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Toyota multi terrain view camera sys?

outlander

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Columbus,Ohio
I was watching vids of the toyota terrain view camera system and thought it was pretty cool.

Ive often thought about doing something like this probably even before toyota made it a feature.

With cameras being cheaper than ever im getting closer to making it a reality especially since you can get wireless cameras that dont need a ton of wiring.

Anyone implement something similar on an xj?

One thing that has me scratching my head is how do they keep the lenses clean?Seems like the first good mud hole would negate the feature entirely...

What intially got my gears turning on multiple cameras was for jeep camping in bear country.

I was scheming about having four cheap night vision cams set up to get a 360 view of the surroundings all tied into a single monitor with 4 way split view....

Something goes bump in the night glance at the monitor identify friend or foe and grab the AR15 that sleeps next to me deep in the woods.
 
I don't think they thought about keeping the lens clean. Those systems, to me anyway, are gimmicks to get new truck buyers excited about features they likely won't ever use.
 
There are aftermarket options available. I saw one at Jeep Fest last year that looked pretty cool but not worth my coin.

The Toyota thing looks a little different, it uses the parking cameras that are supposed to help you park might be okay for helping keep an eye on rocks but it's FOV looks somewhat limited and there are still some blindspots that you could get bashed by. And yeah I don't think they have thought about mud/dirt at all. I don't know how much help it would be for the things that go bump in the night, again the FOV for that isn't much better. Also, are you going to leave it running all night? If there really is something bad out there it seems like the time/effort to turn it on and view the camera would alert whatever is out there to your presence.

I like your idea of a custom setup, that could be cool. The key would be doing it in a clean simple setup that is easy to use. There aren't really any "Cheap Night vision" cams out there, there are cheap IR cameras that can use an IR illuminator but that is additional complexity and are they really durable enough to be mounted outside of your rig? Maybe, I think it would be cool, do it and I'll copy your setup haha!
 
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Yes by night vision I meant IR.
I dont even want to think about getting into FLIR or Real night vision.

I should have added that caveat.

Hell cheap IR illuminating flood lights can be had cheap also...Would be so cool to bed down for the night and have the entire woods lit up via IR flood lights that the naked eye cant see.

A word about the power usage:
A good dual batt setup up should run a smartly built sentry system with small LED monitor and all the associated cameras and electronics for a entire night...

I will not deny the fact that I have been building my xj as a "bug out" vehicle as well(yea yea I'm one of those guys)and when I said bear was the primary threat I was committing a truth offense.
 
However lets not veer off into tactics or cover and concealment negating the need for a sentry system or even sustainability...I've thought about the details...
 
Unless you're camping in grizzly territory, nothing to be afraid of. We've had black bear in camp, just make any human noise and they bolt. Last one I could hear running away as fast as it could for a full minute, breaking branches and tearing through brush. Had been eating well off of us humans, that's for sure.

We usually winch the coolers and dry good containers into a tree overnight.
 
Yes by night vision I meant IR.
I dont even want to think about getting into FLIR or Real night vision.

I should have added that caveat.

Hell cheap IR illuminating flood lights can be had cheap also...Would be so cool to bed down for the night and have the entire woods lit up via IR flood lights that the naked eye cant see.

A word about the power usage:
A good dual batt setup up should run a smartly built sentry system with small LED monitor and all the associated cameras and electronics for a entire night...

I will not deny the fact that I have been building my xj as a "bug out" vehicle as well(yea yea I'm one of those guys)and when I said bear was the primary threat I was committing a truth offense.

Yeah good points, dual batts would be no problem for a custom system if you were careful or just have a switch that is easy to flick for the IR lights.

They actually are starting to make some true FLIR cameras that are affordable/compact enough for the average Joe, I thought about getting one for this purpose but they are still too much ($300-500) for me to justify:

https://www.thermal.com/
https://www.flir.com/flirone

They are more made to be handheld instead of mounted on a jeep, and you might have problems seeing through the windows so may not be ideal for your situation.

The trick would be finding cameras that you could mount outside your Jeep that would be durable and not too expensive.

It is super easy to convert Mobius Action Cams to see IR and they would probably be ideal, however I don't think they are rugged enough to mount externally.

https://www.mobius-actioncam.com/
 
I had one i was testing at work for a few years in one of our JK's. pretty cool system but i really think it was more of a gimmick. I guess if you dont want to look out your window when crawling, it would be helpful. It used one in the front bumper , one in each side view mirror and one out the center of the spare tire. The system then combined the imaged to make it a 360 view. you could toggle between each camera if you wanted. good if your wheeling without a spotter.
 
yea Im thinking the side mirrors will be the best spot to mount the side views...

The more I think about this idea the more research I find myself doing.

Another cool idea I have concerning muddy lenses is teeing into the washer reservoir and running windsield sprayers sourced from rhe JY mounted in front of the cams.

Tied into the stock windsield washer switch so everytime you was your windows the lenses get sprayed also



This project may be closer to reality for me
 
This setup would serve three purposes:

Jeep camping opsec.
Trail blindspot navigation
Traditional back up cam.

(Ive often wished I had a reverse camera while backing into/out of parking spots or hooking up a trailer)
 
Unless you had tiny windshield wipers or pressurized water I doubt sprayers would do much to clean mud from the camera lenses. Think of the old Volvo and Mercedes headlights. The driver and passenger could wipe the ones on the mirrors.
 
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