on your Batwing Fairing bike, did you mount your front camera?

Pics would be nice.

Thanks

 

There's one pretty good thread on this with some front and rear locations discussed. Washout from the lights was more of an issue in some locations than others and one lucky winner got a nice dent in his fender.

Search isn't the most user friendly on here but it will come up. Can't remember exactly which sub forum it was in.

 

Thanks, I found that thread. Just the info I was looking for.

Just incase someone else is looking for this info, here is the thread: https://www.hdforums.com/forum/touri...h-cameras.html

 

After reviewing what AFSOC_Commando (see below) and others have done, I have decided the location just below the headlight and mounted to the plastic trim is the best place for the front camera.

My mounting bracket, fabricated form 1/8” X ½” steel flat stock is appropriate for any bagger with a Batwing fairing.

Step 1. I traced the curved profile of the plastic trim piece located between the forks and just under the fairing onto a piece of cardboard.


Cardboard profile


Step 2. I cut the cardboard and transferred the profile to a piece of scrap ½” thick plywood with a sharpie. Any piece of flat wood would work. Then cut the wood to the profile to use as a bending form.



Wood bending form

Step 3. I established a centerline at the center of the curve. This is where the camera centerline will be located. I first estimated the curve part to be 3 inches long along the curve. Clamping the flat stock to the board, I used a small sledge hammer to bend the flat stock to match the curve of the wood.





First guestimate


Redy to be bent

Step 4. Using the camera in its mount to see how it would fit, I determined that the 3 inch dimension was a little too long and reduced it to 2½ inches. This was verified as the centerline of the camera to the face of the holder is measures just about 1¼ inches. Should have done that in the first place, but...



New dimensions

Step 5. I bent the flat stock at the end of the curve 90 degrees by clamping into the vice and bending using the sledge hammer. The bend is away from the concave side so it protrudes out from the mounting surface.




Step 6. I drilled two holes in the curved section for ¼ -20 Cap screws and lock nuts that will attach the mounting bracket to the plastic trim. The final installation will have rubber washers between the bracket and the plastic. The spacing was eyeballed approximately 1½ inches apart.




Step 7. Using the camera and the bracket I again eyeballed the projection of the camera out from the mounting surface. The camera can slide in and out of the holder so the projection distance was arbitrary, but enough so it can project out past the headlamp. The protruding leg of the bracket was cut off at 3 inches and a hole for the ¼-20 mounting bolt was drilled at approximately 2½ Inches. I deburred all cuts, rounded corners and cleaned the bracket in preparation for paint.




Step 8. At this point I installed the bracket with camera attached to the plastic trim with some temporary double stick tape to insure everything will line up. After verifying all OK, took it off, cleaned again with fine steel wool and painted the bracket and heads of the stainless steel cap screws with black automotive spray paint.


Front view.

Side view. The camera angle can be ajusted Horizontally as needed

Here are two more views of the bracket with camera attached





I will only drill the plastic trim and mount the bracket with camera after all of the other parts of the system are installed.

My next job is to devise a bracket mount for the rear camera. My Tour-Pak is removable so it cannot mount to the underside of the luggage rack. Looking at making a bracket the will mount where the LP reflector, that has been removed, was mounted on my Glide. That will center it toward the rear and hopefull be foward (toward the rear) far enough so not to get to much wash out from my array of LED tail, brake and run lighting. I'll post pics of the rear mounting bracket fabrication when I get it done.

I'll update with pics of the final install after all is in place.

 

This turned out to be much easier job than anticipated. The only exception to that statement is the job of removing and reinstalling the rear turn signal bar w/ LP holder from the fender which is a stiff PITA. There is just not a lot of room between the tire and the fender where the bolts are, even for my small hands.

