Dead PoE on HDW5231R-ZE

[Fourier]

A couple months ago I purchased a HDW5231R-ZE from empire (who I highly recommend), but I’m a victim of a recent, nearby lightning strike. The PoE no longer works (why couldn’t it have been one of my Lorex cams!). I tested the camera with a 12v power supply and it functions fine, I even updated the firmware to 2017-11.

I guess I’m looking for suggestions as to wether or not I can fix it/troubleshoot it or if it’s not even worth the hassle and I should just look into a power supply since that works.

Basically lightning struck near by and fried my Lorex nvr, Asus router, att gateway, and some other stuff. Luckily everything was replaced for free except the Asus I use for my vpn, but port 1 and 2 still work and I was apple to set port 1 to the WAN. Everything is back up and running and ironically I had a battery backup in my amazon cart when this happened .

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions let me know.

Thanks.
-F

 

[Aengus4h]

depending on the length of the network cable run, you could put the 12V PSU at the switch end and use a passive injector/splitter, saves having to put the PSU up at the camera end.

Not sure how the camera implements PoE, is it internal? It may well be a separate board inside the case but acquiring a repair part may not be simple.

 

[alastairstevenson]

I should just look into a power supply since that works.

A potentially easier solution assuming it's physically feasible, no extra power supply or wiring, might be to place an active POE splitter at the camera end of the cable, to provide the needed 12v DC.

 

[TonyR]

Either solution from @Aengus4h or @alastairstevenson should work.

I'm chiming in to say that it's highly unlikely that a battery backup would have helped, it's more likely the ESD came in through the AT&T gateway via the phone line and traversed the network. That's the preferred entry point around here,

Nearby strikes can traverse CAT-5 in the attic and under eaves, too. Grounded STP with POE surge arrestors may have helped, you'll never really know.

I've also had ESD come in via power company from a nearby strike, go right through a week-old Cyberpower UPS like it was a solid conductor and fry a 65" Sony $K 3D flat screen TV that was NOT plugged into the DirecTV satellite receiver in any way (no HDMI cable).

Not that any of that makes you feel better but I'm just sayin'............beginning in April and ending in October I try my best to unplug all kinds of crap when I know it's coming, every night before bed and every single time I leave the house. Yeah, it's a pain but it's the best insurance.

IMO, formulated after living in NW Alabama and servicing networks and PC's here for the last 15 years is that when it comes to direct hits, there's not a whole lot you can do to prevent ALL damage...too much energy, very fast rise time, too much amplitude to clamp unless you employ the most elaborate and expensive commercial methods (not consumer grade from amazon, wal-mart, best buy, etc.) and even then...it's a crap shoot.

 

[Aengus4h]

agree Tony, a near strike will usually overwhelm most arrestors but better to have them than not really. At least the suppressor will sacrifice itself and maybe reduce some of the damage, tho a direct hit, well its pretty much all toast...

I was in the process of installing suppressors here when we had a load of lightening storms a couple weeks back, just waiting on delivery. Law of sod kicked in of course, took out my fairly new desk phone the day before that suppressor set arrived. No nearby strike but lots of low level sheet, probably induced in the overhead phone lines and back into the phone network. Luckily nothing else affected and amazon shipped a replacement next day, but I now have line suppressors on TV/Satellite cables, phone and DSL on top of the ubiquiti LAN ones on the run down the garden to the shed. Doubt we'd get (m)any near hits where I am but you can never be 100% on that with tall trees and overhead cables around the area.

 

[looney2ns]

I once had a business that was in a structured steel metal building, and a large corn field behind it. And a large parking lot in front of it.
All utilities buried.
1st yr of business, bad thunderstorm. Lightning landed in the field behind the building, according to witness's.

Blew two wall phones off the wall, blew holes in the plates over several wall switches and destroyed the switchs.
Killed an answering machine, and several other pieces of equipment.

I then bought a boat load of triplite isobar surge protectors and put on everything.
Plus a whole building surge protector.
Redid the phone line so it had to run through one of the Isobar's telephone jacks first.

The isobars at the time (25 yrs ago), had a sacrificial little board in them that was the phone line surge portion.
I replaced that part at least once per yr, sometimes twice per yr. for the next 20yrs.

 

[Fourier]

Thanks for the responses guys. Let me add, I did take the camera down last night and connected it to the NVR using a 3ft cable and it still would not power on by means of PoE. So my thinking is that adding a powered splitter or injector closer to the camera wouldn’t work and it’s probably internal circuitry within the camera that got fried? I’m assuming I’d it came down to replace if parts, as I don’t have any donor cams, the power supply directly to the cam is the best option.

Currently all my cams are directly connected to nvr using the supplied by Lorex, 59ft cat5e cable.Sorry, should have included this earlier.

Looney, I love the picture, Christmas vacation with CC is one of my favorite movies . Did the isobars mitigate damage to sensitive equipment after you implemented them?

I’m surprised there isn’t a lightning strike thread yet of all the users’ damage, unless I missed it. Maybe it’s not as common for everyone else seeing as I live in south Florida. I’ll have to learn to share a stream for when the next major hurricsne rolls through.

 

[mat200]

Thanks for the responses guys. Let me add, I did take the camera down last night and connected it to the NVR using a 3ft cable and it still would not power on by means of PoE. So my thinking is that adding a powered splitter or injector closer to the camera wouldn’t work and it’s probably internal circuitry within the camera that got fried? ...

HI Fourier,

W/regard to the power splitter - the idea is to take the PoE ethernet line and still send power down it and then to split it at the camera and put the data through the cameras RJ45 jack and power through the separate barrel connector. ( which still works )

 

[looney2ns]

Yes, the Isobar's did the trick.

 

[Fourier]

Thanks for the clarification, for some reason I thought we were talking about injectors. I’m still relatively new to all this, “power splitter” makes sense now when I read it haha. Believe me, do not want to run a 30’+ foot power supply to this location if I can avoid it’.

Thanks for the suggestion @alastairstevenson and everyone else for the suggestions. I’ll go look on amazon toda and see what they have/cost.

 

[Purduephotog]

A couple months ago I purchased a HDW5231R-ZE from empire (who I highly recommend), but I’m a victim of a recent, nearby lightning strike. The PoE no longer works (why couldn’t it have been one of my Lorex cams!). I tested the camera with a 12v power supply and it functions fine, I even updated the firmware to 2017-11.

I guess I’m looking for suggestions as to wether or not I can fix it/troubleshoot it or if it’s not even worth the hassle and I should just look into a power supply since that works.

Basically lightning struck near by and fried my Lorex nvr, Asus router, att gateway, and some other stuff. Luckily everything was replaced for free except the Asus I use for my vpn, but port 1 and 2 still work and I was apple to set port 1 to the WAN. Everything is back up and running and ironically I had a battery backup in my amazon cart when this happened .

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions let me know.

Thanks.
-F

I've taken a couple of the dahua POE units apart and they are totally replaceable. Assuming you can get the part, it seems pretty standard. Heck, you could probably take it apart and see if it's one of the protection diodes that blew.

 

[alastairstevenson]

I've bought a couple of POE boards off AliExpress for about £1.50 - 38mm square, that seems to be an emergent standard for camera boards, worked fine.

 

[Purduephotog]

I was searching for them, but didn't occur to me to type in the standard (802 af, etc). Whoops.