Hikvision with possible water ingress in the connector

[camkeke]

Hello!

I have a Hikvision I installed with a friend, one of the ColorVue models. Over the weekend with heavy rains it went offline in the evening and never came back. Now it only briefly springs back to life if I adjust link negotiation for the ethernet port to 10Mbps Full Duplex (yes...), everything else fails. The camera is still not responsive but packets show up at the router at least.

This makes me think the connector got water in it and it might have corroded finally (PoE will speed this up a notch once the water hits the connector pins).

Anyone else had similar experiences?

The junction box is a DS-1280ZJ-DM21. Will it fit any Dahua camera by chance?

Thank you all!

 

[TonyR]

This is a quick copy & paste from a Nov. of '22 thread that I replied to, it has some good links. If you haven't already done so, this below is my suggestion to try and clean the female RJ-45 on the cam's pigtail:

I would recommend replacing the RJ-45 male at the camera end first, as you can inspect the connector for corrosion when you unplug it.​

If you find corrosion, install and test a new male RJ-45 and clean the female on the cam's pigtail with DeoxIT D5 then after testing, follow this procedure for weather-proofing the connection.​

 

[camkeke]

Hey,

The camera was fine. The problem was a CAT6 coupler inside a box. Even if the contacts seem OK after cleaning and removing dust, inside it was a goner. So, note for everyone: if you use couplers, wrap them in self fusing tape...
I will get a PoE passthrough switch when my friend can help get it installed. The coupler was there as a temporary solution but that's what we always say, right?...

Camera connectors were water tight, junction box was also completely dry. Hikvision and Dahua definitely make stuff that will last even in places that get lots of thunder storms and heavy rain. Not sure about direct heat.

 

[mat200]

Hey,

The camera was fine. The problem was a CAT6 coupler inside a box. Even if the contacts seem OK after cleaning and removing dust, inside it was a goner. So, note for everyone: if you use couplers, wrap them in self fusing tape...
I will get a PoE passthrough switch when my friend can help get it installed. The coupler was there as a temporary solution but that's what we always say, right?...

Camera connectors were water tight, junction box was also completely dry. Hikvision and Dahua definitely make stuff that will last even in places that get lots of thunder storms and heavy rain. Not sure about direct heat.

Hi @camkeke

Did you remember the di-electric gel ?

Was the cabling ( cat5e/6 ) coming out of the wall / attic .. or was it surface mounted?

 

[camkeke]

Hi @mat200 !

All cabling is inside hard tubing (PVC, outdoor rated), surface mounted, and it goes inside a screw on tight seal cap in the junction box. The box with the ingress and the coupler is sitting several feet under, under cover, but the water trickled down and there was no drip loop there, so it went straight into the connectors. The connectors are gold plated, so they were like new. I used dielectric contact cleaner and IPA, no gel because we had none and it was urgent to fix it. The self fusing tape though won't play well with gel. I can recommend cable "goo", either the liquid tape type, or the one used by hamradio ops, which is similar to bubble gum.

And lots of dead bugs inside the lower box.... we sprayed it with a coat of long term insecticide for crawling bugs.

Hope this helps. The lesson is do not trust Cat6 couplers. These were not Aliexpress ones, but it won't matter. Maybe the PCB type is OK, but you still need to coat it with something like urethane conformal coating and if the pins aren't gold plated it won't make a big difference anyway.