they've been testing.

Today I got this response:

Hello Gary,
Really sorry for late reply as we had been confering this issue with our factory...

To be honest, the camera cable is not high temperature resistant, so we really cannot make sure 100% if cable can work stably...but we feel sorry to have you waiting for such long time, and we know you're really expected to add waterproof front camera to your system, we do not want to let you down, so we just applied for one camera from the factory and decide to send you one for free, we will send it to Amazon by sea on next Wednesday especially for you, it will take about 1 month for delivery, expected to arrive in the end of April.

However, if you're urgent to use it, we can ship it by air, but in this case, you may need to afford the DHL shipping cost USD45(product is free for you), it only takes 1 week for delivery to Amazon warehouse.

Could you please kindly advise your plan? Then we'll arrange shippment for you accordingly, thanks for your kind understanding~

Remind - We may not reply in time on weekend, but don't worry, we'll get back to you on Monday morning for sure, have a nice weekend:)

My response was that I am more than happy to pay the DHL fee as I want to get it on for the trip to New Mexico in about a month.  

[grumpin]

Cool! Big Blue can be the test bed!

[BigBrother-84]

Wow!
Very kind from them to let you test the thing!

[Gary Lewis]

I'm not sure what their plan is, whether I'm the tester or if they are just appeasing me.  I suspect the latter, but I'll take it either way.

Hopefully when they come in tomorrow they'll respond with how to pay and if the same cable works, and I can get that bit going as well.