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      04-27-2015, 09:19 PM   #1
Mr. Hankey
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Question Bimmer-Tech Retrofit for F8X

Hi All, I installed my Bimmer-Tech plug-and-play rear camera retrofit kit this weekend (2015 F80). I've posted in this thread a few times and also contacted some of you regarding it and appreciate everyone's help. Like others have said I am really impressed with the quality of the camera and trunk-lid opener (rubber-coated plastic just like OEM), OEM integration (no splicing is nice), and great image quality (surprised by the field of view provided by the camera). It just works, really well.


For those interested in more detail, here goes:

Shipping - Took 3 days for the kit to arrive to my house in the US from Warsaw, Poland by DHL. Supposedly there may be an additional customs bill from DHL to bring this into the country but I haven't seen or received one yet.


Kit - My kit was the OEM plug and play kit with dynamic parking lines. It includes the camera integrated in the new trunk-lid opener, video and power line that gets run to the head unit / iDrive in the dash, Plug and play wiring harness, and "Activation Module" which relays the video from the camera to iDrive in a way iDrive can understand.




Coding - The kit surprisingly recommended doing the coding first and then installing the kit. I've seen people install the kit first and then get it coded later so I don't think it matters. It comes with a coding cable (mine didn't since I already have one and mentioned that on the order form)...I had my car coded prior to doing the install. Without the camera installed I noticed no difference in how iDrive worked (when you go in reverse the screen would not change at all from where you were for example). You contact the coder (Man in Poland, no pun intended )over Skype and they will send you a bunch of download links for windows files. Download and install took 20-30 minutes. They then get onto your computer using TeamViewer and do the coding. That should have taken another 5-10 minutes tops but I had a bit of a problem with how my mac/parallels machine was configured so we spent some time working on network settings (so the windows machine had simultaneous Wifi connection to the internet for him to work through and an Ethernet connection that connected to the car). He wasn't used to Mac and I am terrible at windows networking, but as a team we worked it out and coding for me took just over an hour of my time.


Installation - I installed the system over 2 days. Day 1 consisted of installing the camera in the trunk and running the video wire to the front of the car (2 hrs), and Day 2 was taking apart the dash (about an hour, really not complicated) and hooking it all up. The wiring harness and the activation module are installed into the dash. Bimmer-Tech provides good instructions on how to take everything apart. I strongly recommend springing for the nylon prybar toolset from them - even though I've installed several competition level car stereos in my life and have taken the insides of many cars apart these just come in handy and fit the BMW bits holding things together. They also don't scratch the materials more importantly.

Day 1 - Camera install and running wire from back of car to front of car. The wire runs from the trunk down the right (passenger) side of the trunk hinge, and to the front of the car along the inside of the door sills. I found Nelson@Bimmertech's pictoral post here very helpful for running the wires from back to front in the F80, his pictures were great, so I didn't have to post my own:

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=835542

I did not take out the right side of the trunk liner which saved some time - I was able to fish my wire through to the passenger compartment with a wire passer (i.e. 3 foot segment of 14G electrical wire). I also did not need to remove the rear seats, just pop out the passenger side clip and you can lift it up enough to get access to what you need.

Day 2 - Taking apart the dash. This was also straight forward. This video is fantastic where an installer takes the dash apart and head unit out in under 4 minutes ...note he did scratch one of the panels under the radio faceplate doing it, again why I recommend the prybar set. It took me about 15 minutes.



Note: You need to move the fiberoptic connections from the stock head unit adapter to the plug and play adapter from Bimmer-tech...the instructions have a clear picture of this. My fiberoptic connector was a bit short so I had to remove some of the the stock tape holding all the wires together going into the stock harness to get the fiberoptic cable completely out of the bunch, and then re-wrapped the rest of the wires back up. I think this helped make some room and allow me to fit everything back in without tension.


Results - It works! It works really well. I'm impressed with the field of view this camera has given its location. Can just about see corner to corner of the bumper (was testing with a tall-ish box), and can see almost straight down the reap bumper. The dynamic parking lines work very well and change with steering angle like OEM, or you can turn them off.

