Hi!
I appreciate your document.. (a pretty valuable overview btw).
We all know about FLIR camera, pretty easy to retrofit because it has only 2 connections: the power signal and the video output signal.
However I would like to talk about oem bmw camera supplied by autoliv.
I believe it's just the FLIR camera with a little different factory setup..
I got one of the oem bmw camera and I can tell you that after I simply connected the video output to the external screen and put the power on, the camera starts to broadcast video signal, but it was just a blank gray picture. So, I must say, that by default when power is on, the oem bmw camera is set to some kind of stand-by mode without real picture.
This is a pretty important difference compare to FLIR camera when it comes to retro-fit-ing. This camera needs something more not just the power to start on. For this reason, the oem bmw camera uses extra cable connection to handle LIN communication signals. Those signals are under control of Night Vision Control Unit(NVCU).
For all those guys trying to find the way how to retro-fit this device including my selt, I would like to ask:
Does anybody know how to make the oem bmw camera start working?
Is the only way to do this to use NVCU?
Is the NVCU able to function as an standalone component without K-CAN connection?
Is it possible to bypass the NVCU by some kind of LIN (master) component witch will be able to generate the same set of LIN commands as the NVCU can do to tell camera to start-up, zoom-in, zoom-out, etc?

Any help would be appreciated it.

• BMW Night Vision Option Overview (url) - jcarey 2008-01-05 20:27:34 (227 views)
  • Re: BMW Night Vision Option Overview - jaro2k 2008-05-06 16:56:18 (19 views)
  • Their are two FLIR modules. 1) BMW ONLY VIN specific 2)Any composite video (url) - Martin 2008-01-07 18:56:39 (131 views)
  • Your next mod John? (nt) - Ed 2008-01-05 23:35:48 (69 views)
    • It's pretty interesting isn't it? - jcarey 2008-01-06 00:01:37 (69 views)
      • Yeah I was gonna ask how that was going? - Ed 2008-01-06 01:00:25 (84 views)