Assistance with removing condensation from Dahua HFW5231E-Z12

alwayson

Getting the hang of it
Joined
Apr 27, 2016
Messages
111
Reaction score
16
Hello,

How is everyone? Happy Holidays in advance!

I have a few Dahua IPC-HFW5231E-Z12 and at least one of them is facing issues with water vapor/condensation.

I am in South Texas, so its not like we are dealing with freezing temps etc.

I have been in touch with the retailer, the great Andy from empire candy, and he suggested I open it up.

He is a wonderful, very helpful person, very responsive to all queries, great guy @EMPIRETECANDY

See images below.






Sadly, the instructions he gave me seem to be for a slightly different camera. My camera does not have those holes as shown in his camera.

I have left it to dry outdoors (at its installation point), and even uninstalled it and got it indoors for the last few days. I have even tried using a hair dryer to dry it out. Sadly no luck :(

Here are images of my actual camera...any idea on how to get this water vapor/condensation out?







Thank you!!!!

Grateful for all your help.
 

Dave Lonsdale

Pulling my weight
Joined
Dec 3, 2015
Messages
456
Reaction score
195
Location
Congleton Edge, UK
I’ve had exactly the same problem with one of mine (different model, same housing, my cameras don’t have the holes from Anyd’s picture either). Use a small blade to ease off the black cover as shown in your picture. It’s self adhesive and so you can stick it back afterwards - it’s decorative and not part of the seal. Removing the four screws revealed allows you to withdraw the camera contents. I’ve replaced the desiccant in mine twice over the last year but it’s now happened again even though it appears to be perfectly sealed. I’ve had four of this style of camera for over two years, the other three are still OK.
If you make a ‘discovery’ then please report it back to the forum.
 

alwayson

Getting the hang of it
Joined
Apr 27, 2016
Messages
111
Reaction score
16
I’ve had exactly the same problem with one of mine (different model, same housing, my cameras don’t have the holes from Anyd’s picture either). Use a small blade to ease off the black cover as shown in your picture. It’s self adhesive and so you can stick it back afterwards - it’s decorative and not part of the seal. Removing the four screws revealed allows you to withdraw the camera contents. I’ve replaced the desiccant in mine twice over the last year but it’s now happened again even though it appears to be perfectly sealed. I’ve had four of this style of camera for over two years, the other three are still OK.
If you make a ‘discovery’ then please report it back to the forum.
Good afternoon Mr. Lonsdale,

Thank you for this advice. To confirm, the black cover you are referring to is this one (see pic below) or is it some other one?

Please advise.



Thank you!
 

Dave Lonsdale

Pulling my weight
Joined
Dec 3, 2015
Messages
456
Reaction score
195
Location
Congleton Edge, UK
Yes alwayson, it’s the cover in your picture. You need a fine knife blade or scalpel to start it off from an outside corner. Once started you can lift it easily but with care to keep it intact. Then keep the cover somewhere safe, away from detritus of fluff that would stick to the adhesive.
 

fps66

n3wb
Joined
Mar 1, 2019
Messages
12
Reaction score
10
Location
Alabama
I know this is late, but may help someone else reading this. I have dried out small electronic items by opening as much as reasonable, wrap in paper towels, and bury in a large bag of rice for a few days. Another note: It is very possible to wash electronic equipment. You don't want to leave behind residue after final rinsing, and be sure it is very dry before applying power. Experience from after a hurricane having water running through previously powered off high voltage (CRT) displays.
 

alwayson

Getting the hang of it
Joined
Apr 27, 2016
Messages
111
Reaction score
16
I continue to have these condensation issues when it rains heavily with my IPC HFW5231EP-Z12 which are placed outdoors (no easement).

Can I put a ziploc bag or some plastic or other clear covering over the housing and lens to prevent this from recurring?

These are bullet shaped cameras.

Thank you
 

J Sigmo

Known around here
Joined
Feb 5, 2018
Messages
997
Reaction score
1,333
Are they exposed to direct contact with rain or other water? Or are they just sucking moist air when they cool at night and things contract, and then breathing out during the day when they get warm, and the air inside expands?

For a container to remain dry inside, it has to be incredibly well sealed. Due to temperature changes, the air inside of a compartment will expand and contract. If the seal is not completely airtight, the container will "breathe" in and out.

If you have humidity, the container can breathe in moist air and accumulate water over time just by that. And if you have a situation where the container was hot, and had "exhaled" due to the expansion of the air inside, and then it rains on it, cooling it off, the air inside will contract, creating a vacuum, and at that point, rainwater can be drawn in through any minute breaches in a seal.