Saturation and brightness of the camera is great. I'm not even maxed to 100% on either setting. It is somewhat dark at night because of the small M3 backup lights (people with exec package have same complaints), but that is much improved by coding in the euro fog lamps and turning those on and you can see really well then .

Here's a picture of the view without lines:


And one with:

Note that little red box which is positioned about 2.5 inches off the reap bumper and is about 4 inches shorter than the top of the bumper...gives a good view where your bumper is relative to stuff behind.


Conclusion - I would absolutely recommend this kit to anyone. If you have ever tinkered with car stereos you can install this yourself...if you're lucky enough to be near Orlando then Nelson can install for you...Quality is top notch and service--even all the way from Poland to the US--is spectacular. Patryk was always available by email and would answer questions quickly, including diagrams and pictures (hey I'm totally OCD, I had questions!). These guys stand behind their work/products 100% and I wouldn't hesitate using them again. I think that's fairly obvious from the different forums they are involved in from researching these kits. Thanks so much guys!

Last edited by Mr. Hankey; 04-27-2015 at 09:36 PM..
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      04-28-2015, 02:04 PM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rhk118 View Post
Hi All, I installed my Bimmer-Tech plug-and-play rear camera retrofit kit this weekend (2015 F80). I've posted in this thread a few times and also contacted some of you regarding it and appreciate everyone's help. Like others have said I am really impressed with the quality of the camera and trunk-lid opener (rubber-coated plastic just like OEM), OEM integration (no splicing is nice), and great image quality (surprised by the field of view provided by the camera). It just works, really well.


For those interested in more detail, here goes:

Shipping - Took 3 days for the kit to arrive to my house in the US from Warsaw, Poland by DHL. Supposedly there may be an additional customs bill from DHL to bring this into the country but I haven't seen or received one yet.


Kit - My kit was the OEM plug and play kit with dynamic parking lines. It includes the camera integrated in the new trunk-lid opener, video and power line that gets run to the head unit / iDrive in the dash, Plug and play wiring harness, and "Activation Module" which relays the video from the camera to iDrive in a way iDrive can understand.




Coding - The kit surprisingly recommended doing the coding first and then installing the kit. I've seen people install the kit first and then get it coded later so I don't think it matters. It comes with a coding cable (mine didn't since I already have one and mentioned that on the order form)...I had my car coded prior to doing the install. Without the camera installed I noticed no difference in how iDrive worked (when you go in reverse the screen would not change at all from where you were for example). You contact the coder (Man in Poland, no pun intended )over Skype and they will send you a bunch of download links for windows files. Download and install took 20-30 minutes. They then get onto your computer using TeamViewer and do the coding. That should have taken another 5-10 minutes tops but I had a bit of a problem with how my mac/parallels machine was configured so we spent some time working on network settings (so the windows machine had simultaneous Wifi connection to the internet for him to work through and an Ethernet connection that connected to the car). He wasn't used to Mac and I am terrible at windows networking, but as a team we worked it out and coding for me took just over an hour of my time.


Installation - I installed the system over 2 days. Day 1 consisted of installing the camera in the trunk and running the video wire to the front of the car (2 hrs), and Day 2 was taking apart the dash (about an hour, really not complicated) and hooking it all up. The wiring harness and the activation module are installed into the dash. Bimmer-Tech provides good instructions on how to take everything apart. I strongly recommend springing for the nylon prybar toolset from them - even though I've installed several competition level car stereos in my life and have taken the insides of many cars apart these just come in handy and fit the BMW bits holding things together. They also don't scratch the materials more importantly.

Day 1 - Camera install and running wire from back of car to front of car. The wire runs from the trunk down the right (passenger) side of the trunk hinge, and to the front of the car along the inside of the door sills. I found Nelson@Bimmertech's pictoral post here very helpful for running the wires from back to front in the F80, his pictures were great, so I didn't have to post my own:

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=835542

I did not take out the right side of the trunk liner which saved some time - I was able to fish my wire through to the passenger compartment with a wire passer (i.e. 3 foot segment of 14G electrical wire). I also did not need to remove the rear seats, just pop out the passenger side clip and you can lift it up enough to get access to what you need.

