| Author |
Message |
Jim Stewart (H3jim)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, November 26, 2004 - 2:30 pm: | |
What is the right height to mount the backup camera? Genrally I see them right at the top of the coach. It seems as if that would give a better view of the hitch, but not necessarily the best back up view?
Where do you mount them, what are your experiences on the mounting location? |
Jim Ashworth (Jimnh)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, November 26, 2004 - 3:24 pm: | |
It is going to depend on the field of view of the camera and what YOU want to watch.
I have a 130 deg. field of view and with the camera mounted within a foot of the roof I can see the hitch and the whole car. I cannot see beyond the car and it has only limited use to the sides of the car. That is just what I want to see. I have mirrors for the rest.
If the hitch is not important, you can angle the camera to point more toward the rear and not see the hitch but see traffic beyond the car. Bear in mind that the 130 deg field will make the traffic pretty small in the monitor.
With a narrower (60 to 90 deg) view, the traffic will be larger but you will see less of it. This will appear much like the eye sees without any "fish-eye" effect of the wider angle camera.
Your choice, Hope this helps.
Jim |
neomax
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, November 26, 2004 - 10:15 pm: | |
Jim: Mine is at about 10-4 off the road, a 130 degree model. Focused to view the truck front down to about mid-grill (can't see the tow bar). That gives me about 30' behind the truck in view and about 10-12' on either side of the truck at the rear.
Last month when the base plate and truck frame separated (the frame on the truck broke) coming off the ferry on the Outer Banks, I was able to immediately see that something was wrong and the truck was not tracking straight. The safety cables held it to the bus but it was wandering badly; the tow bar was dangling. I have always driven with my camera on; some don't, just checking on the towed now and then. |
Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, November 27, 2004 - 5:56 pm: | |
Mine is on the roof. 120 degrees or so view angle. I have it aimed so I can see everything behind me as well as a small bit of the roof, upon which I have painted two oddly angled black lines that correspond to the width of the bus on the road. In my monitor they show up as two straight lines, the angle I painted them at compensates for lens distortion...if anything's between them I'll hit it; if outside I won't. This makes camera alignent unimportant and you also don't mess up the monitor with tape or lines- leaving it happy to view DVD's or GPS.
I keep it on while driving and it makes it super safe as another method (besides rear view mirrors) to make sure no-one's in the lane I'm about to change into. Better than a rear view mirror when driving!
Photo:
http://www.heartmagic.com/RoofCamera.jpg |