Problem Cameras will make Problems for your DVR

[SEANHAWG 1]

Had something new happen to me today. Recently we had a pretty bad storm and either lightening hit my camera or water got inside the housing to the camera and screwed up the electronics to the camera. Either way the camera got screwed up and there was a big line going across the screen for that particular camera and the picture would roll every now and then. This was about a week ago when it happened and I just left the camera plugged into the DVR with plans on changing it out at a later date. So I come in this morning and my DVR is constantly restarting and cameras 15 (the jacked up one) and camera 16 were not being displayed. So I turned that DVR off and I have another DVR right under it which was looping through to the DVR that was restarting, I noticed it was also having problems as well. The DVR's color settings changed all of a sudden and it was acting real funky (it would respond very slowly) So anyways, I unplugged the BNC connector from the DVR for the problem camera and all problems are now solved for both DVR's. I assume that the problem camera was sending some surges back to the DVR through the coax which was making it act funky.

 

Case in point, if you have a funky acting DVR, check to see if you have a bad camera, it could be the problem.

[fa chris 0]

More importantly, use surge protection on outdoor cameras so it doesn't fry your head end equipment.

[rory 0]

More importantly, use surge protection on outdoor cameras so it doesn't fry your head end equipment.

can they really stop lightning though?

[fa chris 0]

Probably not a direct hit but most lightening damage is from surges or massive interference due to near hits, lightening is a weird thing like that. Proper surge protection does a very good job at isolating the damage to your camera outside.

 

If we're really concerned about it, we run fiber out to the camera. This is usually a camera on a parapet mount/lightening rod hanging out over the top of building.

 

If it's a fixed camera under a soffit or something normal surge protection will do wonders.