Outdoor Camera Housing Question

[SEANHAWG 1]

I sell used housings. When these housings come brand new, they come with 3 wire grommet glands on the back of the housing, the grommets are also pointed downwards to not allow rain to flow into the holes. The glands have a small rubber opening that you poke the cable through which somewhat seals up the housing. My used housings are sometimes missing these grommets which leaves about a 1" hole exposed. I obviously tell my customers to fill this gap with some sort of material to avoid excess moisture and insects to make their way into the housing.

 

But am I correct in saying that you do not want to completely seal the housing up air tight? The housings that I sell come with heaters and fans in them. If the housings were sealed completely, would it not allow the fans to work properly inside the housings causing the camera to overheat? I mean if it was air tight, how would the fans blow around air? Sure I understand that you dont want to leave any gaps near the top of the housing to allow rain to flow into the housing. But would it not be safe to say to leave a little bit of air flow near the holes on the underside to allow some air in.

[bpzle 0]

Well... some of the box camera housings I use actually have vents in the back. I have some running several years, but we're also in a pretty hot climate with short winters.Also, the vents are designed to keep rain out, even when it blows horitzonaly. The holes your talking about are not designed for this. Especially considering that the vast majority of housings are angled down, it seems that would be a good entry point for water. It seems to me rain would hit the housing and gravity causes it to roll down, and possibly enter those holes.

 

The bigger question is, why are you selling used housings? You can get news ones for so cheap... Doesn't seem worth it to me to compomise the equipment they are supposed to protect. At the very least buy some of those grommets online...

[SEANHAWG 1]

Thats a good question. All of our equipment is used and we get a mass surplus of used housings from the place that we contract with. It would be a shame for me to buy new housings to re-sell when I have hundreds good used housings that I can sell for extremely less than a new one. And unfortunately I dont think that the grommets are available for purchase anymore as the particular brand of the housing is Ultrak and they discontinued making Ultrak equipment a few years ago when Honeywell bought them out.

 

I'm not too concerned about water getting in the housings as I have had several mounted outside of my warehouse over a year now with a few of them having the holes wide open (with no grommet at all) and havent had a problem with rain entering into them nor have I had any customer reports of that sort either. I see what you mean about gravity making the water trickle down but I think the holes are pointed too far downward without that being an issue. But even then, I dont recommend that the holes are left wide open, I usually recommend that silicone be used to cover up the holes with a little gap for air or some sort of porous material that will allow air flow to completely prevent water from trickling into it. I was just wondering if you needed to allow air flow, I assume the obvious answer would be yes but just wanted to confirm.

[thewireguys 3]

Sounds like you made a nice place for Bee's to live!!! The housings I use are air tight with heaters and blowers.... I use good housings for IP cameras stay away from the cheap stuff.

[tweak'e 0]

i would seal housing up and even throw a couple of bags of the stuff the catch moisture so the housing doesn't sweat. air gaps always let water in not to mention insects (eg ants).

electronics shops usually sell rubber grommets.

[SEANHAWG 1]

So it should be air tight? How do the fans work with no air?

[bpzle 0]

A quick Google under "weather grommet 1" " this popped up:

 

http://www.fastronixsolutions.com/Wiring%20Accessories/grommets.htm

[tweak'e 0]

if its meant to have air flow through it then it will have vents in it. otherwise the fan would be a just a stirrer to keep the air in the housing moving and not let water condense in the housing.

[SEANHAWG 1]

Thanks for the link Bpzle. I just assumed that they only made a certain size for each different housing. I wasnt aware that there were standard sizes for these things. I'll try that out.

 

Tweak'e: These arent meant for air flow either I guess because there are no vents in it. I just assumed that if you sealed it air tight, it would not allow the fans to blow any air around since there is no air getting inside the housing. Sure there is the initial amount of air that is inside the housing whenever you first close it up but is that enough air for the fan to circulate around to sustain for the life of the housing. I'm not knowledgeable enough in my physics to know what this air will do over time, LOL. The fan only comes on when it reaches 96 degrees inside the housing so I thought that it was mainly for cooling purposes but the drying effect makes sense too.

 

When I first started dealing with these, it was always my assumption that you were supposed to seal them up too and I told my customers to do so, but I kept getting questions such as this and I never really had a good answer. All in all, you think I should seal them up?

[thewireguys 3]

I would say if the housing was designed to be sealed seal it if it was vented vent it..... I would not put a box camera in a vented housing but that is just me. I use Videolarm and Dotworkz housings and none of them are vented.

