Dahua keeps rebooting

[NLAnaconda]

Hi,

I'm building an offgrid wildcam. For this I use a 110Ah 12V deep cycle battery, a 4G modem and a camera.

This is the setup:




Now what happens is that the Dahua webcam keeps (what I think) rebooting. I can see it is comming online in the router and then after 30 secons or so it disappears again. Then a minute later it comes back online and 30 seconds later it disappears, etc, etc.

I have absolutely no idea why this happens. I can only think it receives not enough power or something like that. But that is not really possible.
The battery can provide 720A (which is never used ofcourse, but it can start cars). The 12V stabilizer has a max of 5A. But the camera uses max 3A and the router not even 1A. So that could also not limit the power supply.

When I power on the camera it starts with it "startup sequence". For what I know it should rotate on all axis, but it is not doing that. It is moving small portions. Then it stops... waits... and does it all over again.

I previously used the Foscam FI9928P for this wildcam and that worked without problems. The Foscam has a max rating of 2A. So I think.. would that 1 extra Amp be the difference?

Do you guys have any idea what this could be? Should I remove the voltage stabilizer and power it directly from the battery (12.8V) to see if the stabilizer is the problem?

Hope someone can help me. The camera is connected with a 100Mbit UTP cable.

 

[tigerwillow1]

I think removing the stabilizer temporarily for problem isolation is a good first step.

 

[NLAnaconda]

Well. It was the stabilizer. It now works.

 

[NLAnaconda]

Well. It was not the problem.

The cam worked whole day pretty good. But sometimes it kept going offline for a minute.

Now I have tried some things and when I set IR to it's brightest it reboots. But WHYYYY.

Edit: It looks like it is completely random. It now happend while doing nothing.

 

[sebastiantombs]

What wire size and how long is it from the battery to the camera?

Have you monitored voltage at the camera as it boots to see what it is doing?

 

[NLAnaconda]

I found something weird in the logs. Have seen it a couple times but to isolate it I cleared whole log and waited till it occured again. And the Log has an "Abort" entry, and then a "Startup" entry.

 

[NLAnaconda]

@sebastiantombs Wire is 80m. 1.5mm outdoor cable.

YMvK-mb cable 2X1,5.

It is hard for me to believe it is power related. As I have run 3 weeks with another Foscam camera without any reboot or downtime.

 

[sebastiantombs]

it may be hard to believe, but it is worth checking the voltage as the camera boots. Your wire, even though a little long for a DC circuit, shouldn't be the problem, but something has changed along with or during the camera change. Remember we're talking DC here so the total length is actually well over 500 feet.

Did you bench test the camera prior to installing it and using external power rather than PoE? A day or two of bench test is always a good idea, even if installing somewhere that isn't remote.

Just a guess, but I'd say the "abort" message is happening when power drops too low.

 

[Old Timer]

I would look closely at the voltage. I have seen marginal voltage that drops when the camera boots,
or when it changes from day to night and the voltage drops below the minimum for the camera.

 

[NLAnaconda]

@sebastiantombs thanks. Well maybe but I'm not aware of it. It even uses the same barrel connector haha.

But what is important to measure? To see if a voltage drop occurs on the wires that go to the camera?
The battery is currently giving 12.8 volts. But I will try with a multimeter tomorrow if that drops while it is booting.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Look at voltage at the camera, right at the barrel connector. Be careful when doing that those terminals are kind of tiny. Test prods, spring hook style, would be a good choice to get a good and safe connection to the meter.

Another thing to check is how clean is the barrel connector? Any moisture will cause corrosion and increased resistance which can makes things like this happen. Use some dielectric grease, quality electrical tape and a rubberized self-amalgamating tape on both the DC connector and RJ connector. In an unheated environment condensation can happen inside those connectors quite easily.

 

[NLAnaconda]

There is currently a barrel connector splitter between the microphone power barrel and the camera barrel. Can I detach the audio and use the multimeter on it while the camera is booting?

 

[sebastiantombs]

Yes, you can.

Now you mention that splitter, what it is rated at? I'll bet your failure point is there. Personally, I'd just get two cables with appropriate barrel connectors and wire them directly to your incoming 12VDC line. Why over complicate it with a splitter? I'll also bet if you measure the voltage drop between the positive side coming into the splitter and the positive side going to the camera you'll see a significant drop as the load goes up.

You answered as I was editing and said it came from Foscam. That alone makes me wonder about its' quality. What gauge wire is coming out of it? Bet it's 20 gauge or smaller.

 

[NLAnaconda]

What do you mean with rated at? It is just a passive splitter(?). It has 1 barrel connector and splits it to two barrel connectors.
It came with the Foscam microphone: Outdoor microphone for IP cameras

It is labeled as the "Power Y cable"

 

[tigerwillow1]

Lots of good suggestions here. You need good data to isolate problems, and measuring voltage at the camera gives valuable data. My POE switch reports power consumption and I've noted that camera bootup power peaks are higher than steady running power. The steady running power varies quite a bit too. I have a bunch of the splitter cables, some of which I've cut for various reasons. The wire size in some if pretty dang small.

 

[NLAnaconda]

I soooo hope it is that splitter. That would be the easiest . It is here at night and that camera is in the middle of the forest surrounded by 40cm snow right now. Otherwise I would go there now immediately . Have to be patient. Please let it be the splitter.
There is nothing else in between now.

There is a
110AH 12v rated 720A battery (fully charged) -> 80m, 1.5mm2 wire -> Barrel splitter -> Camera.

I never thought that barrel splitter might be the problem but yes, that is the last thing I can remove.
On the other hand, that splitter was there also when the Foscam was active. Although that camera uses max 2A, and the new camera 3A.

 

[Old Timer]

Your battery should be up around 14.0 volts when fully charged. Some chargers will take it all
the way to 14.5 volts. Depending on the type of battery, most should not go much below 12.0 volts.
Some deep cycle batteries will go down to 11.0 volts.

 

[NLAnaconda]

No, I replace the battery when it is 12.2 volts. But that should still be enough to run 12v cam. I had a 12v stabilizer between it, and it outputted 12.1v steady, it didn't matter if the battery was 13v or 12v. But I removed it to see if that thing was the problem. Only thing left is the barrel splitter

 

[wittaj]

Is there an SD card in the camera? Mine gets wonky when the card gets full and the CPU is trying to auto track and zoom and move and figure out what to erase on the card to record and one of my cams would do that weird reboot.

If you have a memory card in it, reformat it and that should fix it.

 

[NLAnaconda]

No, I don't have an SD card