Heritage Grill Camera Swap - Observations

[Taco Ji]

Just to be clear, you install the OEM pro or Trailhunter grills? Or some aftermarket grills?

Reason I ask is because there are tons of people who installed the aftermarket grills with the camera bracket already provided with no issues.

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[Gurvy522]

Just to be clear, you install the OEM pro or Trailhunter grills? Or some aftermarket grills?

Reason I ask is because there are tons of people who installed the aftermarket grills with the camera bracket already provided with no issues.

Strictly for OE. The China knockoffs come with their own brackets that retain OR camera orientation. I am not sure how the angle is, and whether any calibration is necessary.

Also, no one has provided feedback to me on whether calibration was needed on the type 1 bracket I have posted here. I think there are a few dozen members I am aware of that run it.

I personally run the type 2 bracket (that I made) and it needed minimum calibration after changing the grille type.

 

[Taco Ji]

I want to swap the grills to heritage style but don’t want to mess with the re-calibration of the cameras. I guess I need to stick with the Chinese stuff lol

 

[Gurvy522]

I want to swap the grills to heritage style but don’t want to mess with the re-calibration of the cameras. I guess I need to stick with the Chinese stuff lol

If you end up lifting your truck ever, changing the tires to larger ones, unless you're ok with it being slightly off, you'll still want to recalibrate.

Personally I think the knockoffs look cheesy. They are so close in cost to the real ones. Just buy OE, use a 3D bracket, you can use mine for free if you've got a printer.

 

[MHG]

Thanks for one of the better explanations. So the answer to my original questions seems to be:

the bracket is required because the OEM bracket is different (flipped) on the Pro/TH for some unknown reason and your OEM won’t fit in the correct orientation.

The calibration seems unavoidable since there are variations such as lift/no-lift and slight variations due to 3D printing

I guess it does raise one more question, can the OEM bracket be drilled to make it fit in its original orientation and thus minimal calibration? I guess I’ll find out when I am staring at it.

Thanks for all the good info.

 

[Gurvy522]

Thanks for one of the better explanations. So the answer to my original questions seems to be:

the bracket is required because the OEM bracket is different (flipped) on the Pro/TH for some unknown reason and your OEM won’t fit in the correct orientation.

The calibration seems unavoidable since there are variations such as lift/no-lift and slight variations due to 3D printing

I guess it does raise one more question, can the OEM bracket be drilled to make it fit in its original orientation and thus minimal calibration? I guess I’ll find out when I am staring at it.

Thanks for all the good info.

I don't think so. I mean the holes are actually roughly in the same location, it's the cutouts that allow the camera to fit right side up or flipped, depending on which version of the bracket you have.

But even if you could modify the OE bracket, just seems like a big waste of money. The angle would still probably end up being off, because it's not just the orientation, but about a 2 degree delta as well.

Long story short - I think the best way to describe this situation is that no matter what, recalibration is necessary if you want a "perfect" 360 view. And even then, loading down your bed will cause it to be skewed at times.

So take it with a grain of salt, you could install a 3D printed bracket with the OE heritage grille and be perfectly happy. Or you can be OCD and start calibrating.

 

[rijc99]

Even putting all dogs springs required adjustmesnts to the camera angles and vehicle height setting

 

[Baltimore]

Thanks for one of the better explanations. So the answer to my original questions seems to be:

the bracket is required because the OEM bracket is different (flipped) on the Pro/TH for some unknown reason and your OEM won’t fit in the correct orientation.

The calibration seems unavoidable since there are variations such as lift/no-lift and slight variations due to 3D printing

I guess it does raise one more question, can the OEM bracket be drilled to make it fit in its original orientation and thus minimal calibration? I guess I’ll find out when I am staring at it.

Thanks for all the good info.

Id be willing to wager you'd spend more time messing around with the bracket and mounting/remounting than if just did the calibration procedure.

It seriously takes 3h or less with focus, the space, and having everything on hand that you need at the start.

I and a few others have made some lengthy/detailed posts about it.
Prep/setup = up to 2h
Calibration itself = sub 30min
Clean up = sub 30min


Some have even gambled and just gone to an area with a lot of parking stripe cross hatching, parked at an angle, and used it as a proxy (though I wouldn't advise, bc if you get an out of tolerance error, you'll be forced to do it properly)

 

[MHG]

Id be willing to wager you'd spend more time messing around with the bracket and mounting/remounting than if just did the calibration procedure.

It seriously takes 3h or less with focus, the space, and having everything on hand that you need at the start.

I and a few others have made some lengthy/detailed posts about it.
Prep/setup = up to 2h
Calibration itself = sub 30min
Clean up = sub 30min


Some have even gambled and just gone to an area with a lot of parking stripe cross hatching, parked at an angle, and used it as a proxy (though I wouldn't advise, bc if you get an out of tolerance error, you'll be forced to do it properly)

Thanks for the info. I actually have no intention on attempting to avoid calibration. In fact I would think that you would need to recalibrate even if you swapped out the camera on a stock truck.

My questions were geared towards the “why” the bracket needs to be replaced… I would never have thought they would use a different bracket between the different trim levels unless they needed to physically account for some other vehicle difference like lift height. But the explanation seems to be that they decided to use a different bracket between trim levels and also decided to screw you up one step further by inverting the camera on the higher end vehicle for no known reason.

I’ll 3D print the bracket. $30 for the race seems to be a bit high for a 3D printed part that probably prints in an hour and used 50 cents of ABS filament.

 

[Gurvy522]

Thanks for the info. I actually have no intention on attempting to avoid calibration. In fact I would think that you would need to recalibrate even if you swapped out the camera on a stock truck.

My questions were geared towards the “why” the bracket needs to be replaced… I would never have thought they would use a different bracket between the different trim levels unless they needed to physically account for some other vehicle difference like lift height. But the explanation seems to be that they decided to use a different bracket between trim levels and also decided to screw you up one step further by inverting the camera on the higher end vehicle for no known reason.

I’ll 3D print the bracket. $30 for the race seems to be a bit high for a 3D printed part that probably prints in an hour and used 50 cents of ABS filament.

Yeah, any high heat filament works great. ABS or ASA are both good options.

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