Rear view camera flipped sometimes - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2025, 07:07:01 pm
content: This isn't a repair topic, I'm just curious how something like this is even possible.The rear view camera on my wife's car is showing a vertically flipped view--but only sometimes. The left and right are correct, but it is upside down, not rotated 180 degrees. It started suddenly a few days ago and now happens maybe half the time. Power cycling, slamming the hatch, etc have no effect. The car is a 2014 Ford Focus BEV if that matters. It turns out that this is not an uncommon problem and the fix is a replacement camera assembly, so I'm not likely to explore the problem further if that fixes it. However, my question is exactly what malfunction could possibly cause this? I'm not up on modern video signal details but I'm sure someone here is.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2025, 07:20:54 pm
content: Guess: a mirroring feature either enabled by pin strapping and a physical defect occurring causing that pin to read wrong value at startup; or even more likely, mirroring feature enabled by configuration register, and that configuration step failing, think about what happens if it's on an I2C bus or similar and the write simply fails and is not retried or verified, and the default value is wrong. And the default value in camera / image processing chip configuration would probably be wrong: the unmirrored one, and for rear view camera you would want to enable mirroring.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2025, 09:36:59 pm
content: Left/Right and Up/Down can be digital configuration inputs, as Siwastaja indicates, sometimes these are physical connections on the FFC to LCD. So there can be a bad connection there, or corrosion on the connector or elsewhere on the board.Definitely seen this a few times.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2025, 10:08:20 pm
content: I second the suggestion by thm_w: many TFT displays have strapping pins to swap left / right and up / down. Likely there is a bad connection.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2025, 10:29:58 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 26, 2025, 10:08:20 pmIt can't be at the display as all the other functions display completely normally. Also, when the rear view camera is active it draws guidelines over the video and when flipped it apparently realizes something is wrong and doesn't display those. Would cameras have similar jumpers or pins? IDK if I can disassemble it as it is a very small sealed unit.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2025, 10:42:01 pm
content: Maybe its just a bad signal, and when it doesn't have a "good" signal it knows so doesn't process it (flip and add lines)?Camera would be more likely to be TVI (coax), MIPI, LVDS or something that won't have left/right signals.What is the car model and year, or the camera part number.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2025, 10:53:59 pm
content: Quote from: thm_w on March 26, 2025, 10:42:01 pmThe flipped signal still looks like a clear picture. It is a 2014 Ford Focus BEV and the camera part number is BM5Z-19G490-C. The camera is mounted in the rear hatch near the handle. It appears to have a single standard automotive waterproof connector with 4-5 connectors but I haven't disassembled the car yet to look nor consulted the wiring diagram. It looks like this:https://www.getoemparts.com/oem-parts/ford-rear-camera-bm5z19g490c

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2025, 12:51:37 am
content: One person here says it can be related to the image processing module:https://www.reddit.com/r/FordFocus/comments/1egzama/upside_down_backup_camera/But most people say its the camera itself thats failed and replacing fixes it.So I suspect it is the camera failing, it may eventually stop working, and its just slow to start up or providing unexpected data then the software doesn't know what to do with it? Or maybe firmware inside the camera corrupted.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2025, 07:15:04 am
content: Quote from: bdunham7 on March 26, 2025, 10:29:58 pmYes, some camera sensor chips (or image processing chips) have such physical pins. Or I2C configuration registers which have even bigger chances of failing if the firmware is not written in a robust way.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2025, 10:40:13 pm
content: A new camera fixed the problem entirely. I think it actually was the camera just providing a weak, irregular or slow-to-start signal because at one point, the system showed no reverse image and just left the moving map displayed instead. IOW, the system probably depends on a proper signal from the camera to decide switch to showing the camera view. The camera has no special connectors or coax or anything like that, just a typical 6-pin weatherpak connector with no special wires.