Are all 6 of my camera's DEAD after storm?

[theruckman 0]

Hey guys, just found this forum and signed up. I installed 3 indoor cams and 3 outdoor cams to a pole barn type work shop (landscaping biz). The outside cams are mounted directly to the sheet metal siding. All lines go up into attic and then down in a far corner where they get adapted to CAT5 baluns (siamese RG59 from camera's to interconnect box on corner wall. In that box again, I convert from RG59 to balun to burial grade CAT5 that goes straight down into the ground about 5ft, then travels about 350ft to a DVR inside his house up on the hill. No breaks of course, straight through from workshop to house. When I hooked up the other weekend, all was fine. BIG wicked storm came through and took all the cams down.

 

NOW, I have the cam power supply plugged into a battery backup/surge protector, that is the ONLY protection I have on the cams. I have installed MANY cams outside, never had a prb with lightning knocking them out BUT ALSO, I have NEVER ran 4 lines of CAT5 in the ground to another location AND never attached a cam to a metal building (always been wood or something). Looking back I am assuming I should have thought about this.

 

The power supply is FINE, still kicking out 12V to all the cams, just no pic there (tried resetting....etc...all cams....nothing)

 

I am ALSO assuming that someone is going to say "YEA, your cams are TOAST" So the PS and DVR never touched BUT the cams appear to be dead. I am reading alot of stuff on the web stating things like "if u are going to BURY cable, GROUND IT!!!" -this REALLY stinks as I never even thought about it.

 

SO opinions out there, please answer the following:

- ARE the cams probably dead? They are ALL 12V DC

- He has already stated he is not paying for anything AND does not want to turn in on his insurance (says they will hike his rates -truth to that?)

- WHAT can I do to make sure this doesn't happen again if I replace all of them? CAN I GUARANTEE they wont get fried again if that is what happened

- The cams are NOT that old....do I have any options (should I try) to talk with place I got them? What about MY insurance?

 

Pretty stressed out about this

 

Would appreciate any advice. I found THIS, would it HELP or for sure protect the cams?

http://www.geminicomputersinc.com/dtk-4vp.html

 

thx

 

Scott

[tomcctv 187]

Hey guys, just found this forum and signed up. I installed 3 indoor cams and 3 outdoor cams to a pole barn type work shop (landscaping biz). The outside cams are mounted directly to the sheet metal siding. All lines go up into attic and then down in a far corner where they get adapted to CAT5 baluns (siamese RG59 from camera's to interconnect box on corner wall. In that box again, I convert from RG59 to balun to burial grade CAT5 that goes straight down into the ground about 5ft, then travels about 350ft to a DVR inside his house up on the hill. No breaks of course, straight through from workshop to house. When I hooked up the other weekend, all was fine. BIG wicked storm came through and took all the cams down.

 

NOW, I have the cam power supply plugged into a battery backup/surge protector, that is the ONLY protection I have on the cams. I have installed MANY cams outside, never had a prb with lightning knocking them out BUT ALSO, I have NEVER ran 4 lines of CAT5 in the ground to another location AND never attached a cam to a metal building (always been wood or something). Looking back I am assuming I should have thought about this.

 

The power supply is FINE, still kicking out 12V to all the cams, just no pic there (tried resetting....etc...all cams....nothing)

 

I am ALSO assuming that someone is going to say "YEA, your cams are TOAST" So the PS and DVR never touched BUT the cams appear to be dead. I am reading alot of stuff on the web stating things like "if u are going to BURY cable, GROUND IT!!!" -this REALLY stinks as I never even thought about it.

 

SO opinions out there, please answer the following:

- ARE the cams probably dead? They are ALL 12V DC

- He has already stated he is not paying for anything AND does not want to turn in on his insurance (says they will hike his rates -truth to that?)

- WHAT can I do to make sure this doesn't happen again if I replace all of them? CAN I GUARANTEE they wont get fried again if that is what happened

- The cams are NOT that old....do I have any options (should I try) to talk with place I got them? What about MY insurance?

