Help a Newbie out! Question about troubleshooting

Nov 25, 2024
7
2
Chicago, IL
We have a few Dahua cameras installed at our property and one of them stopped working in the app. I was able to get on a ladder and remove the camera to notice that the connections seem EXTREMELY dirty, almost corroded. Is this fixable? I'm a total newb when it comes to this stuff and not sure where to go for help. I attached pictures of the camera.

Thanks in advance for pointing me in the right direction!
 

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Quick question, I actually have a bottle of "CRC QD Electronic Cleaner" in my garage from a few years ago. Its this bottle:

Would this work or is the DeoxIT a much better choice?
 
Okay, so I just put a generous amount over the wires/connectors?
I typically put enough on the terminals on the male side of the plug to cover them, and then plug it in.

@wittaj likes to use a tube per termination. He fills the female side, coats the male side, plugs them together, and then packs more in the backside of the RJ45 than you would find at a Diddy party.
 
Quick question, I actually have a bottle of "CRC QD Electronic Cleaner" in my garage from a few years ago. Its this bottle:

Would this work or is the DeoxIT a much better choice?

Don’t know, you could try it. I swear by deoxit
 
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UPDATE

Well I blasted the contacts with the cleaner I already had (listed above). It looks better but not perfect. However, the camera still doesn't work. So I ordered a bottle of the deoxit from Amazon. It says it wont get here for almost two weeks though!
 
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At this point cut off the connector and put a new one and see if it works. Nothing to lose at this point.

And if it comes on, dielectric grease the $#!+ out of it and waterproof it!
 
Pin 2 is dead, You will need to remove the end and replace with either another socket or do as some others will do and just add to a normal RJ45 connector and then use a pass-through as it is most times a cheaper option. Not that you have other cameras just laying around that might be dead in the same format, But another option is to change out the GUTS to another camera housing that don't have damaged port but might have a damaged camera caused by FW or hardware malfunction. One of the reasons I buy some of the FW damaged Cameras in my most used type of format in case this ever happens I can just swap out without having to cut off the end and add in another..
 
I've had some success with using a small toothbrush and contact cleaner inside the camera's rj45 socket, and/or scraping the individual pins with a jeweler's screwdriver. If you resort to cutting off the camera's socket, leave a little bit of cable on the end so you can ohm out which color wire goes to which pin. Another possibility, it has happened to others, is that the POE circuitry inside the camera is burned out but the camera will still work with its 12 volt power input. You'll have to figure out to determine that if need be. Of all the nasty contact pipctures I've seen, this is about the worst. I've had the same problem a couple of times, and the connector wasn't anywhere near that ugly.
 
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...Of all the nasty contact pipctures I've seen, this is about the worst. I've had the same problem a couple of times, and the connector wasn't anywhere near that ugly.
Yeah, I wouldn't even bother trying to clean that up. Just cut it off and replace. Do the cable/male side first. Maybe you'll get lucky and won't have to do the female. Even if you do, replacing with an RJ45 isn't hard.