Was tearing my hair out trying to figure this one out...

[Scruit 0]

Over the last few days one of my cameras has been failing slowly - the image drops out completely. When it does this I just have to unplug and plug it in again. Finally got annoyed enough that I replaced the "Barn Camera". Done.

 

Then I started adding the new camera that will cover the bottom end of the garden where a suspicious person was seen last weekend. Took about an hour to run the wires etc, pretty simple though.

 

Barn camera is down again. Dangit. Wall wart read 20v. Whoop! Unregulated! Replaced the power supply with a regulated wall wart.

 

Then I had to tweak the new garden camera which means getting back up on the roof. Got it all sorted out.

 

Barn camera is down again. I replaced the F-type to BNC pigtail at the camera. (all my wiring is exclusively F-type at the camera end so that I can easily switch from an BNC connector camera to an RCA connector camera by using an F-type to BNC pigtail or anf-type to RCA adapter)

 

Then I decided to mow the lawn - opene the double garge door on the workshop and something went wrong - the door came off the track and jammed. Took me about 5 mins to figure out that the strap holding some wiring up on the ceiling had let go and a bunch of wires got wrapped into the torsion spring / cable roller assembly. Those wires included the burglar alarm, magic eye for the door, and the RG6 for the workshop camera. Took about two hours to fix the door and replace all the damaged wiring.

 

Barn camera is down again. Replaced the BNC pigtail on the DVR side.

 

Mowed the lawn

 

Barn camera is down again. Took the wall plate off and replaced every connection between the DVR and the cable the runs out under the deck to the workshop (where the camera is mounted). Get it all working again. Go downstairs to get some coffee.

 

Barn camera is down AGAIN. Switched it to a different port on the DVR - maybe that one port is burned out??

 

By the time I get down the stairs the CCTV is reporting video loss AGAIN. Barn camera is down.

 

Ok, recap... I have replaced the following:

 

Camera, camera power supply, all wiring between the camera and the workshop-to-house line, all wiring between the workshop-to-house line and the DVR, AND the DVR port. ie the entire camera setup for that channel is all new. Camera is still dropping intermittently.

 

Finally I decided to check the workshop-to-house coax. That meant following the wire down through the walls into the basement, out under the deck and tot he workshop. Then I ripped up all the deck boards until I found this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rassin'-frassin' mice.

[Rebco 0]

We told you to stop using that steak flavored coax but no never listen to us... I will go have a bite of coax maybe the mice know something we don't know...

 

So what are you going to put it in conduit?

[scorpion 0]

From the way I read the post I get that the camera took the 20 volt hit before you switched to a regulated power supply. Other than that you have gremlins!

[Scruit 0]

From the way I read the post I get that the camera took the 20 volt hit before you switched to a regulated power supply. Other than that you have gremlins!

 

Well, I was troubleshooting for a while and I remembered the thread here about regulated & unregulated power supplies (as I recall, unregulated supplies need a load to regulate properly)

 

I tested this power supply and found it read 20v unloaded and 12.5 with the camera attached. I put a regulated power supply in there - no difference.

 

I have 3 of these same cameras and when I checked the other 2 I found that they had the same unregulated supplies - all 3 were shipped with the unregulated power supply. And the other 2 have had no problems - in fact the one I removed is still fine.

 

Most of my cameras don't mind the unregulated power supplies, but some really can't handle the extra voltage (image smears etc).

 

 

No, turns out the only problem with this camera was the chewed cable.

[able1 0]

As I read your dissertation of the events I got to thinking that wouldn't it have better when "the barn camera was down".

 

To take the cable from the barn directly to the monitor to see if is the signal?

 

Then take a monitor to the camera and see if the camera had signal?

 

And then check the cable continuity and sha-bang it is the cable??

 

I know that this sounds like I am beating you up for taking a different approach. Not the case. I know I was not there. However, this is not just for you to read. Hopefully others will learn for all of this. Just another viewpoint.

 

Glad you found the problem. Conduit is your only solution.

 

Good luck.

[Scruit 0]

As I read your dissertation of the events I got to thinking that wouldn't it have better when "the barn camera was down".

 

To take the cable from the barn directly to the monitor to see if is the signal?

 

Then take a monitor to the camera and see if the camera had signal?