 

Pretty stressed out about this

 

Would appreciate any advice. I found THIS, would it HELP or for sure protect the cams?

http://www.geminicomputersinc.com/dtk-4vp.html

 

thx

 

Scott

 

 

Hi scott. first thing is it could just be a bad power supply. to check this first thing you need to do is take down one of your faulty cameras and bench test it (with a new power supply) i think if you are running power that far and its only 12v

[theruckman 0]

Wish it was that easy. I actually already checked 12V @ atleast 2 of the cams. I have the power supply THERE ONSITE in the workshop (so longest 12V run is like 100ft tops) BUT the actual video is being sent through the CAT5 to his house. I had a cam right next to me plugged in, verified 12V and nothing, so it appears they are ALL getting 12V. I just can't believe it did not toast the PS

 

BUT the PS is 120VAC in and 12DC out

 

Scott

[tomcctv 187]

Wish it was that easy. I actually already checked 12V @ atleast 2 of the cams. I have the power supply THERE ONSITE in the workshop (so longest 12V run is like 100ft tops) BUT the actual video is being sent through the CAT5 to his house. I had a cam right next to me plugged in, verified 12V and nothing, so it appears they are ALL getting 12V. I just can't believe it did not toast the PS

 

BUT the PS is 120VAC in and 12DC out

 

Scott

 

 

scott you need to check the amps not the volts and you can only do this under load.

[rory 0]

easy solution also, plug another camera into the cable for one of the cameras .. if that works then the cameras are toast. Another thing to look at is whether the Cat5 baluns are good. Also it could be possible it was not lightning but a power surge or brownout. Is the power supply you used fused? Its still possible the power supply could take more then the cameras, especially if they are cheap cameras. Was the power supply plugged into any kind of voltage regulation? A UPS doesnt automatically mean it has Voltage Regulation.

[scorpion 0]

Do you have a battery operated hand held monitor? They are worth their weight in gold!

 

You can take the monitor out to the camera. If you have video then the power side is ok and your problem may be the video cable side.

 

You can use a small TV that has the yellow composite video input

(source, input, game). You can use a BNC to RCA adapter if you need.

 

For those of you doing large barns, or long runs then I would suggest using 12volt DC / 24 volt AC cameras. Use a 24 Volt AC power supply. If the long run has a voltage drop then the camera converts the AC to DC, and as long as the voltage is above 12Volts the camera should work. I only placed this as the subject is about a pole barn, and people may be directed here from a search engine.

[theruckman 0]

WELL, unfortunately it looks like my cams are all dead because I have done all the things mentioned by u guys already. With regards to the last post, I DID have a small TV monitor (used it @ initial install) and hooked a camera directly to it -nothing. Verified 12V DC to that cam.

 

SO I am mega bummed. I guess I pretty much knew the bad news, MY BIG QUESTION IS THIS:

 

HOW do I prevent this in the future? It appears the overload went through the COAX lines and NOT the 12V DC lines, does that make sense? If that is the case, I don't understand it. I had the cam PS plugged into a surge/batt bu thinking that would do it. How much could have the LONG balun run to the house played in this? Just to re-iterate: ALL 6 of these cams are ALL powered onsite @ the barn, all ran with RG59 siamese....the power goes to a 12V DC PS box (plugged into a backup/surge protector) and all the RG59 runs go into a box, go into 6 baluns that are going into 2 CAT5 burial grade cable that goes about 350ft to his house. THERE they are terminated to 6 more baluns that connect directly to the DVR.

 

I seen alot of posts online about "if burying cctv cable, be sure to ground the cable!" -well, talk about hind sight 20/20.....ugh

 

just wanted thoughts on that mainly, I HAVE to get this guy back up....is it even worth trying to talk to the cctv co that sold me the cams to get replacements?

 

thx

 

Scott

[rory 0]

I believe you can buy surge protectors for the video side of it, never had to do that myself though. Down here it is always power related and we dont plug anything in without a good voltage regulator, some UPS have AVR (automatic voltage regulation) built in, many cases I still add it separate. This isnt exactly lightning alley though ..

[Guest]

 

I seen alot of posts online about "if burying cctv cable, be sure to ground the cable!" -well, talk about hind sight 20/20.....ugh

 

just wanted thoughts on that mainly, I HAVE to get this guy back up....is it even worth trying to talk to the cctv co that sold me the cams to get replacements?

 

thx

 

Scott

 

Talk of earthing underground cables is nonsense.

 

On a site like this fibre would have been the correct solution.

 

However, if the cameras are now fried you will need to replace them.

 

To prevent this happening again you should install inline coax lightning protection modules at each camera location and in-line twisted pair lightning protection modules at the DVR end of the cable run on every line.

 

Baluns will not provide any protection.

