RAV 4 Backup Camera

This mount is designed for the Toyota RAV4 Gen 3 (2006–2012) to allow installation of an aftermarket backup camera in the OEM camera location. Tested on the 2011 Rav4, printed in PETG.

The factory location for the backup camera is located next to the license plate light and covered by a plastic cap that can be pried off. Instead of removing the entire exterior panel to access the OEM mounting screw locations, this adapts the design of the original plastic cover to hold a standard license plate light aftermarket camera module. I removed the camera module from the license plate mold by undoing a few screws and some gentle pushing/prying.

You should know that the OEM position is off-centre and if your head unit has the function, you will have to adjust the parking lines to be centre. Here is an image of the car more or less centred in a parking spot before adjusting (somehow I am too lazy to adjust the lines but not lazy enough to go through the trouble of modelling and installing it, go figure brain)

EXTRA DETAILS:

• Some cutting of the injected rubber/plastic material is required to get it to fit into the printed mold. Be careful that you don't cut into the wiring of the camera located inside the material you cut into
  • I only cut material that I needed to make it fit inside the mold. Everything else in the top half, I left untouched or just lightly trimmed. The extra protruding material helps to hold the print in place (since it's not actually secured to anything)
• The way I ran the cables (through the license plate light grommet) means that even if the tension fails and it “falls”, it will not fall out onto the road, it will just dangle.
• Although this is modeled after the OEM plate, it has more give/flexibility in the legs - therefore, the tension isn't as strong as OEM (but just enough for me).
• You will still have to remove interior trim to feed the cables through
• Unrelated tip: if you're having trouble feeding the cable through the rubber grommet at the hinge, spray some silicone based lubricant and then try again.

⚠ PRINT DETAILS:

• There are two print profiles. The legs/clips are fragile and if printed too quickly can cause them to shift/fall and turn into spaghetti. I would include one with custom gcode to automatically switch but I can't upload custom gcode
  • Profile 1: Manually print the entire thing at 50% speed, there are no modifications made
  • Profile 2: Print with a pause on layer 92 so that you can manually change the print speed to silent (50% speed).

• Internal supports for the clips are included in the model. After printing, take an x-acto knife and cut the supports out on both sides (dotted red line).

License Plate Light Camera

If you're looking at this and wondering why I didn't just use the license plate fixture that I bought:

1. plastic broke during shipping 🙃
2. the viewing angle from this leaves a lot to be desired. take a look at this forum post (expand the top post) with excellent pictures on the distortion from being placed so far off center.

3. I had time

    

Edit 02/08/2026: Here's some notes I have after using it for a bit

• Take a few minutes to learn which colour zone you should stop at to prevent the spare wheel from hitting the wall
• Definitely still rely on your mirrors to reverse I'd say my personal reliance is distributed (85% mirrors, 15% camera)
• Taking a few minutes to upgrade the reverse lights to LED helps in the dark for the camera to see better
• In the rain its a bit of a toss up as to whether or not it'll become a blurry mess. Even when it's blurry though, I can still use the coloured parking guide line zones as a way to measure the proximity to whatever I'm backing up against