Dahua 5231 owners - PFA130-E or PFA137

[J Sigmo]

I had a heck of a time mounting this junction box (PFA130) with my 5231's.

The problem is not necessary that it's complicated, it's just difficult to juggle the camera and wire dangling while screwing in the mount and it cannot be put together beforehand as all screws in the base layer are covered by the second layer. I also found it difficult to stuff the connector and wire through that small hole and into the junction box and had to partially disassemble it (slide the mount bottom cover off to the side, stuff the connector through the hole then slide the cover back over the wires). There's a lot of wire/connector to fit in that tiny space and through that tiny hole at an angle. I'll have to get back in there and reorganize everything when I've got more time.

To be fair, I was in a bit of a hurry- but there's got to be an easier way.

Did anyone else have a difficult time putting one of these on a horizontal (soffit) wall and mounting the camera? Any suggestions?

My suggestion is to use the PFA-122 boxes for all of the reasons you have mentioned. I'm not sure if you saw my post above showing how the PFA-122 works.

I usually run cable with a lot of slack, so when installing the crimped ends, I can do things in relative comfort, as I do the crimping. After things are assembled, I just shove the extra cable back up into the soffet. Cable is cheap. Falling off of a ladder isn't.

With the PFA-122, the pedestal of the camera doesn't cover the mounting screws of the box, which allows you to pre-assemble the camera to the "cover" of the box and make up all of the connections with plenty of slack. And that makes mounting the camera, or working on the connections later, quite easy. Again, I just shove the spare cable back up into the soffets at my place. There's tons of room there.

I drill the holes in the soffit plenty big because the PFA-122 seals to the soffit and to the camera end of its cable. So no additional seals are needed. Again, this makes installation and later work easy.

These PFA-122s are what I'll use in the future for any of the turret cameras that they fit. They're a bit expensive, but they really make for a clean, easy installation.