dpotts1

I have several cameras that were damaged due to lightening causing a power surge. The cameras have been replaced, new surge suppressors installed and all seems to be well. I looked inside one of the cameras. I has four PCB that are extremely easy to replace. If a replacement main-board was available it would take less than 5 min. to change it out. I have not been able to find a source to get replacement parts. Does anyone know who makes the Honeywell cameras and where I might find parts. The repair shops that I have found online all want the cost of a new camera to change out a board. Please help and thanks in advance.

We have done a number of things to try and take care of the problem. *Installed 8 ft. ground rods ( Two for each metal building ) to make sure that the building skin and metal frame is properly grounded to earth. *Made sure that the additional ground rods and the electrical service ground are bonded together. *Isolated the cameras and brackets from the building skin. *Installed E-Clips surge suppressors at the camera end and at the DVR card end. According to the folks at Steadyvolt.com , the problem should be taken care of. The E-Clip gadgets are expensive but carry a lifetime warranty. When the card was damaged it did not show any sign of damage, it just did not work. I sent it back to MFG. for repair. The fixed it. It works fine now.

Thanks Phand, We have just added ground rods for each metal framed building. We have connected all the ground rods together including the grounding system that serves the computer. We have installed surge suppressors in each video line. We have installed grounding block for each camera which is tied into all the other grounds. We have isolated the camera housing brackets from the metal skin on the bulding by mounting on rubber wrapped pressure treated wood. We are waiting for the replacement card. We discovered that the buildings were not grounded properly when built. That is why we have installed more ground rods. Also an engineer told us that the fact that the camera surge suppressors were not connected to the ground that serves the computer was 90% of our problem. Thanks again for everyones help.

Thanks Rory, I have been trying to get an education on how to properly put things togeter but I am new at this. Here is what I was told to do, by an installer. We have a mini storage rental property that has 4 seperate buildings each of which contains the individual rental units. The buildings are steel framed , covered with metal roof and metal walls on concrete slabs. 4 cameras are powered from one location of a building and 4 from another of a different building. We mounted Individual transformers at each location to power the cameras. One of the conduit runs on top of a building for about 60 ft. then the conduit goes underground the rest of the way to the office. The ac circuit for the transformers is surge protected but not power regulated. Camera 9 is powered by an individual transformer located in the office. It is powered from the UPS that also powers the computer. I don't know yet if the UPS has the AVR feature built in. Cat 5 cable was used to supply power from the transformers to the camera and to carry the video signal to the computer. The cat 5 is run in PVC conduit. In some cases the pvc conduit will carry more than one cat 5 cable run. At the run ends we have the cat 5 attached to baluns which attaches to the surge supressors which attach to the leads of the GV-800. No surge supressors at the camera ends. The grounds from the supressors are tied together then attached to an 8 foot ground rod driven into the earth. I feel sure this was not the proper way of doing the installation but that is what we have. The system works fine so far as picture quality but the card seems to fail only when we have a severe lightening event. The lightening has not hit the cameras or the building directly but somehow manages to kill the GV card without making a direct hit. Not every time but it has failed 3 times in less than 2 years. We want to fix the problem but need someone who has run into this problem and figured out what to do about it , to let us know. The cameras are attached either to the roof or sides of the building. They are attached directly to the metal roof or siding with metal brackets. They are not insulated from the metal in any way. One camera is attached to a utility pole. Thanks for everyones help.

The 3 times this has happened over the last 2 years has been when we experienced a really bad thunder storm. I live in Middle Tennessee. We were hit last night with tragic weather which included Tornados and thousands of lightening strikes.

The computer is on a UPS but the cameras are on regular AC with surge supressors. Please explain in detail the power regulation equipment that is needed. Thanks so much for your help.

Thank you for your information. None of the cameras or any part of the building has ever been actually hit by lightening. The cameras have not been damaged, just the GV-800 card.

I have 9 cameras on some mini-storage rental units. I had a GV-800 that was beleived to have been damaged by lightening. Only 4 ports worked after the storm. I was told that lightening could induce voltage because of the metal frames and metal covering of the building and that I should put in surge suppressors in the video signal line. I did that. One for each camera attachted to the port at the PC. The supressors are grounded to a ground rod that I drove into the earth near the computer. Came a bad storm last night. All nine cameras say video lost. Am going to take PC with card to the dealer to see if card is bad again. Talked to another mini storage owner who has had the same problem (cards damaged due to lightening) He has put in 3 systems . If someone has run into this problem and found a solution, please let me know what to do.

I just installed a 9 camera system on a PC Based GeoVision 800 DVR. All cameras work fine when the motion detection sensitivity is no greater than 7. I set the sensitivity to 9.5 on one camera. That camera worked for a very short time (maybe one min. ) then got very distorted , then the video was lost. I lowered the motion detection setting to 6 but video still lost. A few hours later the camera was back on working fine. Did this happen due to a defect in something or is the high setting not practical. The cameras are Honeywell C mount. They have been installed for about 18 months but I just put in the new GV-800 card.

I am new to Geovision and security systems. I have purchased a GV-800 16 card that was designed to work with version 6.03 software. I received the card and software CD but the software is Version 7.0.0.0.0 My vendor placed the wrong version with my card. The Multicam program will not work with the card. My vender said it was because the software is looking for a USB Doongle. The vender has tried to email me a zipped file containg the correct software but has been having difficulty getting it out. I think the vender will eventually get the correct CD out in the mail. My question is this: Is there anywhere that I can get the software on the net by downloading? Thanks in advance for your help.