So containers must be extremely well sealed. A single hair across an o-ring during assembly can create an opening. Any roughness in the machining of an o-ring groove or seat can cause a breach.

Silicone grease, like Dow 111, can help seal tiny imperfections in o-ring and gasket seating surfaces. But you still have to keep everything pristine.
 

MakeItRain

Pulling my weight
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
401
Reaction score
218
The humidity in the camera is too high in the outside. I had this problem and took me 2 times to resolve it correctly.

You need to:

1) Open up the camera
2) Replace the desiccant
3) Go into your car, roll up all the windows, start the car and turn on the AC and heater set to high and temp set to max. This will eliminate and kill all the humidity and make the air less dense because it's hot air.Wait 5 minutes until it starts to get hot and dry.
4) Begin to quickly reassembly your camera in this environment.
5) Make sure to seal the gasket correctly or your can use new GE UV silicone sealant. It turns into a gasket when dried in 30 minutes.
6) You are done. Shut off the car and feel relieved.


This is the correct way to do it and I have never had a problem with condensation on my bullet camera again.
 

alwayson

Getting the hang of it
Joined
Apr 27, 2016
Messages
111
Reaction score
16
Hello J Sigmo cool avatar!

I am in Texas near the coast, so yes there is humidity and the occasional rain when it is 90 degrees, so fluctuations in temperature etc.

The cameras are outdoors, so they are in direct contact with rain, i.e. they do not have an eaves.

What do you suggest? unmount them, dry them out and them put the Dow 111? Where would I put the Dow 111 on the camera? on the body seals? It is a bullet style.

Anything else I can do to protect them? Please.

They are pretty useless when the lens has condensation.

Appreciate your and others help very much.

Thanks
 

bigredfish

Known around here
Joined
Sep 5, 2016
Messages
17,020
Reaction score
47,480
Location
Floriduh
Living in Floridah I have quite a few Dahua bullets out in the elements unprotected including two Z12's. Most have been through at least one hurricane and 90-95 with 70-80% humidity with an 1" of rain each day May-September is considered "normal". Only one Ive had get condensation is an old CVI bullet thats been mounted sticking out of an eve in a way that it gets drenched during rains. I installed it in Jan 2016.

Seriously there has to be some problem with something sealing up.

I like @MakeItRain 's procedure.
 

alwayson

Getting the hang of it
Joined
Apr 27, 2016
Messages
111
Reaction score
16
The humidity in the camera is too high in the outside. I had this problem and took me 2 times to resolve it correctly.

You need to:

1) Open up the camera
2) Replace the desiccant
3) Go into your car, roll up all the windows, start the car and turn on the AC and heater set to high and temp set to max. This will eliminate and kill all the humidity and make the air less dense because it's hot air.Wait 5 minutes until it starts to get hot and dry.
4) Begin to quickly reassembly your camera in this environment.
5) Make sure to seal the gasket correctly or your can use new GE UV silicone sealant. It turns into a gasket when dried in 30 minutes.
6) You are done. Shut off the car and feel relieved.


This is the correct way to do it and I have never had a problem with condensation on my bullet camera again.
I do not believe I got any desiccant with the cameras, I presume I can buy some small packets and put them in the gap behind the lens?

Where would I put the sealant? where the gasket comes out? I think the gasket is like a rectangular piece of rubber so I would put it along that?

Do I need to wait 30 mins in the hot car for the sealant to dry?

I appreciate your help

Thank you
 

Dave Lonsdale

Pulling my weight
Joined
Dec 3, 2015
Messages
456
Reaction score
195
Location
Congleton Edge, UK
Hello always on. For sure your camera includes a bag of desiccant. Reading again my post comments last November and your comment ‘gap behind the lens’ I realise I didn’t mention that having removed the camera’s front casting, there are two small screws inside that must also be removed before the entire camera contents can be pulled out to then reveal the desiccant.

J Sigmo made a very good post contribution.

Referring to MakeItRain’s contribution, I can acknowledge the idea of using a car’s AC but wouldn’t it be better to turn the car’s temperature as low as possible? Humidity increases as the temperature decreases.
 

J Sigmo

Known around here
Joined
Feb 5, 2018
Messages
997
Reaction score
1,333
This is somewhat OT, but interesting. :)

Always remember that the figure "relative humidity" tells you how much moisture is in the air relative to the amount of moisture air at that temperature could hold if it were saturated.

So the relative humidity of a given "box of air" will increase if you do nothing other than cool that volume of air down or decrease if you do nothing more than heat that same air. But relative humidity doesn't always tell us what we really want to know.

