Mike, Yes you can modify an OEM brake light and wire it to your Naviks. That is what I did on my 2017, when I was trying to get the OEM camera and IMPB configured and functioning. I don't have me computer with me that has all my wiring diagrams. I recommend finding a used one, hopefully it comes with the short factory jumper harness. I am back home on Thursday. So If I forget to post up information up send me a reminder here.

 

Good to know - thank you!

Looks like I will be on the hunt for a used CHMSL camera.

 

Hey sorry for the delay. here are a couple of wiring diagrams to help you out. if your factory CHMSL does not come with the short jumper let me know, I have can dig up the part numbers to build the small white plug on the light. The new CHMSL harness will not plug into the old harness under the headliner and you will need to modify your old lights harness and new harness to make this all work. here are the steps.

1. First remove your existing light from the truck. Just under the headliner, to the right of the light is a connector. Disconnect this connector to get the wiring harness for the old light. (to your right looking out the back window.)
2. once you have both lights on your work bench. You will see the big difference on the truck connectors. On the new CHMSL light there is a small white plug for the (Brake and Cargo light), This has a Red, White and Black wire. (Black is Ground, White is Cargo, and Red is Brake) You need to cut off your original lights connector (leave yourself lots of wire from the connector) the old CHMSL has three wires, Black, White, Orange. (Black is ground, White is Cargo, and Orange is Brake) You will need to match these up, Solder them and heat shrink is the method I recommend.
3. Know you can tackle the camera connector. of the 6 available wires you only need to worry about 4 of them. Pin 1 is 12V+, Pin 3 Video -, Pin 4 Video +, Pin 5 Shield (Ground). You will want roughly 20-25 feet of wire (depending on how you want to run it to your Naviks unit). When you attach the RCA end to the video cable at your Naviks unit the center pin of the RCA is your Video +, outer is the Video -

I do recommend you use some type of Shielded 2 conductor wire for the video side. This will help reduce possible noise or grainy video. If you do pick up this style of wire, the drain wire of the shielded cable gets connected to the camera ground (Pin 5) at the camera side, and to your ground at the Naviks end.

If you have any questions or need further help let me know.

 

A ton of information in here! Thanks Sarge and Slowjoe. I have a 2020 with BLIS and tailgate camera, no brakelight or 360 cameras, and was hoping to wire the 3rd brakelight camera module/switch but run an oem front camera instead. I already have the oem camera/washer installed just not functional. Slowjoe can I just run the 250-8420-MOD and use one of my upfitter switches to enable the front camera, or would the truck have to be in reverse to get the signal? Or would you recomend just going the impb route?

Thanks again for all the info

 

The factory camera in the grill on the 2017+ Super duties is a different type of camera for the 360 view. If you have a picture of the connector for the camera, and how it is mounted it would help me out to provide some better information, but If my memory serves me correctly you will need to swap the super duty camera for an 2015+ F150 grill camera, then you will have a four wire camera that you could easily wire up to the 250-8420-mod (I believe this is the video switch from Rostra). You will want to ensure that this box will work in the super duty with 8inch sync screen.

I don't recommend the IMPB route, as I always had a lingering DTC set in my Body control module. So I removed the IMPB, and built up my own interface cable using a generic video switch box. So I could switch between the factory tailgate camera and CHSML.

 

Ok shoot, after looking at the camera I can see what you're saying. I dont know much about video and when I first searched "ford camera adapter" this came up: http://www.officematics.com/leewa-ca...-p-151357.html and I just assumed it would work without reading more.


I bought this 2020 XLT with light front end damage, really just broke the grill support, front bumper, and front grill, no airbags or anything like that. When I was going over a parts list I saw a random brown connector and later figured out it was for a camera. Assuming the camera was there before the accident I thought "thats cool" and it being my own fault not doing more digging and spending a ton on front emblem/camera/ camera washer it looks like I will just have to sell. I wonder if a 2015 f150 camera would fit into the 2020 front emblem or if I can make it work? That camera is far less expensive than one I bought.

After checking with Rostra the 250-8420-mod wont work with 2019+ which is a bummer. I did find the "Naviks" NK-1312 which looks to work with 2020 trucks but requires you to "long hold" - 7 seconds a factory button to force the front cam. I personally think thats a little tacky and would prefer a more oem style function. Do you think I could trigger this Navik unit with one of my upfitter switches, somehow turn this long hold trigger into a basic toggle switch?

