Hi, please could you help.
Is there a switched power source in the passenger compartment fuse box that I could connect a 312GW dash cam to.
The car is RH drive 2014 XF S Portfolio.
Than you.
Kind regards, John

 

Yes. But there is also switched power in the rear view mirror assembly just inches away from where you will likely want to mount the dash cam. So my suggestion would be to tap into that with a wire tap and connect right there. If you search around on here someone did it a couple of years ago and posted which wires to use.

 

Good morning Britcars,
Thank You for your reply which I note with interest & I will follow up your suggestion.
The Dash Cam came with the Next Base Hard Wire fixing kit as a Christmas present from my wife! So I am really looking to use it. My efforts with the use of various YouTube videos should enable me to run the Dash Cam connecting cable into the said fuse box. There is a 20A Yellow fuse, number F26 (Driver's heated/climate seat) to consider. This only operates via the touch screen after ignition has been switched on. However electric seat adjustment is always on, so I'm not sure! Then there is the earthing point! Can I use a bolt that attaches the accelerator pedal assembly to the bulkhead?
Being a 'New Boy' to the Forum I should explain that the last time I 'piggy backed' cables I used 'Scotch Locks' & that was on a 1970's Austin 1100 & Maxi. lol.

 

My first car was an Austin 1300 ;-0

When I had a dashcam in my XFR I used the fuse for the "auxiliary socket" or formerly known as cigar lighter. I forget the exact number it was in my 2010 - I think F28. It doesn't shut down straight away when the ignition is turned off, it goes to sleep in about ten minutes. Which was perfect for my needs. I did try tapping into the rear view mirror but it wasn't very accessible to me as I needed three small(er) hands and a deflatable head.

 

Yes! that' an option space round the mirror is minimum. According to my owners manual I have in the Engine Compartment @ F32, Yellow, 20A fuse for cigar lighter & in the Boot, @ F26, Blue 15A,for accessories The weather is a bit inclement at the moment so installation will be delayed. I will report back later.

 

If you run down the A pillar and into the fuse box you should be able to earth there too. Several bolts in that area. I would go with the aux suggestion above for the camera

If you want to avoid tapping in anywhere I just ran the cable for mine along the top of the windscreen and down the A pillar (you can tuck it in so you don't see it) then under the dash and into the aux socket in the armrest. You can't really see the wiring aside from a couple of inches looping into the center armrest

 

Thanks for your input. I concur it may be the way to go. However since my last post I have checked the fuses in the boot & drivers foot well with a multi meter and they are all live. The only switched power fuses in this car are in the engine bay fuse box. The difficulty then being to feed the cable into the cabin and there is not an obvious route to take. Next Base & Halfords both suggest an artificial Ignition source (Igni-Gen-Can Bus 12V Ignition or Autoleads 06-Sense-Latch). I've purchased the latter. The power cable has been put into place as suggested above. The fitting of the artificial ignition source is now the problem! Until now I have never heard of such a thing, never mind how you fit one?? Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

 

The rear view mirror is definitely the best option. I have used that on my last 10 cars for wiring both the dash cams and the radar detectors. It doesn't make sense to go to all the trouble of feeding a wire all the way through the headliner down to under the dash when you have plenty of fused, switched power waiting for you right next to where you need it.

 

What do all the fuses in the drivers footwell box control? I thought the vast majority of the equipment turns off the the ignition. Are you sure it's not just on a 5 minute delay to shutdown?

 

So I had to raise the white flag I'm afraid and had it fitted for £30. I didn't notice but it seems that there are two live spades at the top of the fuse box in the drivers foot well and one of these was used. An inline fuse was fitted to the power Red wire on the 06-Sence-Latch gadget and from this a connection was made via a spade connector. Earthing was achieved using the Black wire attaching to an adjacent bolt near to the fuse box A connector was then fitted to the output Blue wire & a connection was made to the Camera power cable. No fuses were tapped into during fitting. When switching on the ignition it takes about 10 secs. for the sensor to wake up & about 5 secs. for the Camera to switch on. I hope the info is of help to someone out there. In the first instance had a suitable fuse been made available in the drivers foot well, it would have been a straight forward job!
I would just like to take this opportunity once again to thank those people who contributed with ideas & suggestions, Cheers!

