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kentuckynet

Do you guys do anything to protect cameras from Lighting

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Do you guys do anything to protect cameras from Lighting Strikes / surges? I use a booster at the camera and send it down 3500' of phone line. Hard to believe but it gives me an excellent picture but about once a year during the big lightning storms we get either the camera or booster will get hit.

Just curious if theres anything that would help?

I have installed a good quality surge protector now where everthing get its current.

 

thanks

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Good question. I'd like to hear if anyone has any real working solutions. Lightning is trying to find the shortest/least resistive path to ground, anything that can help that along.... will also cause ground loops!

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To protect your camera from lighting use surge protector. Surge protector is an appliance designed to protect electrical devices from voltage spikes. It attempts to limit the voltage supplied to an electric device by either blocking or by shorting to ground any unwanted voltages above a safe threshold.

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I've learned that you can do all kinds of things to help prevent damage, but in the event of a direct hit, the camera will most likely fry. I believe that the best thing you can do is protect the head-end of your system from lightning chasing back in.

 

I have issues where the cameras don't get hit, but lightning manages to sneak into the cabling and chase both ways. After having 2 cameras and one entire cable run get toasted from this, I started using the MMS-PTZ-UTP (protects UTP video, UTP data, and power) from http://www.minutemanups.com/products/lineguard.php for the few outdoor PTZs that are on copper. There are comparable products out there from other manufacturers, too.

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We had a camera take a direct hit a couple of months ago and it was of course ruined. However, the lightening protection prevented the surge from getting back to the nvr/dvr and the building did not catch on fire and nobody was hurt. We use ditek or whatever meets code for your particular area. I guess the point is that it is not really the camera you are trying to protect on a direct hit it is people and property. Surge protection will help protect the camera but your main concern and liability is people and property.

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