The dew point of the air is what we really want to know because we want to know how much water we're actually going to trap inside of the camera when we seal it up. We want that to be as little as possible, so the lower the dew point, the better.

Dew point tells us haw much water is actually in a given volume of air.

I'd advise setting the car to Recirculate AND as cool as possible, for sure. But maybe not heat.

(Recirculate is what car AC systems used to say back when they assumed people weren't idiots). Now the controls often just say "Max AC", but what they mean is "recirculate". You'll hear some doors move position and hear a difference in the sound of the air blower when you switch from normal "AC" to "Max AC" (or Recirculate) mode.

Setting the car to "recirculate" will block outdoor air from entering the car. Instead, it will only recirculate the existing cabin air, so you have a better chance of drying that air over time instead of struggling to try to dry a constant stream of the humid outdoor air.

The AC draws the cabin air over the AC unit's "cooling coils" (evaporator coils), which will hopefully cool the air down to a very low temperature so that any water in that air will condense onto the cooling coils and be removed from the air. The lower the air temperature gets, the lower its dew point must get because that cold air simply cannot hold more moisture, so that moisture must "drop out" as condensation. Now this air cannot have a dew point any higher than its actual temperature (even if its relative humidity is 100% at that point in time).

Air at 0 degrees, with a 100% relative humidity is still pretty dry air. After all, its dew point is, by definition, 0 degrees. And that's quite dry air.

But now we get to the question of whether or not we want to run the heater (which is in the air path AFTER the AC cooling coils) to re-heat that cold air. (You could do that by putting the system in Defrost mode).

If we run the heater, we re-heat the air, and as it warms, its relative humidity will drop. That's what happens in defrost mode. And the idea there is to first dry the air (with the AC cooling coils), then re-heat that air so its "relative humidity" drops and the air is warm and dry. That's the best thing for drying off the inside of your windshield. Warm dry air blowing over the cold windshield heats it up and evaporates the condensation off of the inside. Very handy!

How many of you knew that when you ran your car in defrost mode, the AC compressor was actually running to dry that air? OK, you all did, but...

That may sound like a good thing for drying out our camera, and it sort of is, if you're drying the camera. You'll have warm dry air to drive out the moisture or "defrost" the camera. Very good!

But for the purposes of sealing the camera up with the least moisture trapped inside, once the camera has already been dried out, this might not be optimum. It won't be bad, but maybe it could be better.

The desiccant and internals of the camera don't care what the relative humidity was at the moment we were sealing it up. It just wants there to be as little water as possible trapped inside. So low dew point is the goal here, and warming the air won't change the dew point of that air one bit.

Further, we might achieve a lower temperature at the cooling coils of the AC system if we don't warm the air because the AC system won't have to work to remove that heat from the air. Instead, we just let the car get colder and colder, and when it's really cold, then we seal the camera while shivering in there.

For human comfort, relative humidity is a handy measure of how much the air will try to dry you and other things out. But for this particular situation, dew point is the figure of merit.

And ideally, you'll hold your breath this whole time, too, so you're not exhaling moisture into the air.

So you want to freeze and hold your breath. Man, you're gonna really turn blue!!! :)
 

Dave Lonsdale

Pulling my weight
Joined
Dec 3, 2015
Messages
456
Reaction score
195
Location
Congleton Edge, UK
Professor J Sigmo many thanks for your detailed analysis. If you would be good enough to list your credentials below, then perhaps we can all refer relevant queries to you the next time we’re baffled!
 

looney2ns

IPCT Contributor
Joined
Sep 25, 2016
Messages
15,521
Reaction score
22,657
Location
Evansville, In. USA
This is somewhat OT, but interesting. :)

Always remember that the figure "relative humidity" tells you how much moisture is in the air relative to the amount of moisture air at that temperature could hold if it were saturated.

So the relative humidity of a given "box of air" will increase if you do nothing other than cool that volume of air down or decrease if you do nothing more than heat that same air. But relative humidity doesn't always tell us what we really want to know.

The dew point of the air is what we really want to know because we want to know how much water we're actually going to trap inside of the camera when we seal it up. We want that to be as little as possible, so the lower the dew point, the better.

Dew point tells us haw much water is actually in a given volume of air.

I'd advise setting the car to Recirculate AND as cool as possible, for sure. But maybe not heat.

(Recirculate is what car AC systems used to say back when they assumed people weren't idiots). Now the controls often just say "Max AC", but what they mean is "recirculate". You'll hear some doors move position and hear a difference in the sound of the air blower when you switch from normal "AC" to "Max AC" (or Recirculate) mode.

