Teaser pics







Install to commence on my father's car whenever I can manage to be in the same state as it.

 

I would do this mod if I was still in Pa, where I used my rear defroster/defogger all the time. But here I almost never use it. In the 4 yrs I have owned virgin1, I may have used it 6 times, and 2 of those were when we were visiting in Pa.

Which brings me to the inevitable threadjack (This IS Mazdaforum after all):
I need to get new wiring from my mirrors to the turn signal repeater wiring behind the front fender. You already know what for.You have had your car apart in this way several times now Remi. Do you know of an "easy," safe way to do that? Could I rearrange the heater wires already in there?

Also, I have been thinking about your loose connection problem using the diode ends as male connectors:
1) What if you forced some clear silicone into the back of the plug to keep them in place better?
2) Or simply bent them in a half moonshape to apply pressure to the inside of the plug before installing? (Or both 1 and 2.)
3) Or re-tinned the ends to make them a bit thicker?
4) You might also wrap some thin wirearound the ends, like an unraveled,single piece of multi-strand, and solder that on?

 

Hmmm, I suppose it would be possible to find the heater wires in the wiring bundle on the car-side of the door jam, disconnect them from the heater source, and run them to your fender lights. That being said it's not that hard to run new wires. The hard part is getting through the boot, and really that's more annoying and time consuming (esp. on the driver's door as there are more wires), but not hard.

I only really ran into the disconnecting problem on the driver's side. When I did the passenger side I put a layer of heat shrink over the end of the wire insulation and that made it fit pretty snugly. I just wasn't going to take apart the driver's mirror to do the same unless it stopped working. 99% of the time what I have works perfect, and actually I've never had the heaters not work.

 

More teasers. While I'm putting in the heated side mirrors I'll also be installing a clamp on rear view mirror with a 6" LCD in it along with a 1/3" rear view camera. The mirror and camera are a trial run thing as my father wants an auto-dimming mirror. The way we figure it is if he likes the camera/display then I'll install an auto-dim mirror with a LCD in it (sadly they only come 3.5" at the largest), and if he doesn't like it I'll just pull it all and install the regular auto-dim mirror. We snagged the mirror and camera for only $100 so no big loss, esp. since I'm sure I can resell them afterwards.

 

I finished the install of the heated mirrors, the LCD mirror and the backup camera without significant issue. There was one big difference in adding the heated glass in the 5 vs. the 3. On the 3 the female side of the harness plug (the side that has the pins) is on the mirror side. This means you can very easily add the pin using a diode leg (or similar). On the 5 the female side (with the pins) is on the car side. All the pins are present, however the male side of the pin (with the pin receptacles) attached to the mirror lacks the receptacles. I bypassed this problem (literally) by just running the heater wires out from the mirror next to the white plug and just using wire taps directly off of the car side of the harness..... I would have preferred to have it nice and clean and inside the factory plug, but it would have been way more trouble than it was worth to do.

As for the camera/LCD. I'm a little disappointed in the quality of the LCD. Sure it's cool and all, but it isn't terribly bright, so it doesn't overcome glare or bright light coming through the back window. The camera also isn't high quality, however it's good enough to see stuff if only you could see it on the screen. Here's some pics of the mirror/camera. I meant to take pictures of the heated mirror install to illustrate the differences, however I left the camera in the baby's bag at the other house. The whole thing is temporary and the mirror/LCD only cost $30 so no huge loss. lol Here's a couple of pics.

 

TINT!! That"s the answer to your contrast problem w/the LCD. Too bad it doesn"t have enough contrast built into it from the factory, but as you said, for $100, or less you can"t complain too much. Besides, if I understand how it works, the screen is actually behind the reflective surface that makes up the mirror portion of the assembly, right? So it"s highly reflective to begin with.

 

Eh, my father's not interested in tint. Yes the screen is behind the mirror glass, and actually the mirror itself is tinted...... probably to compensate for not having a day/night lever. Anyway Even with the tint there the screen just doesn't get terribly bright. I meant to take a picture of my palm treo with the brightness turned all the way up as an example of how much brighter the screen could be. Again though the thing only cost $30 so I'm not terribly surprised.