Lightning - lost my best camera and maybe others today

[QC444 1]

We had a strong thunderstorm today with several strikes potentially on top of us.

 

Afterward, my best camera is now completely dead and another is acting odd.

 

The DVR seems to be ok...but I'll have to do more checking tomorrow.

 

First loss of video equipment to lightning.

[Q2U 0]

Get a decent UPS with surge protection and power conditioning to protect your entire system.

Edited May 12, 2013 by Guest

[Ken Layton 0]

Have you shut the whole system down, waited a minute, then rebooted everything?

[the toss 0]

Get a decent UPS with surge protection and power conditioning to protect your entire system.

 

 

That is what I do & give my customers an extra years warranty if they accept this option

[ronp 0]

Last summer I lost four cameras in one lightning strike. One camera was connected to my DVR via 200' of cable run along the ground and another by 400' of cable run along the ground. Two were cameras mounted on the side of the house with in-wall wiring. The DVR was on a name-brand UPS but the cameras were not protected. The DVR survived.

 

I replaced the cameras and put coax lightning arrestors at both ends of the cable with 8' ground rods at the remote cameras and tied to AC ground in the house. During the next lightning storm both remote cameras got zapped again.

 

Lightning will find a way.

 

(And, yes, I did return and get replaced the cameras under warranty )

[jeromephone 6]

We have a site with 7 cameras down at present. We are remounting on plastic boxes installing separate ground rods and putting surge protection between the camera and the remote POE switch. Hope this helps. Entrance protection is by far the most important you don't want to get someone killed or fry the DVR/NVR also check your connections we have found that the high winds and driving rain have a way of getting into connectors that normally would not have a problem.

[QC444 1]

Well, I took the dead camera down and opened her up and found.....nothing.

No signs of any damage whatsoever so here's a thought...

 

Maybe it doesn't actually require a "Strike" for these cameras to get zapped.

 

Maybe all it requires is an intense enough light surge (which is then "translated" into a high energy pulse

via the lens and supporting CCD or CMOS sensor that damages an IC chip or SMD transistor or something.

 

There is no evidence that there was a direct strike. I fact, there appears to be evidence there was NOT a direct strike.

 

Under this train of thought...a laser pointer might also "take out" a surveillance camera?

I think I'll test this theory on one of my not so good "disposable" cameras.

 

The serious problem with this if it were true is that you might expect to lose cameras every time

you have a thunderstorm with strikes very near the front facing side of your cameras?

 

Meanwhile, the camera in question has basically 3 major components.

1). The LED array board

2). The Camera CCD sensor board with supporting circuitry

3). The Power cable pigtail assembly

 

The LED segment does not work so I'm going to assume that something happened to the power

delivery system. It "could" even be the harness pigtail (I doubt it) but I could test that.

Overall, these cameras aren't very expensive ($35 - $40ish) so I'll probably just buy a few replacements.

 

It would be an ongoing issue however if it turns out a close by lightning strike in front of a camera is all that's needed to

overload and burn out a surveillance camera.

 

BTW...The camera was completely dry. No rain or moisture reached the camera.

[ronp 0]

I'm sure it's electrical, not light, that blew out the camera. The cameras run off 12 or 24 volts and the video signal is approximately 1volt. If a lightning strike was close to the power cable or coax and induced say 50volts into it, the electronics would likely "fry" but there would be zero visible evidence of damage. No burning. No smoke. Just zapped microscopic wires inside one of the integrated circuits. It only takes one.

 

As I said in an earlier post, I installed coax lightning arrestors at both ends of my video cable with an 8' ground rod at the camera. The arrestors are supposed to clamp (limit) the voltage to 5volts. Even that didn't protect my cameras on a later strike, but perhaps that one was too close.

[the toss 0]

Meanwhile, the camera in question has basically 3 major components.

1). The LED array board

2). The Camera CCD sensor board with supporting circuitry

3). The Power cable pigtail assembly

 

.

 

The only difference between a 12Vdc & 24Vac is a (usually seperate) power supply board in the camera to drop the 24Vac down to 12Vdc. This is the most likely part to fail. By bypassing this board you will salvage the camera and be able to use it on 12Vdc only. Open up the camera & identify the main incoming power cable. This will terminate on the power supply board. There will be another pair of wires leaving this board to supply 12Vdc to the camera. Cut & join these wires to each other taking care of polarity. I have found about 80% of dual voltage cameras are able to be salvaged this way. It may not recover the IR depending on the IR power configuration but with a bit of poking around this should be overcome.