Day 2 - Taking apart the dash. This was also straight forward. This video is fantastic where an installer takes the dash apart and head unit out in under 4 minutes ...note he did scratch one of the panels under the radio faceplate doing it, again why I recommend the prybar set. It took me about 15 minutes.



Note: You need to move the fiberoptic connections from the stock head unit adapter to the plug and play adapter from Bimmer-tech...the instructions have a clear picture of this. My fiberoptic connector was a bit short so I had to remove some of the the stock tape holding all the wires together going into the stock harness to get the fiberoptic cable completely out of the bunch, and then re-wrapped the rest of the wires back up. I think this helped make some room and allow me to fit everything back in without tension.


Results - It works! It works really well. I'm impressed with the field of view this camera has given its location. Can just about see corner to corner of the bumper (was testing with a tall-ish box), and can see almost straight down the reap bumper. The dynamic parking lines work very well and change with steering angle like OEM, or you can turn them off.

Saturation and brightness of the camera is great. I'm not even maxed to 100% on either setting. It is somewhat dark at night because of the small M3 backup lights (people with exec package have same complaints), but that is much improved by coding in the euro fog lamps and turning those on and you can see really well then .

Here's a picture of the view without lines:


And one with:

Note that little red box which is positioned about 2.5 inches off the reap bumper and is about 4 inches shorter than the top of the bumper...gives a good view where your bumper is relative to stuff behind.


Conclusion - I would absolutely recommend this kit to anyone. If you have ever tinkered with car stereos you can install this yourself...if you're lucky enough to be near Orlando then Nelson can install for you...Quality is top notch and service--even all the way from Poland to the US--is spectacular. Patryk was always available by email and would answer questions quickly, including diagrams and pictures (hey I'm totally OCD, I had questions!). These guys stand behind their work/products 100% and I wouldn't hesitate using them again. I think that's fairly obvious from the different forums they are involved in from researching these kits. Thanks so much guys!
Awesome write-up! Thanks for the positive feedback
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      07-18-2016, 08:43 AM   #3
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Thanks for the info. I'll be trying this myself soon. I may have a question or two later.
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      07-20-2016, 07:01 PM   #4
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dup post
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      07-20-2016, 07:02 PM   #5
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just a couple questions about this step or two:


Quote:
I did not take out the right side of the trunk liner which saved some time - I was able to fish my wire through to the passenger compartment with a wire passer (i.e. 3 foot segment of 14G electrical wire). I also did not need to remove the rear seats, just pop out the passenger side clip and you can lift it up enough to get access to what you need.
1. The 14awg wire was stiff enough to get to the trunk area? Then you just tied the ends together (video cable and 14awg wire) and pulled the wire through to the side of the back seat?

2. Do you have a pic of the side of "clip" and area you mentioned above?

TIA! Hope to have my car next week and this will be the first mod I attempt.
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      07-24-2016, 02:06 PM   #6
Mr. Hankey
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bob330i
just a couple questions about this step or two:


Quote:
I did not take out the right side of the trunk liner which saved some time - I was able to fish my wire through to the passenger compartment with a wire passer (i.e. 3 foot segment of 14G electrical wire). I also did not need to remove the rear seats, just pop out the passenger side clip and you can lift it up enough to get access to what you need.
1. The 14awg wire was stiff enough to get to the trunk area? Then you just tied the ends together (video cable and 14awg wire) and pulled the wire through to the side of the back seat?

2. Do you have a pic of the side of "clip" and area you mentioned above?

TIA! Hope to have my car next week and this will be the first mod I attempt.
Sorry for the delay in reply...

1. Yes I just electric taped the cord that goes to the dash from the trunk to some stiff electric wire for a house and fished that through...a straightened wire hanger would work just as well.

2. If I remember correctly (been over a year now) the instructions want you to remove the back seats...if you just pull out the upper part of the seat until that clip "unclips", you can see into the trunk...just fish the wire in with the 14g wire or hanger wire...you don't have to remove the seat. The bottom part of the seat just lifted up and I could run the wire under the carpet there.
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      07-24-2016, 06:47 PM   #7
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Ah, I didn't notice that it got bumped and the original install was last year. Thanks for the reply!
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