Reverse Canbus Signal

[andys]

Is there any way of fooling my new RCD330 that I've put the van in reverse (without putting the reversing light on!)?
I've hit a bit of a stumbling block, the view from the reversing camera works fine, but I'm unable to use the screen to view the front/surround cameras as the camera screen is switched off the instant I come out of reverse.

The little delay relay that's often sold for this purpose doesn't help as all it does is keep the camera fed with power for another 8-10 secs after coming out of reverse, and the headunit is not looking whether the camera is powered, but solely whether you're actually in reverse or not. There is no reverse trigger feed on the headunit so that easy route is out.

 

[Dellmassive]

That's an interesting one..... the radio gets it reverse signal via the CAN bus....... I'm not sure you would be able to do . . . . unless.

A firmware mod for the radio.?

A setting Hak via the green screen radio engineer menu.?

A CAN bus splitter/injector to separate out the functions, then Re ecode back to CAN. like 2x easycan units back to back?

Something else I've not see yet?

 

[andys]

That's an interesting one..... the radio gets it reverse signal via the CAN bus....... I'm not sure you would be able to do . . . . unless.

A firmware mod for the radio.?

A setting Hak via the green screen radio engineer menu.?

A CAN bus splitter/injector to separate out the functions, then Re ecode back to CAN. like 2x easycan units back to back?

Something else I've not see yet?

1) There isn’t a hacked firmware for this model

2) Not heard of this, off to google...

3) HEAD EXPLODES

 

[andys]

On other cars with factory cameras I’ve always had either a button on the dash or on the headunit that will bring up the camera on demand. With the T6 I can bring up the parking sensors with a button and/or they’ll stay on the screen until there are no objects in the way. It’s a pity the camera can’t behave the same way. While the camera is active there’s a button to switch between camera view and parking sensors, but as soon as you come out of reverse that option disappears.

 

[mmi]

The little delay relay that's often sold for this purpose doesn't help as all it does is keep the camera fed with power for another 8-10 secs after coming out of reverse, and the headunit is not looking whether the camera is powered, but solely whether you're actually in reverse or not. There is no reverse trigger feed on the headunit so that easy route is out.

I've been thinking similar issue - how to separately/independently control reversing camera. Just read another thread with wiring diagram ---> Rear Camera Oem Cable Routing Would like to double check - do you mean that you kept pin 4 (see the link) of reversing camera powered up with the relay to keep camera alive a few seconds more? I was hoping that head unit would just use simple old-fashioned video signal detection to turn/keep the display on.

 

[andys]

I've been thinking similar issue - how to separately/independently control reversing camera. Just read another thread with wiring diagram ---> Rear Camera Oem Cable Routing Would like to double check - do you mean that you kept pin 4 (see the link) of reversing camera powered up with the relay to keep camera alive a few seconds more? I was hoping that head unit would just use simple old-fashioned video signal detection to turn/keep the display on.

That's what I was hoping. In fact my 360 camera setup is constantly powered in normal use, but when it is being powered has absolutely no bearing on when the screen is displayed. In fact even putting the lever into reverse without the camera powered will still bring up the screen (with an error message). Whatever the status of the camera, the screen will only display while the vehicle is in reverse and immediately switches the camera view off when taken out of reverse, so it is definitely getting it's cue via a canbus signal.
I can only speak for the RCD330G unit that I have though, not sure if other VW headunits will behave the same.

 

[mmi]

Ok, thanks for the clarifications, very helpful. Unfortunately the obvious wasn't obvious after all . Interestingly in a new Skoda the reversing camera stays on for a few seconds even when setting off. Need to have a more careful look on that too.
Mine is the Discover Media (the regular head unit with nav) - would expect to behave the same but we'll see...

 

[andys]

Been doing some more research on this. Seeing as the T6 is basically a giant last-generation Polo, in terms of it's electrical system, I've been looking at how this unit behaves in other VAG vehicles and how their systems react with the reversing camera.

If the vehicle has optical parking sensors, it keeps the screen open for a few seconds after the reversing camera is turned off in order to display the OPS output. If it doesn't have OPS and you fit a reversing camera it will still try and keep the screen active, but will time out and display an error message once the vehicle is taken out of reverse. The little delay relay you can buy (and in fact standard behaviour from the factory on some models) is to solve that issue, keeping the power on for those few seconds. The delay relay has no effect if you have OPS.

This means, if you don't have OPS, that those few seconds could be used to display a front camera while moving forwards after coming out of reverse, and some people have done this. This could be done manually with a switch, or with my system automatically as it displays the front camera once the reverse trigger is removed.

So I thought I was onto an answer here - disable the OPS while leaving the reverse camera active. It would mean not having the optical display of the parking sensors, but the audio beeps would still work and the camera system would be more useful. It would also mean it would have to be put into reverse before either camera would display, or maybe even pressing the "P" button would bring them up?

In the end it was a disappointment, I tried doing this using both coding and adaptation channels, but the result was the same - disabling the OPS also disabled the camera display even when the check boxes for reverse camera were left checked. In this state, the screen of the headunit doesn't change from whatever audio source, or not, you have on. Pressing the "P" button then just switches on and off the audible parking sensors. So another dead end, and I can't understand why disabling the OPS doesn't make the system behave as if it was never there in the first place.

Anyway, just my ramblings for anyone interested, which probably isn't many