Hi guys I need some help here with my caravan camera. Recently I've bought a new caravan which came fitted with a wireless camera at the back which connects via Wi-FI to a screen fitted on my Ford Everest windscreen. The power supply for the camera comes from the tail lights, meaning I should keep the tail lights ON in order to the camera to work (the caravan has normal light bulbs on the tail lights). What happens is that when the caravan power cable is connected to my Everest, the camera doesn't work. Its lights blinks etc but doesn't send the signal to the screen. When the caravan is connected to other vehicles (or when I connect the camera directly to a 12V battery) it does work. 

Has anyone of you came across such thing? Does the Everest limit the current output through the towing electrical connector perhaps? I appreciate your comments.

I have exactly the same camera on my van. Mine was installed by Pine Joubert of Western Cape Caravan Movers. Pine picked up the power for the camera from my caravan's 12V battery. He installed a switch on the line which you just switch on when you tow. Mine works perfectly.

Kannie te veel krag trek nie....daai kamera trek bittermin krag. My kamera werk vanaf n 7amp battery af....ek het al 18 ure gesleep sonder om te charge en is steeds okay

I doubt Rodrico would understand Afrikaans.

When you connect the wires from another power source you usually connect it correctly - to - and + to +.

Make sure the wires coming from the rear lights are actually connected correctly inside the light fitting.

It should be the + wire to the bulb centre point and the - to the casing/earth of the light.

Thank you guys. I'll have someone to check it tomorrow and hopefully I'll make it work.

Cheers

Hello fellow campers, last weekend I spent over 3h trying to figure out the problem and the conclusion is my Everest doesn't supply the required current by the camera. When the camera is connected directly to the battery, the current is about 3A (and it works!). When I connect to my tail lights, the current on the camera is just over 1A (and it doesn't work). As work around I ended up connecting the camera to my caravan battery.

I've emailed Ford to inquiry about it, let's see what they say. I'm planning to record a youtube video to my channel, please have a look and subscribe if you want to by notified when it is out.

Banana Camper - https://youtube.com/@bananacamper?si=g09bMfmeArAsMl6i 

3Amps is too much and does not sound correct at all , my 12v 22l compressor fridge draws 2,5Amps. If you have a 7 pin plug on the Everest pin 2 should be an auxiliary +12v which you can use.

Andrew is right.  Three amp X 12 volt gives you 36W. There is no way the camera can use that much. At a guess I would say it will use not much more than  a Watt or two, maybe even less than a Watt.  You said at the beginning the light(I suppose on the camera) blinks but does not send through a signal to the screen while it works on another vehicle.  It sound to me like a bad connection of the camera's power supply, perhaps on the tow hitch plug.  Perhaps you should look at Geert's (Relaxed Camper) solution of powering the camera from a small 7.2AH battery.  With the very low consumption of the camera it should be good for many days.  You will need to include a switch between the battery and camera.  This will also eliminate the need of keeping your driving lights on (if that is not being done automatically).

I needed power for my three way fridge on my previous caravan.  I achieved this by using only one of the parking light points on the tow hitch to drive both parking lights on the caravan and wiring tie other one to the tow vehicle's battery.  The two points are numbers 5 and 7.  You might try this.  Include a low amp, perhaps 1 Amp, fuse to protect your vehicle.

Look, 3A sounds a lot but that's what I got when measuring. I'll measure it again and take a picture and post here. For now the camera is connected to my caravan battery with a switch in between.

I use a 7amp battery on my wireless camera.....after 18hours of usage (without charging), still going strong

If the camera used 1 Amp, the battery will be drained in 7.2 hours when new.  Using is for 18 hours mean the power drawn is even much less than 1 amp.  If the battery was drained completely in 18 hours, which it probably was not, that means it would have drawn 0.4Amp.  Please do the new measurement and let us know what you find.

Hi guys yesterday I had the chance of installing the the camera switch properly and also took another current measurement, it came now 230mA which sounds correct. The other measurement was done with someones else multimeter so I'm not sure whether it was working properly or not. Although this 230mA sounds correct, I can't understand why it was not working while connected to the tail lights. In any case it is working now.

Glad you could sort it out.