Setting the car to "recirculate" will block outdoor air from entering the car. Instead, it will only recirculate the existing cabin air, so you have a better chance of drying that air over time instead of struggling to try to dry a constant stream of the humid outdoor air.

The AC draws the cabin air over the AC unit's "cooling coils" (evaporator coils), which will hopefully cool the air down to a very low temperature so that any water in that air will condense onto the cooling coils and be removed from the air. The lower the air temperature gets, the lower its dew point must get because that cold air simply cannot hold more moisture, so that moisture must "drop out" as condensation. Now this air cannot have a dew point any higher than its actual temperature (even if its relative humidity is 100% at that point in time).

Air at 0 degrees, with a 100% relative humidity is still pretty dry air. After all, its dew point is, by definition, 0 degrees. And that's quite dry air.

But now we get to the question of whether or not we want to run the heater (which is in the air path AFTER the AC cooling coils) to re-heat that cold air. (You could do that by putting the system in Defrost mode).

If we run the heater, we re-heat the air, and as it warms, its relative humidity will drop. That's what happens in defrost mode. And the idea there is to first dry the air (with the AC cooling coils), then re-heat that air so its "relative humidity" drops and the air is warm and dry. That's the best thing for drying off the inside of your windshield. Warm dry air blowing over the cold windshield heats it up and evaporates the condensation off of the inside. Very handy!

How many of you knew that when you ran your car in defrost mode, the AC compressor was actually running to dry that air? OK, you all did, but...

That may sound like a good thing for drying out our camera, and it sort of is, if you're drying the camera. You'll have warm dry air to drive out the moisture or "defrost" the camera. Very good!

But for the purposes of sealing the camera up with the least moisture trapped inside, once the camera has already been dried out, this might not be optimum. It won't be bad, but maybe it could be better.

The desiccant and internals of the camera don't care what the relative humidity was at the moment we were sealing it up. It just wants there to be as little water as possible trapped inside. So low dew point is the goal here, and warming the air won't change the dew point of that air one bit.

Further, we might achieve a lower temperature at the cooling coils of the AC system if we don't warm the air because the AC system won't have to work to remove that heat from the air. Instead, we just let the car get colder and colder, and when it's really cold, then we seal the camera while shivering in there.

For human comfort, relative humidity is a handy measure of how much the air will try to dry you and other things out. But for this particular situation, dew point is the figure of merit.

And ideally, you'll hold your breath this whole time, too, so you're not exhaling moisture into the air.

So you want to freeze and hold your breath. Man, you're gonna really turn blue!!! :)
Note: Don't do this in your garage with the garage doors closed. ;)
 

MakeItRain

Pulling my weight
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
401
Reaction score
218
I do not believe I got any desiccant with the cameras, I presume I can buy some small packets and put them in the gap behind the lens?

Where would I put the sealant? where the gasket comes out? I think the gasket is like a rectangular piece of rubber so I would put it along that?

Do I need to wait 30 mins in the hot car for the sealant to dry?

I appreciate your help

Thank you
Buy dessicant packs on Amazon.

Go to Home Depot. This is the best silicone sealant I have found that is UV-grade rated for outdoor use and permanently flexible. It has the stiffness of a rubber gasket like a valve cover gasket and incredibly easy to clean up if you ever have to open it again and clean. It just rips out like a valve cover gasket. Rated up to 400 degrees C and dries within 15 minutes, but needs a full 24-hours to cure and harden.

GE 2.8 oz. Silicone Sealant-GE-57 - The Home Depot
 

J Sigmo

Known around here
Joined
Feb 5, 2018
Messages
997
Reaction score
1,333
I get desiccant directly from DrieRite, in bulk. Best deal ever, but most folks don't need large quantities. Still, as cheap as it is...

As for silicone sealants: If it emits acetic acid when curing, do not use it to seal, or inside of any electronic enclosure. The acetic acid fumes can enter epoxy IC packages where the leads exit, and will corrode the tiny lead bonds where the lead frame is welded to the die.

There are special "electronics-safe" silicone sealants made just for this. And even GE Silicone II sealants are OK, because they emit ammonia when curing. We successfully used Silicone II on PCBs inside of downhole wireline tools to prevent vibration from ripping heavy tantalum capacitors off of the boards.

Just avoid any RTVs that emit acetic acid when curing. You can identify them by the distinctive "vinegar smell" from the acetic acid as they cure.
 
Last edited:
Top