 

Sorry for the delay, looking at f150 2015-2018 grill cameras you most likely could swap them out with out to much modification. Switching between cameras on your vehicle is not the big hurdle, but it is the in motion part, you would almost need to interfaces to be able to get both features.

Other places to check out would be NAVTV, and Camera source, as they both have options as well. NAVTV has Sync3-rvc not sure. wireing the f150 camera up to an RCA jack is very simple as I did that with my factory CHMSL camera. I just wasn't after video in motion with my 2017.

 

I got the third brake light working (awesome thanks to @SlowJoe6969 for all the support and detailed information)!!

I have a third party front camera and a trailer backup camera that I wanted to utilize. I ordered the exhaust brake split dash button as well as the split camera button (SW-7721 and SW-7719). 7721 is back ordered but my eventual plan is to remove the exhaust brake icon face off the one switch and replace it with the camera icon face plate.

Regardless, I got everything wired and bench tested it today and it looks to be working great. You press the OEM dash button and it flips between the 4 input video sources, so now it appears factory while viewing the cameras.

I am slightly worried about heat since it’s very tightly packed and behind the dash. I may have to drill some vent holes around it.

 

Hey so i see this hasnt gotten an update in a while and was wondering a few things and hoping i could get the answers. So a scrap yard near me has a superduty with the 3rd brake light camera and i was wondering if i grabbed the harness from the c-pillar to the light and light assemble, as well as the module in the dash is there a possibility of making it work or would i be missing some stuff as i have the tailgate camera and would like the bed one for when hooking up/keeping an eye on whats in the box when hauling stuff as well.

 

I need it right away please if anyone can help me out

 

Hey, so yeah I had the third brake light camera working as well as a front camera and trailer backup camera.
It wasn't the OEM method but it worked fine for my needs at the time.

Basically I ran the video feed to a Naviks NK-1317 unit which plugged into the APIM.

I got a little carried away down the road and integrated an OEM dash button to cycle through the cameras but the Naviks unit will allow you to do this by pressing and holding the power button on it's own.

I was just trying to tinker with other options.

 

@Slowjoe6969 Thank you for taking so much time to detail your work in this thread. There is so much information here that I've had to reread this thread end-to-end 2 or 3 times to really absorb it. I have a 2017 F350 Lariat with tailgate cam only and I want to add just the cargo camera switched with the factory installed upfitter switch, for use when backing up only is ok with me for hooking up gooseneck trailers. I purchased an OEM CHMSL with camera that is coming with the pigtail attached (ETA next Tuesday), and purchased the BrandMotion brand of plug and play harness Part Number: FLTW-7624 (ETA Friday), so the next step is to order the parts to build the cable to connect them. The details for that cable I could not find included in this thread, so I'm seeking the details of the 20-25 ft long cable you built. From the picture above and the CHMSL connector details provided in the thread, I can see that one end of the cable appears to have part .

1. Is that correct?
2. What are the specs on each of the wires you mated to that pigtail?
3. What gauge wire did you use for each of the wires?
4. Were any or all of them shielded?
5. Were any pre-bundled?
6. Did you run 5 wires and leave the 6th wire stubbed at the pigtail.
7. Can I purchase those wires online?
8. What did you use for the protective sleeve and where can I purchase it?
9. What connectors are on the other end of the cable?

Thanks in advance!

 

I received the OEM CHMSL with camera and attached pigtail today, as well as the splicing harness. I think I have a plan. Is there anyone who can confirm/deny if this should work? I have a 2017 F350 Lariat that came from the factory with only a tailgate camera and 8" display. The CHMSL appears to be LED - I haven't removed it yet to confirm the connector it uses, but from what I've seen online, the LED CHMSL should have a C9030 on the truck side of the pigtail. I assume it is female like it is on the C9125 on the truck end of the pigtail of the OEM CHMSL w/camera. Rather than cutting the pig tail off the old CHMSL and splicing it onto the new CHMSL, I figured I could just add a male C9125 to the end of 25ft of cable and shorten 3 of the wires to about 8in and mount a C9030 on it to plug into the factory CHMSL harness in the cab. That way I am not modifying either the old CHMSL or the new CHMSL in case I want to reuse or resell them. Behind the 8" screen I plan to install the splicing harness that I purchased, which has a female RCA plug. For the power I will route to the factory upfitter switch leads. So the cable I need to build would look like this:


Do folks think that will work? What gauge wires should I use?

