Hard-wiring a Dashcam in a 2012 S-Line

[Cantata]

Hi all,

Had a look through old threads but haven't found an answer to this one.

I have a 2012 S-Line Avant 3.0 Tdi. I've just bought a Nextbase dashcam and would very much like NOT to have a trailing wire going all the way to the power socket in the armrest. The obvious thing to do looks to be getting power from the roof-mounted electronics panel because it's right there. But how do you get into it? And is there an obvious live feed inside that I can tap into?

The alternative I guess is to tuck the cable away under the windscren seal and run it to a fusebox. I understand from other threads that these are behind the panels at each end of the dashboard. It's just that the centre panel in the roof looks to be the better place.

Any help / advice gratefully received!

[Cantata]

OK, so I found it's easy to hide the cable along the windscreen top edge and down the pillar to the passenger-side fusebox at the end of the panel assembly.

Following a Youtube video for the C7, i found that my car has exactly the same fusebox layout as shown in the video, and so I did what this guy did and connected into the same socket which is the climate control line. BUT it was always live, as were all the fuses in the top row. Found several postions in the lower row of fuses that were ignition-switched, so problem solved.

It seems they kept changing fuse assignments on these cars. Some online advice says that none of the fuses on the pax side are switched. I found instructions on another forum saying use a particular fuse on the same pax-side row I used, yet on my car that fuse was not switched.

Anyway, sussed it.

 

 

Edited January 4, 2020 by Cantata
solved it