My bike is a Street Glide Special, so it does not have a taillight, but just the horizontal light bar with the run/turn and Brake light buckets each end. There was an ugly reflector mounted above the light bar that that I had removed, shortly after getting the bike, when I had a bunch of CD rear lighting added. I’m modifying this bracket for use as the camera mounting bracket, so this WILL NOT WORK for all baggers.

Step 1. I located the saved reflector and removed the reflector itself. I had to use Goo Gone to remove the double stick tape residue.


The saved reflector bracket

Reflector removed

Step 2. I bent the bracket 90 degrees to form a shelf for the camera and drilled a hole for the ¼-20 camera mounting bolt in the center.



Ued hammer and block of wood to bend bracket.




Step 3. Did a test fit up on the rear light bar. The camera cable fits through the hole in the fender where the light harness passes through. The Camera cable will follow, and be zip tied to, the harness wires up toward the front. The test install showed that the location is good, but there is no horizontal adjustment available since the camera is attached to the bracket directly. I decided to add an L-bracket so the camera would mount a little higher and be attached on the side instead of the bottom. This allows the camera to tilt up and down as necessary to be set level.



Good location

No horizontal adjustment


Now mounted with L bracket

Horizontal adjustment can now be accomplished

I believe the camera location is far enough in front of the LED lighting so I don't anticipate too much washout.

The L-bracket has been cleaned and painted black with automotive spray paint.

I have been using a K2 camera off my Heritage to work out the design of the mountings. A second INNOVV K2 set is due to arrive on Wednesday after which I will do the full install and mount the cameras permanently. I’ll follow up with pics of the completed installation.

 

Did most of the install yesterday but needed to finish up a few thing this morning.

I spent a lot of time trying to fit the DVR into the cubby and still be able to access the SD card….did not work. My DVR on the Heritage is mounted on a makeshift plate mounted to the HB clamp bolts. So decided I would mount the DVR outside on the right side face of the switch panel. The power module is located on the bike frame just forward of the gas tank.

Unless you are installing the DVR and power module under the seat, there is not enough wire on either side of the power module to allow it to be place further than a short distance away from the DVR. I had to extend the RED, BLACK & YELLOW wires so they could reach the connection point under the seat and left side cover.

The pics below show how everything was installed.


Fron view of front camera, not very noticable. Lots of room so will not contact fender. Good centered unobstucted view to front.


Side View of front Camera. Hope it is far enough forward so image is not washed out by headlight.


Rear Camera. Nicely centered with unobstructed view to rear. Again, hopefully image will not be washed out by my rear Run/Signal/Brake LED lighting.


DVR mounted on outside face of switch console with automotive high strength double stick tape.


Plenty of clearance.


Easy access to DVR to remove SD Card when HB's turned to fra left. If you look closely you can just see a little bit of the power module attached to the bikle frame with automotive high strength double stick tape tucked behind the main wiring harness. The Red, Black and Yelow wires from the power module was run in a flexable split conduit tucked up under the tank.


Under seat Red wire from power module connected to unused red/blue fused wire in Accessary 2 harness. Black run to ground. I had some difficulty finding a path to get the Yellow down to under the left cover to a switched power source.


Yellow wire spliced into a red/yellow wire, that is a switched power source, just behind the unused P&A connector.


I had a lot of choices where to mount the GPS antenna. Under the seat or inside the fairing was the obvious locations. However, I chose to mount it outside on top of the fairing like I did with the XM Antenna to make sure it could see the satelite. I can easily move it later if I want.

After the install was complete, I had a great deal of trouble getting the INNOVV-K2 App on my phone to connect. I spent well over an hour trying to get it to connect. After it finally connected I was able to set up the parameters.

I rarely use the phone to review the recordings as I usually take the SD card out and transfer the current files I want to the hard drive on my PC. I archive about one card full at a time, deleting previous stored files. The files are good to watch if you need to find some information, but they get very boring very quickly just to watch for entertainment.

Don't know if anyone was interested in this install, but if it helped anyone, I'm happy.

With that, this is a wrap!