 

And then check the cable continuity and sha-bang it is the cable??

 

I know that this sounds like I am beating you up for taking a different approach. Not the case. I know I was not there. However, this is not just for you to read. Hopefully others will learn for all of this. Just another viewpoint.

 

Glad you found the problem. Conduit is your only solution.

 

Good luck.

 

 

The problem with troubleshooting this camera was that breaking and reconnecting *any* connection made the camera work again for a period of time. When I connected my portable LCD to the camera directly it worked fine. When I connected the LCD to the DVR end of the wired it worked fine. Then a couple hours later it would drop. Even testing the continuity of the long cable probably wouldn't have identified the problem because unplugging the camera to plug in the multimeter woudl have liekly had the same effect - ie making it work.

 

 

I could have left the LCD connected to the camera directly for a few hours, but other than that I'm not sure what else I could have done.

 

What I need is some king of logging multimeter that would allow me to do a resistance test across the center pint and the shield of cable while I had an old network terminator on the other side (50 ohm? I have a couple of those lying around). Then I could see if the cable went short ot open at any point. Or I could have drafted my wife to watch the multimeter, I dunno. oh well.

 

 

Yup, conduit - and smear the calbe with warfarin paste.

[able1 0]

Yea, I know I wasn't there. I would guess that over the couple of hours of being connected the circuit built up enough capacitance to crap out the video. Nothing worse than a intermittent problem.

 

Found one a few weeks ago that plagued me for about 4 months. Every so often for some times less than a minute and for as long as a 2 hours. Sometimes good for 3 days straight. By the time anyone could get there the system was fine. This was a fire alarm panel. On the last trip while check resistance and connects AGAIN. I noticed that the zone was in trouble............................. The ZONE WAS IN TROUBLE. I scrambled to look at smokes and found one (the eol) had a high flash rate. It indicates a supervisory circuit failure. Gothcha sucker!!!! Since replaced the smoke with new and life is now good.

[zmxtech 0]

A TDR would of found that in a few seconds !

 

z

[Rebco 0]

A TDR would of found that in a few seconds

I have mine and i love this thing. payed for itself in 2 jobs in hours i would of lost finding problems the other way....

[Scruit 0]

A TDR would of found that in a few seconds !

 

z

 

What's a TDR?

 

I couldn't have found the problem also by disconnecting the wire from both ends and plugging one end into a 120v outlet. Then just follow the smell of burning mouse.

 

 

 

 

 

*Disclaimer: This post should not be read by people with no sense of humor, or anyone stupid enough to take me seriously. Not typical results. Side effects were generally mild and included headache, burning fur and occasional vaporisation.

[scorpion 0]

OH My Goodness my side hurts from laughing to hard!!!

 

Scruit, now that was funny!!

[zmxtech 0]

works for me ....

[RickA 0]

That would make a good video, when you get ready to do make sure you have a camera on the mouse

[C7 in CA 0]

Yeah, around here the mice will chew right through any unused wires, but when they get to a pair with some voltage or signal on it they seem to just nibble enough insulation off the wires to cause intermittent issue like you experienced. Makes it real hard to find the problem sometimes even with test equipment. I may just be lucky, but the only time I ever have rodent problems is where cables enter a building. The mice chew through the cables to get into the building.

 

TDR is Time Domain Reflectometer or Time Domain Reflectometry. I have an Agilent Technologies CAT6 certifier that has TDR. Basically you tell the tester what type of cable you are testing and it can tell you how long the cable is based on how fast the test signal is reflected back down the cable. --very handy.

 

I don't think the TDR in my tester would have found this based on the fact that it wasn't a complete break. But I think the added resistance would cause the attenuation to read high. But that wouldn't have told me where the bad section was. Just that there was a cable issue.

 

And that points out the importance of testing new installs. Because if I didn't have a test result of this cable right after install then the test after the problem occurred may look unremarkable. On problems like this it really helps to be able to compare before and after results.

[RickA 0]

That would be good...or just don,t buy cheese flavored rg-59.

[si_kungs 0]

how much does a TDR cost?

[Rebco 0]

Then just follow the smell of burning mouse.

 

Leave it to Scruit to always think about lunch first, Don't even invite us!

 

 

cheese flavored rg-59

 

Ahh darn let me cancel my order