theengine

I have installed several balun/Cat5e setups in the past using a wide range of cameras and conditions with no trouble. My only problem is I never paid attention to the brand of cat5 I was using. I just purchased 2 boxes of TWDOK cat5e blue network cable and pulled 2 camera lines not more than 120'. No bends, kinks or splicing. (though I have coupled cat5 with cat5e jacks and patch cables before with no problem) I also pulled another line with these 2 using a left over box of another brand of cat5e about 60'. Identical cameras and baluns, the 2 lines from the TWDOK showed no image. Voltage tested at 12.27 from my 10a 12v ps. but the cameras would not power up (built in LEDs and test monitor). When powering the cameras locally, no video at other end. Tested baluns with patch cables OK. Toned out cat5 connections and tested with cat5 cable tester, all OK. Even tried crimp ends, bare wire ends and 2 different types of baluns and cat5 jacks, and no go from these 2 runs. The box says its cat5e, the cable is printed with cat5e but I wonder if its some cheasy knock off stuff. Anyone else run into anything like this?

The wire is 60' long give or take 3 feet. There are 4 moderate bends and its wire tied down but not overly tight. (None of this really matters since I had the same results from a free standing wire). At Camera end: Shorting Orange/OrangeWhite with Brown/BrownWhite = 48.1 ohms at DVR end. At Camera end: Shorting Orange with OrangeWhite = 98.5 ohms at DVR end. 0.03 ohms on the multimeter itself.

thanks for replying My tester is just a standard one that lights up correct pairing with 4 green LEDs that shows my pinouts in the correct order. I wired everything B so its the same across the board. Even today I went to a previous install that has far worse conditions (lots of turns, bends, light fixtures, conduit, distance) and the signals are fine. It seems this cable is sucking the signal. Since this was a short easy run (thank goodness) I even ran ANOTHER cable from the same box thinking I had damaged the originals in the first pull but no dice....same thing. Voltage when the camera was powered on was about 4.5 now that I think about it....but yea, even when I powered it locally, still no video. Oh well, I'll hunt down the previous brands I used and go from there. Thanks again.