External mount best practices/sanity check

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Jul 23, 2024
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Chicago
Hi all, I'm in the process of upgrading my external cameras: three Hikvision DS-2CD2132F dome cameras. These have worked well, nothing wrong with them, other than I have the upgrade bug. I've already replaced the one on our front porch with the IPC-B54IR-ZE-S3 (bullet-style). Huge upgrade!

For the other two, I had questions about mounting best practices:

One is for our driveway, currently mounted vertically to the piece of wood that runs along the width of the garage door. I am leaning towards replacing this with the turret-style IPC-T54IR-AS-S3. The current Hikvision dome is direct-mounted, as there is ample room inside the garage for the wire bundle. In other words, when I installed the Hikvision years ago, I basically cut a hole in the wood board that runs above the garage door; the hole is big enough for the wire bundle to pass through. The dome camera's mounting plate was directly screwed to that same wood board. I then put a thick line of silicone caulk around the camera base, where it mates to the wood. It looks like I should basically be able to do the same thing with the new turret-style camera. Is this the best approach? Or should I consider another mechanism? The only real problem I have with the current system is I used clear caulk for the camera body-house junction, and now it looks pretty ugly.

The other is for our back porch, mounted to a Hikvision-specific bracket, which in turn is mounted directly to the house's siding (concrete fiberboard, e.g. Hardie board). For this, I was thinking I could either use a bullet-style camera (like I put in the front porch), or a turret-style. This will need some kind of box to hold the excess cables, since the hole for the ethernet cable is just big enough for it only (i.e. no room to cram the camera's extra wires). I'm leaning towards turret-style, as I assume they are much lighter in weight than a bullet style. And since I'm screwing directly into the siding, I want to minimize the strain. So it seems like most similar to what I have now would be T54IR with the PFB205W-E wall mount bracket. Is this a reasonable camera and mounting solution? Or are there better alternatives?

Thanks!
 
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