Color loss

[grizli 0]

Hello everyone,

I've purchased an outdoor PTZ directly from China manufacturer. It's a 720p 18x zoom camera.

First couple days it worked ok, with all colors properly appearing.

On third day some of the colors are gone and image seems to be more blurry than originally.

Camera resets/refocuses when bright lights hit the lens (i.e. sun or headlights from a vehicle).

Every time very bright light hits it - it turns pink and then back to normal. Well, on 3rd day, of the times it went back into day mode from night - picture went completely pink. At that time it was set for Outdoor mode. Setting it to Auto - removed pink, but some colors are gone as I described above.

I've reset the camera, the software, about everything there is to reset.

 

Manufacturer is no help. They are just ignoring me. (I actually have paypal claim against them, but that's a different story)

 

Did anyone experience this? Is it permanently broken?

 

After some digging I found that camera is made by WAPA and company I bought it from are just little reseller group of people in China.

 

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

PS: Forgot to mention, it's an IP camera. Not sure if that matters, but anyway

[MaxIcon 0]

A couple of possibilities:

 

- Moisture in your dome could be causing both blurriness and colors being off.

 

- IR filter getting stuck can cause color problems as well. Leave it in either day or night mode and see if the problems go away or quit changing.

 

If you post screen shots of what it looks like, that's always a big help.

[grizli 0]

I looked at the camera up close, seems to be dry inside. Plus it's almost like it just doesn't recognize some colors. Grass is gray/brown instead of green, for example.

Day/Night mode is auto. I have not found a way to change that I wish I could temporary turn of IR, but have no idea how.

 

Here are the pics, when it worked properly, and after.

[buellwinkle 0]

I would say one of two things happened. A connector came lose inside the camera where its losing the green signal and reseating the cables in the camera may fix it or there's a malfunction in the circuit that you can't fix. I don't think it's a sticking IR filter as the grass would look darker, like purplish color, but not white like it looks in your image. I would first try and track down who you got it from and see if they can repair or replace it.

[MaxIcon 0]

Yeah, that's interesting. I'd say it's stuck in night mode on the image processing, except for the bits of color here and there. It could be that it's in night mode with the IR filter out and daylight messing up the spectrum, but that would depend on how the software people handle this, and there's really no way to tell that.

 

Are the IR LEDs on when it's like this?

 

I'd agree with BW; try to exchange it and hope the next one works better.

[grizli 0]

There is no hope for repair/replacement. They will not communicate.

I guess I could go directly to WAPA, but since I bought from a re-seller as OEM, I doubt they would help.

 

IR LEDs are off when it's like this. So I doubt it's stuck in night vision mode.

 

I've looked over SDK API, there is no option to trigger night vision. So it seems to be hardware switch operable right at the camera.

I suppose taking it apart and looking at the wires is the only option I have.

Thanks

[grizli 0]

Just update, in case someone runs into similar situation.

I have been talking to WAPA. Apparently it's their main module some has built into a different dome. I guess they sell a lot of their components OEM.

WAPA has been extremely helpful, in fact I don't recall dealing with another Chinese manufacturer as kind as there guys were. Spent hours on emails, then remote connected to me, even got their senior tech on the line during a weekend!

 

Anyway, nothing was working, picture was still messed up. Until that tech said - beat the crap out of it LOL At first I thought it was a joke, but it wasn't. He suggested IR cut filter got stuck and hitting it real hard will get to open back up. I was hesitant to do, but I've tried. After couple dozens of hits, I finally whacked it hard LOL guess what - it worked! Picture is back to normal