[SEANHAWG 1]

will do. They are all box cameras. Thanks.

[rory 0]

Its up to you .. but if there is a tropical storm or hurricane that rain can come sideways and might get inside . I would seal it up good. also as mentioned bugs could make a home in there. But you say its all old stuff anyway so if it dies no harm done

I noticed with a CNB Bullet cam the other day, it had a small fan which was inside a piece at the back, underneath, had some vents. I imagine it is vented again between the fan the guts, didnt check. Waiting for a hurricane to see how well it holds up

[Sawbones 0]

Sounds like you made a nice place for Bee's to live!!! The housings I use are air tight with heaters and blowers.... I use good housings for IP cameras stay away from the cheap stuff.

 

Yep... and wouldn't THAT be a nice surprise when you go to service the camera some day...

 

I've avoided the housing issue by sticking to domes... though that does restrict your use of longer zoom lenses somewhat. The domes are generally all sealed, so I can't see the harm in sealing up a housing the same way.

[SEANHAWG 1]

You make a great point about the bees. When we receive these in, we clean them and test them. But some of the housings we get in have massive wasp nests that are right in front of the lens because the previous retailer's installers did not seal up the housing good enough. Some of them are so disgusting that they are not even salvageable and we just throw them away. We'll recommend to seal them up from now on. Thanks for everyones input.

[Soundy 1]

We removed some cameras from a site recently, they were in vented housings... plastic Pelco knock-off, vents on the bottom at the back. The guy had used the wall mounts to hang them off fascia of a gas station canopy, right out in the open, and in order for them to look under the canopy, he hung them upside down...

 

The only thing that saved the cameras inside was the fact that the weather sealing was so bad, the water that got inside simply oozed out the front of the housing. *sigh*

 

Check it out: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19184&start=57

[Sawbones 0]

We removed some cameras from a site recently, they were in vented housings... plastic Pelco knock-off, vents on the bottom at the back. The guy had used the wall mounts to hang them off fascia of a gas station canopy, right out in the open, and in order for them to look under the canopy, he hung them upside down...

 

The only thing that saved the cameras inside was the fact that the weather sealing was so bad, the water that got inside simply oozed out the front of the housing. *sigh*

 

Check it out: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19184&start=57

 

I remember those pictures.

 

Were those dome cameras still functional?

[Soundy 1]

One of them was... the 120V one (although the internal power supply was fried; it works off an external 12VDC supply). Two of the others were completely filled with water.

[tweak'e 0]

reminds me of a job we did once. small gated community with around 40 town houses. centralised aerial system with amps etc all housed in a big box that had vents etc. all the vents face downwards so even horizontal rain can't get in.

a few weeks later it all dies so go out and have a look. the whole thing is full of water ! (btw its 240v wired). i spied the grander and had a quick chat. turns out she put an upwards firing sprinkler at the base of it which fired all the water straight up the vents ! ! ! a couple of grand $us damage !

of interest is a 3KV transformer 100 yards away which also has air vents.......

[Soundy 1]

We had to put some cameras in a gas station once, the type with the lighted signs that stretch between the two pillars on each island... they wanted the cameras under those signs, where they'd be relatively low and accessible, so we quoted Extreme domes, which were twice the price of other options, but damn near impossible to crack open unless you really know how.

 

Because they were undercover (twice, under both the sign and the canopy), we did only a cursory job of sealing them - used the supplied gasket and sealed them against the sign, but didn't seal the wires running into them from inside the sign.

 

Six months later the call came that two cameras were down and the other two were foggy. Got onsite to find all four with water in them.

 

Seems the cleaning crew were in with pressure washers the day before and sprayed the signs on all sides, which let water inside them, where it ran down the wires into the cameras.

 

I don't think the cleaners actually made any money on that job... needless to say, we went overkill sealing the new cameras.

[hardwired 0]

Slightly off-topic, as I am talking about dome cameras, but I think in my experience we could have sold Panasonic domes for the same price as Pelco or others, and still been ahead money because of how many others we had to replace (under our labor warranty, gotta love some of my installers..NOT!) that were turned into fishbowls, compared to the dummy-proof sealing of the Panasonics.

[nancyh1980 0]

For 2 summers, I was the helper to my exboyfriend. After the last big hurricane, I must have taken down over 100 of housings due to bad installation or cheap housings. Videoalarm and Pelco ones really weathered well. For really big custom housing, we installed static pressure fan with NO vents. According to him, not one came back bad, so far.