Printable View
Tully, I am looking at upgrading the old b/w Sony back up camera to a color one. Does the upgrades offer a adapter to connect to the old harness or do I have to run a new one, the coach is still in storage until the end of next month...... just doing a little preplanning.
When my B/W monitor puked a while back I also gave consideration of going to color. I don't know about other coaches, but mine has a 4 wire cable from the camera to the monitor and it would not work for color.
So I have a B/W monitor. Not the latest and greatest, but it works.
I think on my coach I have the ability to fish a new cable the full length with about four or five hours work. I spend that much time after every trip polishing my slack adjusters so it didn't seem like a lot of work, but when I gave it thought I just didn't want to go through the hassle without getting any real advantage.
Jon, I feel the same way. Forty feet is a long way to tug cable. I thought maybe someone upgraded by an easier means. Do you or anybody know much about the the wireless systems. I don't know but there's a lot of metal between the front and back.
Our 85 XL has a 3/4 ID empty conduit running from front to rear for whatever you need to put in there. It is a Prevo installed chassis component.
Has anyone else checked to see if they have one. Darrell yours is older you might.
The pipe ends in the rear above the air tank on the drivers side. I posted pictures of this find just a few days ago.
I have been told the picture quality on the wireless is poor.
Joe, I saw your pictures and was thinking about that as I was writing. The coach is in storage and I'll have a close look in about 5 weeks., our coach is a 1990. I have a sneaking suspicion that the existing camera cable is buried internally.
I too, have heard that the wireless is not the best but who knows, technology is constantly changing. I would love to have color but I not spending 30 hours of labour just to install / upgrade. The b/w sony is still working fine. I'm upgrading the old alpine to a new touch screen multi media 106 & nav system. I thought I would upgrade the works. The alpine has designated input (usb, I think) for a color back up camera but its the wiring all the way to the back of the coach and into the rear cap that I'm not looking forward to.
"Our 85 XL has a 3/4 ID empty conduit running from front to rear for whatever you need to put in there. It is a installed chassis component."
The cost of joining POG is paid once again several times over if this is true. Thank you in any case. I will try and hunt for it this week. If I find it I will run cctv cable and a few spare wires for other purposes as yet undetermined while I am at it. It is almost impossible, and certainly undesirable, to try and run other cabling in conduit that has something in it already.
If and when I attempt this, I will take pictures for subsequent posting if anyone is interested. Thanks again all.
I hope everybody remembers one thing. The B/W monitors are still available and supported. The latest radios with all the goodies are not built to last very long and they are not supported after a few years.
As such I have learned to stay with the basics and when the radio dies, I toss it and get another. I'm from the old school that used to repair stuff and my opinion of the latest stuff with "gee whiz" features is they are junk designed to impress. I cannot say if the color monitors are durable, but the integrated monitor/GPS/radio/CD player/M3 player etc. would appear risky to me. I expect to get flamed for this, but it makes no sense to buy a bus capable of a million miles and then stick stuff in it that has a 3 year life.
I seem to recall some few mentioning that they have found extra wires/cables in their bus (front to rear) that were provided by the converter for future use.
Marathon comes to mind, but I am not certain.
I can't imagine Liberty not having done it, they seem to think of everything else.
That wire may be overhead above the finish ceiling.
I also think there is a wire/cable chase/duct over head in which the extra wire lies. You may be able to pull through, with the existing wire, those more suitable to your specific use.
My full length wire chase is down the LH side wall near the floor. There may be extra wires already in place, but Liberty would have to identify where they are and the type of wire.
My Liberty has probably the same B&W monitor as Jons. The Marathon has the new color monitor. If I could switch the two successfully I would as the B&W has more clarity and more importantly has a lot better night vision then the color monitor. The color monitor at night I can make out headlights and that's it. With the B&W I can actually see the cars.
Now this may be a camera issue, but it falls back to sometimes simpler is better.
MIke