 

Sorry to resurrect an ancient post but there's a lot of conflicting information about, the usual X250, X260 confusion and possible differences between RH and LH drive cars and also confusion about why people need a switched live and permanent live, anyway long story short I've managed to find something that "mostly" works for my setup of an VIOFO A119 v3 dashcam with the VIOFO hardwire kit on a right hand drive 2015 X250 Porfolio S.

Disclaimer:
I found this switched live by trial and error with a multimeter, as it shares the same wire colour as the cigar lighter in the center cubby box (where the USB connector is) I assume its the same circuit, though it could be for airbags or anything so if you want to proceed safely I'd suggest either finding and understanding the wiring guides for the X250 (something I couldn't find) or disconnecting the battery and using continuity mode and verifying its on the same circuit as the cigar lighter. I couldn't be bothered to do either, so if your not desperate I'd suggest using overhead supply as everyone else suggests.

TL;DR:
There's a "switched" live available on one of the looms, its grey with a red stripe, i put a scotchlok/quick splice connector on it, see it here Its not ignition switched but it turns off when you lock the doors, which is close enough for my purposes.

Why?!
To explain why i wanted to do this I have a dashcam that has a parking mode, that is it has a hardwire kit i'd already ran to the passenger fusebox before discovering there are no switched/ignition fuses available, the idea being there is a inline voltage monitor on the dashcam with a sense wire (ACC [yellow]), Battery/permanent live (red) and ground, the little inline box will detect lower voltage on ACC and switch the dashcam into "parking mode", this basically means motion or accelerometer events are logged and is designed to catch events like crashing into your car in the carpark or vandalism etc.

So my first issue was not finding a grounding (-ve) point in the passenger compartment fusebox, which here in the UK is next to the accelerator pedal, this was easy enough to find with some strong (don't be scared) internal panel pulling, there is a ground point behind the end panels on the dash, there's a good video though my wiring is slightly different in terms of the route i took, using the door trim/gasket for the usb portion of the cable to the fuse compartment then a single ground going back to this panel.
Once i found this i thought i had it cracked but like everyone else found there was no ignition switched fuse for my piggyback fuse, I've attached the piggyback fuse for permanent live/battery to one of the non-safety related systems though I dont think it matters much as they're all live all the time.

The main problem was finding the switched live, there basically isn't one, there's roomers of some that switch off after 10-20mins, I tested a lot of them, hooking up a multimeter and peering in through the window, I tried the obvious ones like infotainment and electric seat adjustment and none of them ever turn off (I mean who the hell is adjusting their seat when the alarm is on?). I then resorted to buying a "ignition generator", these devices sense voltage spikes/drops such as when the starter motor kicks in and trigger a relay based on this, I got a latching type something like this, latching as this is a stop/start car and if I didn't want my camera entering parking mode every time I stopped at lights seemed appropriate, turns out It was completely useless as once it latched open on initial ignition it didn't turn off ever, essentially back to square one except now there was another LED to power.

Anyway I decided the only route was to carry a single single wire from the cigar lighter back to the fusebox but upon yanking the cigar ligher, usb and aux 3.5 mm jack I noticed the wiring colour was the same as a loom in the passenger glovebox, verified its 12v, powers off with door locking and decided this is close enough to ACC for my purposes, there are two looms attached to the fusebox, left of the blue relays and fuses, the loom closest to the accelerator (bottom grey loom or middle loom if you take into account the blue loom connector), third wire down (grey and red) has a 12v supply, you can probably see better from the album here

Hope this helps anyone else, as it took me forever to find, like i say I don't know what its actually for but as this is hooked up to a sense cable and should already be fused then It shouldn't cause any issues, I'm not an electrical engineer so don't take my word for it, it was simply a last resort for me.

 

Hi and thank you so much for your post. I've been trying to install two DDPai Dashcams into my 2014 XF, and like you have found no switched lives for the Parking Mode option.

I now have the cables run to the drivers footwell fusebox. Well, nearly. The cable for the rear dashcam is about a foot too short. I have a box of line taps coming from the jungle company tomorrow, so I can complete the job.

I can't tell you how helpful your post has been after looking at dozens of posts about fuseboxes and switched lives.

Thanks again. You're a star.

Best, John.