 

I pulled the CHMSL connection to the body harness out and here is what it looks like. Is this a C9030 connector?

 

UPDATE: As I've mentioned before, I have a 2017 F350 Lariat pickup truck that came with the factory tailgate camera only which is great for backing up to bumper-pull trailers. However, backup up to gooseneck trailers isn't as easy because the gooseneck ball in the bed of the truck is not visible from the drivers seat, even if I sit up high with my butt off the seat. Unfortunately, my truck didn't come with the factory center high mount stop light (CHMSL) camera (aka cargo camera), and swapping out the factory CHMSL without camera for one with the camera isn't possible since the wiring harness in the cab of the truck is different from the factory depending on whether the CHMSL had a camera or not. After researching on the web, I decided I wanted to add the OEM CHMSL w/ camera and switched with the factory installed upfitter switch to flip between the tailgate camera and the cargo camera when backing up. Use when backing up only is ok with me for hooking up gooseneck trailers. Some folks want to have the cargo camera on when not backing up, but I don't need that and getting that to work requires some different parts.

So I purchased an OEM CHMSL with camera with the pigtail attached (this is important, be sure to get one with the wiring pigtail attached to it, which is about 12" long).

• Part Number: HC3Z-13A613-D
• Ebay Listing: 17-21 F250 F150 LED Third 3rd Brake Light w/Camera OEM Tow Vision High Mount
• Price: $220.00

I then purchased a video switching t-harness that inserts between the back of the 8" screen in the dash and the factory wiring harness.

• T-Harness
• https://tailgatecamera.com/products/...s-2013-current
• Price: $159.99

It is very simple to connect. Simply disconnect the factory harness from the back of the screen and plug the t-harness into the back of the screen and then plug the factory harness into the t-harness. The t-harness taps into the video feed coming from the tailgate camera and routes it through a video switching device that switches to an alternative video feed (the cargo camera) when it receives 12v power. The video switching unit on t-harness came with three wires leads stubbed out of it. One is a ground wire. One is a power lead with a mechanical toggle switch, which I cut off because I'm using the upfitter switch for that purpose. The third wire was a video cable will yellow RCA style terminal on the end, which I also cut off and exposed the two wires inside the video cable. The ground and power lead wires I attached using butt connectors to the ring terminal ends of a 16 AWG SAE Battery Charger Kit which I cut the ring terminals off of and inserted into the butt connectors. By doing this, the power and ground now have a nice snap connector to connect/disconnect easily. I used heat shrink butt connectors. I strip the insulation off the end of the wires using a Wire Stripper Tool. I then insert them into the butt connectors and crimp the connector using a Wire Connector Crimping Tool Kit.

After crimping, I then used a Heat Shrink Gun to shrink the butt connector shroud around the wires.


I forgot several times, but when I remembered, I would slip a section of Heat Shrink Tubing – 3:1 Black over one of the wires before joining the butt connector, and then after heat shrinking the butt connection, I slipped the heat shrink tubing down the wire over the butt connection and shrank it down as tight as it would go. Sometimes it wouldn't get totally tight on the small wires, but I figured it would help reinforce the wire to butt connector connection. The power lead butt connector that connected the battery charger lead to the video switching unit lead I also inserted a second 18 AWG red wire into the video switching unit side of the butt connector. This wire will send power to the new camera via a Molex MX-150 6-Pin Housing Male connector from a Molex MX-150 6-Pin Housing Set (contains both female and male and all necessary 18-22 AWG terminals). I crimped an 18-22 AWG male terminal onto the end of the 18 AWG red wire using a Wire Terminal Crimping Tool. After crimping the terminal, I used a Soldering Iron to solder the end of the wire inside the terminal just to be sure the connection would be good.


