Hey guys and gals!
I decided to mount a dash camera between the roll hoops, for two reasons: One, I would see my driving at the track & hopefully notice things to improve, and two - next time a SF Police officer claims I was on the phone (while I was not) I will have video proof of my innocence.
However, I'm having the proverbial *bad time*.
But, first things first:
I settled on Mobius ActionCam
and got a little ball head tripod stand for a mount
and, to keep it powered - a USB hardwire kit.
Removing the rear console upper trim piece was fairly easy, so mounting to the desired spot was a breeze. Then I started poking around for power, and that turned out trickier than expected. Granted - I'm not very mcgyvery, especially with electrical stuff - the way I went about finding out if the lines have power is by touching them with wires of the hardwire kit and looking at the camera lights (if it's connected to usb power -> it turns on).
I removed the storage compartment door (takes quite a bit of force, without encouragement from the helpful forums I would have stopped before pulling it out for the fear of breaking it) and discovered the switch for the storage compartment light. Connecting the camera to that switch worked - sweet! But it made the light stay on (and much dimmer) regardless of the switch position, so not perfect... Before putting in more work to remove the whole center console trim I decided to fish around with my fingers in the direction of the "sos/wrench" buttons (bmw assist?), and voila! Found a loose connector with 4 wires! By trial and error found out they did have power, so I connected the camera to it.
Content for the day, decided to close the top and deal with routing the wire tomorrow. However, just as it finished closing my V1 blinked all the lights, so instinctively to make sure it was ok I attempted "rebooting" the car - and on attempt to restart it's blinking the headlights and seems like the power is cutting in and out... See video:
WHAT DID I DO??? WHAT COULD IT BEEEE??? DID I F... THINGS UP BEYOND ANY HOPE??? I suspect I'm short-cirucuiting something, and I have no clue if trying to start the car a couple of times made any damage somewhere else...
I'm going to remove the console and disconnect the thing and whatnot, and try to return things back to normal - but if you have any insight as to what could have actually happened - I would appreciate it!
Thanks!