Boyo VTL420 Black with Plastic Housing Bar Type CCD Camera Review

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(More customer reviews)It says it's black with plastic housing, but it's actually metal. The only plastic is within the metal shell, and I doubt that would be any problem. The image is quite good during the day. The drawback to a wide-angle view is that objects are closer than they appear. But at least you can see behind well. At night, the image is grainy, but you can still see quite well despite that fact that it does not have any IR lighting. It's not necessary.
This unit has an odd hook up compared to most of these license plate cameras. All of the connections are at the end of the long cable, some 25+ feet away from the camera. Most units expect you to hook into the rear tail light for reverse power up, but this one seems to want to you to hook up to the reverse relay coming out of the fuse box I (no direction on that, you have to figure out your wiring yourself since every car is different). Googling your car model and backup camera will likely yield results. The forward connection worked fine for me as this connection was easily available. Then I ran the video cable through the firewall existing hole. So the junction connections are in an area under the hood. I put them into a "project box" from Radio Shack to tidy things up, and velcro'd the box to the side wall. I ran the cable under the car and used the same type of cable covering/housing that the rest of the wiring for the car uses. Home Depot sells 10' sections for less than three dollars. Zip tied it along the frame, being careful to avoid areas that will get hot (tailpipe, etc).
Why'd I give it 3 stars? The 4 individual wires are quite small, and the camera connects to the long cable by a tiny connector plug that is not waterproof (short-out potential?). I guess they probably expect this will be inside your car, but trucks don't work that way. I taped it up with electrical tape and it is also in the aforementioned cable housing, so I'm sure it will be fine. The forward connection is a nice seemingly waterproof connection, similar to an s-video plug. For me reversing these would have been a better idea, but I can see why they did it: the tiny one is much more flush if it's inside the car.
Certainly worth it for the money. Hopefully it'll last.
Update 9/9/2010: The shiny black finish has become dull even though the car is garaged daily and has very few miles since I installed the camera. Camera still works though.

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