Then I inserted that terminal into Pin#1 position of the 6-Pin Male connector. I then took about a 16" piece of 18 AWG wire, added a male terminal to one end and inserted it into Pin#2 position of the 6-Pin Male connector. This wire I don't currently plan to use, but in the future if I wanted the backup guide lines to show on the cargo camera then I would need to connect this wire stub to Pin#37 on the BCM module which is on the right side of the passenger foot area side wall. This wire is referred to as the CTRL MOD CAMERA LIN BUS. Next I added a male terminal to the video cable negative wire (smaller black wire that was previously connected to the outer housing of the yellow RCA jack) and inserted it into Pin#3 position of the 6-Pin Male connector. I added a male terminal to the video cable positive wire (yellow wire previously connected to the center pin of the yellow RCA jack) and inserted it into Pin#4 position of the 6-Pin Male connector. Then I took about a 16" piece of 18 AWG wire, added a male terminal to one end and inserted it into Pin#5 of the 6-Pin Male connector. This wire will serve as the video cable shield wire, so I used a butt connector to splice it into the t-harness wire that connects to Pin 33 of the t-harness. To do that, I located Pin 33 of the t-harness, confirming which one it was by connector shape and by double-confirming by viewing it's relative position to pins 14 and 15 which had been pre-spliced with video cables by the manufacturer of the t-harness. Once located, I cut the wire near the middle and then rejoined it with the butt splice with the additional wire added on one side of the butt splice. I then used Wiring Harness Tape to tape together loose wires into a neat bundle.

This completes the assembly of the modified t-harness that will get installed behind the 8" screen in the dash.


To connect this t-harness to the cargo camera, the 6-Pin Male connector will be connected to a 6-Pin Female connector (for the male/female that were bought as a pair above). The wire connecting the t-harness to the cargo camera will need to be about 25ft long, so I purchased a 26ft Video Cable meant for car cameras. The 25 ft cable will need to have 5 wires total. The first wire will be the power supply for the camera. I used the 18 AWG red wire from a roll of 18 AWG 50ft red and black pair wire and crimped and soldered a female terminal on one end of the wire to insert into Pin#1 of the 6-Pin Female connector. The second wire will be the CTRL MOD CAMERA LIN BUS, which I don't plan to use initially, but figured it would be smart to add it now in case I change my mind later. I crimped and soldered a female terminal on one end of the 18 AWG black wire to insert into Pin#2 of the 6-Pin Female connector.

For the remaining three wires, I took the 25 ft video cable and cut the yellow RCA jacks off both ends and then stripped the insulation back about 2 inches to expose the foil shield, the yellow insulated wire, the red insulated wire, and the uninsulated shield copper strands. I removed the foil shield, and twisted the uninsulated shield wires into a single coil. I inserted the smallest head shrink tubing that I had over each of the three wires and shrank it down with the head shrink gun. I used black Heat Shrink Tubing – 2:1 Colors on the shield wire, yellow tubing on the yellow wire, and blue tubing on the red wire since I didn't have small red tubing. I then added one larger black heat shrink tube over all three wires at the base where they joined back into the video cable to help reinforce that area.

I then added female terminals to each of these three wires and inserted the negative wire in Pin#3 of the 6-Pin Female connector, the positive wire in Pin#4, and the shield wire in Pin#5. I used an electrical multi-tester's "conductivity" mode to test the wires to remind myself which one was positive (center pin of yellow RCA connector) and which was negative (outer housing of yellow RCA connector).

On the other end of the 26 ft which was now closer to 25 ft after cutting off the yellow RCA jacks from each end leaving a 5" pig tail on each in case I decided to use them later (which I didn't), I used the same procedure of cutting off the yellow RCA jack, stripping the insulation back about 2 inches, and installing heat shrink tubing. On this end of the wire, I will install a Molex MX-150 8-Pin Housing Male (comes with 18-22 AWG terminals) that will insert into the OEM 8-Pin Female Housing on the end of the pigtail that came with the OEM CHMSL w/Camera.

So this end of the 26 ft cable will require crimping and soldering male terminals to insert into the 8-Pin Male connector. The pin positions are the same as the other end:

1. 18 AWG red power lead wire
2. 18 AWG black LIN BUS wire
3. Video cable negative wire
4. Video cable positive wire
5. Video cable shield wire

After assembling the 6-Pin Female connector on one end of the 25 ft 5-wire cable and the 8-Pin Male connector on the other end, I used the wiring harness tape and taped the video cable wire (which has three wires inside it), the red power wire, and the black LIN BUS wire together into one combined harness.

Now I have two harness build - the t-harness and the 25 ft harness. It is time to "bench test" them. Before installing them behind the interior panels of the cab, I wanted to test that it worked in case I connected a wire incorrectly or had a bad connection, I didn't want to have to install it twice into the tough to reach spots hidden behind the interior paneling of the truck cab. I used a Auto Trim Removal Tool to pop open the two panels above the 8" screen.