 

Only use protection modules that state lightning protection on the box. If it only says surge protecion it may not protect the kit from lightning.

 

Talk to your CCTV distributor about this and they should advise you of the options avaible. If they cannot, change your distributor.

 

Ilkie

[Soundy 1]

Ultimately, the sad fact is, you can take every precaution known to man, and it's still possible for lightning to kill your parts or all of your system. I've seen lightning do some weird, weird $#!t. I've heard and read about it doing stuff that's beyond bizarre. When you're talking about that level of electricity (hundreds of thousands or even millions of volts), man, it just does what it wants, goes where it wants... you can try to block it, divert it, isolate it, but in the end, there's no 100% effective way to stop it. Even with fiber and locally-powered cameras, lighting could still hit a building, travel into a camera, through its power line, into the building's power wiring, and bake the rest of the system from there.

 

Do some searching around the 'net for stories of things like ribbon lightning, blue-jet lightning, ball lightning, and so on - the stuff just doesn't seem to follow the rules.

 

You can do nothing at all and have nothing bad ever happen - we had a big TV antenna sticking up above the roof of our rural cabin, in an area that gets plenty of lighting, for 30+ years, with never a problem (touch wood)... pretty sure it did get hit once, WHILE we were watching TV, but no damage...

 

As far as replacement cams, I don't think you'll find a manufacturer or supplier anywhere who will warranty against lightning damage.

 

Just remember: nature is a mother.

[theruckman 0]

WELL SAID.....and while it does not help my prb (lol) it's really what I was thinking.....I have installed alarm systems for many years and have told customers many times over and over: "lightning is going to do what it wants period."

 

The part that is totally killing my customer is this: I JUST installed them about 2 weeks ago....we had a BAD storm with lightning o-plenty that night....I mean seriously, I think if it was just a YEAR later, he would be more reasonable about it....he just can't get over the fact that they were JUST installed....I have to agree but it "is what it is"

 

AND that I charged about $2500 does not help, but hey thats what I charged....had about $1000 in cams, PS and cabling I would say if that.

 

thx again

 

Scott

[Soundy 1]

^And that's why people (are supposed to) have insurance.

[Guest]

Matt,

 

I agree with your comment that if you get a direct hit there is very little you can do.

 

Howeverthis does not mean you should not design in protection.

 

even more so in areas where lightning is more than low risk.

 

And especially with IP connections.

 

With the trend of running CCTV system onto the corporate computer network, a strike on a remote camera can take out the whole computer network.

 

I would suggest that if reasonable precations have not been taken in the design, the CCTV Contractor (if he has taken on the design role) would be liable.

 

Using wireless also presents risks as the receiver is normally attached to the main building (best line of sight is nearly always on the roof!) and bonding the radio to the building protection system does not help either.

 

Best solution fibre and next best inline lightning protection installed before the cabling gets to the network.

 

Ilkie

[theruckman 0]

Ilkie,

 

While all what u have said is TRUE just want to make clear that I have done quite a few ext cam sys, NEVER had a prb with lightning, and ALWAYS have used a surge protector. Since I never had issues, I figured I was doing as much as I can. I have certainly never slapped a DVR in and plugged a cam into the wall and left a bill.

 

anyway, live and learn

 

Scott

[gunthonungo2 0]

I believe you can buy surge protectors for the video side of it, never had to do that myself though. Down here it is always power related and we dont plug anything in without a good voltage regulator, some UPS have AVR (automatic voltage regulation) built in, many cases I still add it separate. This isnt exactly lightning alley though ..

 

 

Could you please recommend a good automatic voltage regulator?

[rory 0]

Could you please recommend a good automatic voltage regulator?

 

For power, I use this typically:

http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=LE600

they have the larger one also but Ive never needed more then this for jobs Ive done.

 

I cant recommend a UPS as we get latin american ones which are different models all together .. but we normally use this type, notice it clearly says AVR (automatic voltage regulation) which i cant find noted in a similar US model:

http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BE600-LM&tab=features&total_watts=200

I dont use UPS much anyway as sometimes especially after a long power outage it doesnt come back on with enough juice to send power back to the DVR, so come to the DVR a few days later to find the UPS needs to be turned on manually, no go for my clients. Never had any software file issues not using one yet. But thats me. Most have generators here anyway.

[programmergeek 0]

Whast power supply are you using? I usally use the type that has fuses on every camera and a main fuse they normally have a voltage reg built in.