I hard wired my radar detector and found that all the fuses appear to be constant, none of the circuits turn off with the car. So must remember to turn it on and off. I had a dash cam but not going to install unless I can find an easy fix. Cheers
So would this fuse tap fit?Okay, so I ran a wire through the main wiring grommet up under the driver's footwell using an old wire coat hangar to push through (there is plenty of room around the main harness to do so safely). The purpose is to connect to my Cellink B battery, which requires a switched circuit to tap into and, as everyone knows, there aren't any available inside the passenger compartment fuse panel. That battery will sit under the driver's seat and then feed power back to my BlackVue DR750S dual channel cameras. It runs the cameras all of the time, including parking mode, and charges by drawing around 7 to 9 amps when it needs to (which is why it connects to a switched circuit or it would just completely drain the main battery fairly quickly). I've had this setup in my last car (2019 Veloster) and it worked beautifully (though that car had switched circuits inside so tapping a fuse was easy).
So here's the problem in my under-the-hood fuse panel. Using my multimeter I found just 8 switched fuses, all 15A. There's also several unused slots one could add a fuse to, but of course they're all constantly powered (like practically everything else in this car - WTF Mazda). My plan was to use an add-a-fuse with an equivalent 15A fuse on the tap side.
In ascending order they are:
F8 - Engine Control System
F10 - Engine Control System
F12 - Engine Control System
F18 - Protection of Various Circuits (tap won't fit)
F47 - Protection of Various Circuits (tap won't fit)
F49 - Instrument Cluster (tap won't fit)
F53 - Engine Control System
F54 - i-Activsense
Several of them don't work well due to physical restrictions: F18 is too close to the edge of the case and the fuses would stick out and it has a large fuse block beside it, so the tap cannot be rotated (the wire would not fit). F47 and F49 are out for the same reasons. I don't think tapping into the i-Activsense system would be a good idea, so that basically leaves me a Ford Model-T choice of "any colour I want as long as it's Engine Control System black". I guess the other (albeit more work) option is to set up a relay off the main battery and link it to one of the switched circuits, but I've not done one before and don't know how you go about weatherproofing them or finding a good place to mount it.
So...thoughts?
P.S. - here's photos of where I fed the wire through.
Well, the installation is all done and it turned out well.
One thing of note - since I had to pull one of the engine control system fuses to test which side was the load side (to properly install the fuse tap) by turning on ACC mode, so when I did finally start the car up, there was a check engine light and the central panel had an engine malfunction warning. Plugged in my Veepeak OBDII bluetooth module and pulled the codes and it was basically that the computer was failing to see a couple of the items it checks, so I just reset the codes through the OBDII and the issue went away and has not come back.
Thanks for picks. Very helpful.
Can you please post some pics of the fuse box, how it looks when its taped with an add-in fuse. Which side is a load side? Trying to avoid warning you encountered.
Thanks in advance.
What should I do to get my dash cam enter into parking mode using this method?Very helpful discussion. I needed to tap two fuses one for a dash cam and the other for a escort radar. And everything in the interior fuse box was live all the time. My 2020 cx 30 had a battery drain problem at 3 months old and this is before a dash cam and radar. Dealer couldn’t figure it out. Had to use the radar and dash came off a cigarette lighter adapter which I had to unplug every time. Jumped it 7 times over 5 months, just from random system draw.
Couple months ago, go in for service and they have a control module update, looking into what the update was, it was to address a software glitch where the ccu and bcm are suppose to shut off after 24 minutes from lock but sometimes did not.
After the update, the interior fuses I am tapped into now do turn off after 24 mins. I verified by leaving a battery powered camera pointed at the radar and left the radar on. The radar lost power after 23 some minutes. The BlackVue battery you can connect with Bluetooth as long as it gets power, I left my keys inside my house and went to my car and tried to connect to the battery but it was also offline. Also over night it discharged itself to 47%.
Fast forward 2 months, repeated short drives (less than 3 miles) over a short time without any long drives in between do lead to a dead battery time to time. As the battery does not charge enough to start the starter motor.
*Update: Finding this community had me brainstorming.
Will report back on how the following goes in a couple weeks:
A secondary fuse box powered by a relay which inturn is powered by a interior fuse panel tap. Planning on using the acc+ wire for the wireless charger in the center console as a trigger for the relay, verified it turns off as soon as the ignition is off with my phone. I went to look for the acc wire after I saw the mazda3 install posted here before. Luckily/unprofessionally enough dealer install left it dangling. Then wire my devices into the secondary fuse box. Hopefully warranty stays intact, as it’s a fuse tap for power and a splice into a dealer installed wire for a signal source.
I would go through the firewall, but I could not see the opening on the engine side, don’t feel comfortable poking around.
Also new to the community, glad there to have found this.
Final Update: RESOLVED !!
I was successfully able to install a relay and use the wireless charger wire as a trigger. If you don’t have a wireless charger you should still be able to tap into the ignition on pin in the ecu harness, it’s shown pretty well in the mazda3 charger install. If anyone wants a picture let me know I just forgot to take one. There is a open spot under the driver side dash where you can put a bolt through and mount the relay, visible in picture. Now my radar and dash cam both turn off with the ignition off. Happy to help anyone else through the process or go into more detail.
Link for relay: Amazon.com: 1 Pack 40/30 AMP 12 V DC Waterproof Relay and Harness - Heavy Duty 12 AWG Tinned Copper Wires, 5-PIN SPDT Bosch Style Automotive Relay: Industrial & Scientific
Link for inline fuse harness: https://www.amazon.com/Bussmann-BP-HHM-RP-Black-Holder/dp/B004AH4Q22
I used ATM fuses, you can use mini or ATO/ATC. Mini will help save space, I had to abandon the fuse box idea due to space issues.
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May I ask if you had success with the OBD2 port power suggestion? Did that manage to activate parking mode for you?New member here, just got my 2022 CX-30 GS last week. I bought a Thinkware 2ch dashcam and was just reading upon everyone's experiences with dashcam installations. and realized there was an OBD cable that Thinkware sells that allows me to have parking mode without hardwiring, will go that route in the next week or two. Thank you all for the information put forth in this thread!