After removing the first panel, it exposes a speaker and there were two screws which then need to be removed near the speaker to allow the second panel to be popped out with the trim removal tool. Once the second panel was loose, I disconnected the speaker wire connector on the back of the speaker to free the panel completely.



I then reached behind the 8" screen and disconnected the 54 pin connector. There is a little lever that must be move about 90 degrees to free the connector. But to free the lever, you need to depress a little tab next to it. It is tricky, so practice first on the one that came with the t-harness. It should be the same design. With the connector disconnected, I then connected the t-harness to the back of the 8" screen and to the loose end of the disconnected 54 pin connector. Now the t-harness is installed.

Standing in the bed of the truck, I unscrewed the four screws hold the OEM CHMSL without camera and gently pulled it away from the truck. It felt stuck on there, but eventually the foam seal released with some pulling.

I disconnected the wire connector from the back of the CHMSL and connected it to the new OEM CHMSL with camera (first disconnecting the small connector connecting three wires to the back of the CHMSL to allow the spot to be used by the connector coming from the truck). Now the CHMSL with camera has two wire whips connected to it, one with three wires coming from the truck, and one with 5 wires in connected to an 8-Pin Female connector. Push this 8-Pin Female connector into the truck cab, forcing it downward. From inside the cab, reach up behind the ceiling panel, grab the 8-Pin connector and pull it an inch or two into the cab so that it is handing freely. Reinstall the four screws into the new CHMSL with camera and snug them up so that the new foam gasket seals. Note that the screws go into plastic, so don't force them too tight and strip the plastic threads!

I then connected the 6-Pin connector of the 25ft harness to the 6-Pin connector of the t-harness and ran the cable straight to the back of the cab over the top of the center console. This is a "bench test" - just a dry run to see if it works, so the routing of the cable wasn't important. The 8-Pin connector on the other end of the 25 ft harness then plugged into the 8-Pin connector on the OEM wire whip. So the camera is now connected to the t-harness. However, there is no power going to the camera yet, nor to the video switching device.

For power, I used the other piece of wire cable that came with the 16 AWG SAE Battery Charger Kit. From behind the 8" screen, I dropped one end of that wire cable downward toward the gas pedal. I don't know if I just got lucky or what but it almost made it all the way to the gas pedal. I reach up from under by the pedal and grabbed the end of it an pulled all but about a foot of the cable through. The foot of cable up by the screen I then connected to the SAE connector on the t-harness. Be sure that you get the red wires on the same side of the connector so that red goes to red and black to black.

Now down by the gas pedal the wire can be routed up under the dash toward the driver side door side panel and then over to a grommet in the firewall. Run the wire through a hole poked through the grommet and then access it from under the hood. Cut the SAE connector off the end of the wire (or buy a second Battery Charger Kit) and use a heat shrink butt connector to splice the red wire to the upfitter switch wire that is under the fuse box right there not too far from the grommet in the firewall. The fuse box is on the driver side of the engine compartment. Attach a heat shrink ring terminal to the black wire and affix the ring terminal to the negative terminal stud on the battery.

Now it is time to test everything. Start the truck. With your foot hold the break, put the truck in reverse and the tailgate camera should display. Then flip the upfitter switch and the cargo camera should display. It worked for me on the first try, thankfully.


Now that I know it works, it is time to re-route the 25 ft cable. Fitting the whole connector on one end of the cable through tight spaces would be difficult so to make it easier I removed the connector. First I removed the 5 terminals from the 6-Pin connector and used wiring harness tape to tape them together tightly so that they were not much larger than the rest of the wiring harness. Then, after removing the rubber weather seal around both the driver side door frames, I starting from the 8-Pin connector at the CHMSL route the cable along the backside of the headliner toward the driver side, then continuing above the driver side rear window, through the top of the center pillar, above the driver's door window, down along the front pillar into the side of the dash area, and then follow the Battery Charger kit cable up into the dash behind the 8" screen. Once there, I re-inserted the 5 terminals into the 6-Pin connector and then connect it to the 6-pin connector on the t-harness. It turned out that there was quite a bit of extra cable (20 ft probably would have been sufficient) so I coiled it up and stuffed it into the space behind the screen. I tested it again to make sure it still works, then reinstalled the speaker wire connector and two dash panels.

Now I can see the gooseneck ball when I'm backing up to connect a gooseneck trailer.