Amcrest dies after switching to IR?

R

rmp5s

n3wb
Aug 10, 2019
3
0
phoenix, az
Good evening!!

I have an Amcrest PoE camera that's been up and running perfectly for quite a long time now (5 years?) and has always been rock solid. It's my "main" camera on the front of my house.

Last night, I noticed it was down...it'd be down, pop up for a split second, disconnect again a split second later, on and on. So, all day today, I've been keeping an eye on it and it's been fine. Then, tonight, as soon as it started getting dark and it switched over to IR, it started doing the weirdness again.

All other cameras are perfect.

What would make a camera suddenly loose connection (can't log into it or anything) as soon as it goes to IR?
 
Sounds like potentially corrosion on the connectors, even if you can't see it. The IR needs more power and there might be enough corrosion to drop it just enough and restart. Get some deoxit and bring it back to life.

Did you use dielectric grease and other waterproofing methods (the slip on cover isn't waterproof).

Or your power source is failing and when the IR power demand comes on, it can't keep up and restarts.
 
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wittaj said:
Sounds like potentially corrosion on the connectors, even if you can't see it. The IR needs more power and there might be enough corrosion to drop it just enough and restart. Get some deoxit and bring it back to life.

Did you use dielectric grease and other waterproofing methods (the slip on cover isn't waterproof).

Or your power source is failing and when the IR power demand comes on, it can't keep up and restarts.
Click to expand...

Very interesting! Could be. It's quite dry here (Phoenix) but definitely, over the years...could add up.

Deoxit...I'll have to look into it. Never heard of it! Not sure what I'd be deox-ing, either. Hahaha

Nope. No grease. Just keep it out of the rain...the relatively little bit of rain we get here...

Doubt it's power source...got a pretty good PoE switch. Interesting to hear how IR draws more power, though. I have a camera that has always ONLY worked under IR...the thing has only EVER worked at night. Very interesting.
 
Adding to the discussion, my "ordinary" cameras typically use about 4 watts with IR off and 8 watts with IR on. I use external IR illuminators and can see the same problem as you are when for some reason the camera is rebooted in the dark. Some of the cameras cycle the IR light as part of the boot process, and when doing this while the external illuminators are on, the switch port overloads and shuts down. Then the port restarts, the camera restarts, and overloads the port again when it cycles its IR emitters. Endless loop until morning when the external illuminators turn off, and the camera completes its reboot.

You obviously don't have the same cause, but the same or similar behavior. Two posts above suggests the two obvious causes, and I'll add that it could be some camera failure where it's drawing too much power. I have a managed switch that reports port power, that helps a lot with the debugging. For isolation, can you temporarily swap another camera at the end of the wire, and/or bring the camera inside and connect it with a short patch cord, and/or try a different switch port? Most ports have a POE power LED. Does it cycle on and off with the camera?
 
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Heat and Power sags and spikes can play hell with electronic circuit boards as well.
Just like Nvidia video cards in laptops not too many years back. the solder on the circuit board would soften and harden in cycles in extreme heat and make glitchy, intermittent, connections and frustrating misbehavior. Mass produced electronics can have reliability variability in different conditions.
Amcrest cams are pretty inexpensive, I have installed about 10 of them. The 2 that run IR at night in the back porch and garage are roughly about 2 years old. They don't see Arizona heat though.

The Dahua/ Empire Tech Cams( 2 5442's and the 5241 Z-12) I installed in 2020-2021 are outside in full south facing Sun, They get baked in Summer and frozen to -15-18 F in Winter with rain and snow and wind. They are hanging tough.
2 of them use IR. One is on a forced Night setting with IR-24/7 for plate capture.
 
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