Since Alan brought it up I thought I would show how I got those cameras into the mirrors. First a little insite. I started this little quest because I wrecked a Lotus Turbo Esprit years ago because I had poor visibiity with the side mirrors trying to change lanes. Spent too much time looking in the mirror and not on the road in front of me. Two problems here and I would like to think I solved both......at least for me.
First the problem. The side mirrors offer limited visibility to the rear and the side of the car. One because of their size and second because the fenders stick up in the field of view. If you have the "Gulf Option", then your fenders are that much higher hiding even more of the view. One option is to use the wide angle mirrors. Better view, but not able to judge where the objects are in space."Warning objects are closer than they apear".
I started out quite some time ago to try and remedy the above problems by getting the RX-7 mirrors. I chose them because they were electric and I thought I would be able to adjust them to get a better view. After mounting, they wouldn't increase the view that much. What they did, was give me a platform to mount the cameras on.
My first iteration came up with this.
As you can see this leaves a big "window" in the mirror, and I was having trouble mounting the camera housing inside the mirror. The housing was done away with and the frame altered to allow th camera to get further out in the mirror. A hole was put in the lexan to get the camera lens as close to the mirror as possible and a new mounting was fabricated from some plastic mounting pieces that came with the camera.
The window for the camera was scratched out with a flat bladed exacto knife. The final position of the mirror was established and the lexan and mount were secured with a 2 part epoxy.The holes for the camera were drilled out and then all was mounted together.
Some of the mounting sufaces were altered so I could get the mirror flat in its stance.
My next problem was how to judge distances. This helped me find where to mount the mirrors. To my luck it was near the windows and not on the fenders or door. I din't want to mount the mirrors on the bodywork at all. By reversing the bottom mount (swappping the bases left to right)it allowed the mirrors to be mounted on the windows themselves. The problem of what to do when the windows are off was solved by making a lexan piece to mount the mirrors on in the corner of the window.
You can see the footprint of the new location for the camera is tiny by the first iteration. Back to my judging distances. This was handled as I did my truck mirrors. I have them set up so that as an overtaking car leaves my central mirror it immediately come into the side mirror. As it moves up the side of the truck and leaves the side mirror, it is up to my side window.
To get the rough placement for the mirrors, sit in the drivers seat(left) and put your head onto your left shoulder. Adjust your drivers mirror to the back edge of the car. Put your head on your right shoulder and adjust the passenger mirror to the rear edge of the car. As you drive along test the position of the mirror and adjust til it gets the above results.
My cameras act just that way as well. The field of view of all the cameras is 120
º. The center camera is mounted on the back of the spyder just in front of the rear clip. I chose this location as I wanted the camera high enough to see the cars behind and beside the car. I may add a license plate camera for backing up. That would make the fourth camera.
I plan to enclose the center camera in an inverted Nasa duct.
The monitor I chose was one that would show one two or four images at a time.
I will probably mount the screen in a console between the dash and the central tunnel. It could be mounted on the roll cage, and I'll try it out to see if it is feasable.