Hard wire radar and dashcam

[Mlaustin]

I want to hard wire my radar and dashcam to get a nice clean look. The mirror tap seems to be the easiest route, but there is no mirror tap for 2 devices. So I was just thinking of hard wiring a usb c cable and radar cable to the fuse box. Has anyone done something similar? What cables did you get, and are there any useful videos on how to do it?

[squatch5]

I've heard of mixed things with mirror taps in our cars from installers. Since there are so many sensors in the mirror, apparently using the same cables to power other aftermarket components out of the mirror can cause error messages. I'm sure you'll find people running a mirror tap without issue, but I decided not to risk it, especially since I had fuse taps ready from my dash cam install on my prior car. YMMV.

I hardwired my dash cam to my fuse box using fuse taps and ran most of the cable tucked into the headliner and down the edge of the A pillar. Unfortunately it's a PITA to route a cable through the dash and I didn't want it to interfere with the airbag by running cable behind it, so a small portion of the cable goes over the corner of the dash on the driver's side where it meets the A pillar. I don't even notice it so I just left it as is rather than scraping the hell out of my hands trying to route it through the dash.

I can't remember exactly which guides I used, but if you google most B8 or B8.5 A4 or Q5 dash cam install you'll find a lot of info about which rows of fuses to use.

The basics about the fuse taps and general info you can find here: https://www.blackboxmycar.com/pages/hardwiring-fusebox

[Jun3s]

I've heard of mixed things with mirror taps in our cars from installers. Since there are so many sensors in the mirror, apparently using the same cables to power other aftermarket components out of the mirror can cause error messages. I'm sure you'll find people running a mirror tap without issue, but I decided not to risk it, especially since I had fuse taps ready from my dash cam install on my prior car. YMMV.

I hardwired my dash cam to my fuse box using fuse taps and ran most of the cable tucked into the headliner and down the edge of the A pillar. Unfortunately it's a PITA to route a cable through the dash and I didn't want it to interfere with the airbag by running cable behind it, so a small portion of the cable goes over the corner of the dash on the driver's side where it meets the A pillar. I don't even notice it so I just left it as is rather than scraping the hell out of my hands trying to route it through the dash.

I can't remember exactly which guides I used, but if you google most B8 or B8.5 A4 or Q5 dash cam install you'll find a lot of info about which rows of fuses to use.

The basics about the fuse taps and general info you can find here: https://www.blackboxmycar.com/pages/hardwiring-fusebox

Which fuse did you tap into? I just did mine and tapped the Horn fuse, which is accessory/ignition only, and noticed that it momentarily kills power with the auto start/stop lol.

[WideSuppie]

I did mine few years ago. Never had issue at all.

[Mlaustin]

Thanks for the info. I'll look into getting 2 wires, one for the radar and one for the dashcam. The radar seem easy. The dashcam seems like more of a pain with parking mode. Hard to trust made in china devices pulling battery juice and reliably turning themselves off at the set cutoff point. Unless that option just gets turned off in the camera, and I choose to run a strait usb cable without that feature.

[Skydog!]

Just did a power tap for my radar detector in my 2017 RS7 it's been working perfectly.

[Vehicle 1]

Excellent choice of radar detector there ;-P

I ended up running a fuse tap and then a wire from fuse box and up the edge of A-pillar and across tucked in the headliner all the way to the passenger side for a sun visor clip mount.
It's technically illegal to stick things to the windshield here and my wife (it's her DD) didn't want it on windshield or a blendmount.

I did mine few years ago. Never had issue at all.

[rich045]

I did mine few years ago. Never had issue at all.

So which wire did you tap in?
I had done this on my S3 but I traded it in for a 2016 sq5.

[squatch5]

Which fuse did you tap into? I just did mine and tapped the Horn fuse, which is accessory/ignition only, and noticed that it momentarily kills power with the auto start/stop lol.

Sorry, I completely forgot to answer this. I actually used 2 open fuse slots. I just tested them with a multimeter to see which one was constant and which was switched. I can't remember which but there were a decent amount of open slots to choose from.