Junction Box or No Junction Box

[rzkman]

Hi all,

Greetings from Melbourne, Australia. Apologies if this has been asked before. My first post here, so please be gentle.

I am looking at installing same wall mounted cameras at the front of my house. Most will be going to fascia boards at the front of the house/garage.

I have had one local installer come out to give a quote. He has suggested some HikVision turret cameras for my installation. He told me that the turret bases have more room to work with and there is no need for a mount/junction box to save me some money.
I have also been look at Andy's stuff from EmpireTech which are also turret design but Andy is suggesting to get the junction boxes saying installers think they are more work.

So I am confused. Are there benefits for junction boxes? As these are visible from the street my preference is to minimise their bulk. If I don't need the junction boxes I would prefer to do without.

Do they make it more waterproof? Maybe the Dahua turrets have less space to work with than the HikVisions? Would appreciate any insight.

Cheers,
Ray

 

[WhoKilledBambi]

From my limited knowledge and coming from the same reflexion last week, i ordered the turrets and the junction boxes. The downside is its a little bulkier but not by much and you get more waterproofing and a small hole in your house.

Bottom line is i ordered 4 cameras and the 4 junction boxes were about 50$...worst case scenario i don't use them.

Junction box

Wall mount

 

[aristobrat]

IMO, there is not enough room behind Dahua cameras to store the waterproof Ethernet connector between the camera and the outside of the fascia board. With no junction box, the usual install method is to drill a larger 3/4” hole through the wall, push the water proof Ethernet connector into the wall, then maybe seal the hole (because once the larger waterproof Ethernet connection has been pushed through, only a skinny 3/8” Ethernet cable will be coming out of a relatively large hole). If you get a junction box, as mentioned above, you only need to drill a skinny 3/8” hole in the fascia board and pull an unterminated Ethernet cable through it. The junction box will have plenty of room to hold the cameras waterproof Ethernet connector.

 

[mat200]

Hi all,

Greetings from Melbourne, Australia. Apologies if this has been asked before. My first post here, so please be gentle.

I am looking at installing same wall mounted cameras at the front of my house. Most will be going to fascia boards at the front of the house/garage.

I have had one local installer come out to give a quote. He has suggested some HikVision turret cameras for my installation. He told me that the turret bases have more room to work with and there is no need for a mount/junction box to save me some money.
I have also been look at Andy's stuff from EmpireTech which are also turret design but Andy is suggesting to get the junction boxes saying installers think they are more work.

So I am confused. Are there benefits for junction boxes? As these are visible from the street my preference is to minimise their bulk. If I don't need the junction boxes I would prefer to do without.

Do they make it more waterproof? Maybe the Dahua turrets have less space to work with than the HikVisions? Would appreciate any insight.

Cheers,
Ray

Welcome Ray,

I concur with aristobrat and whokilledbambi. Also in my experience there is not enough room behind a turret model to store the "pigtail" connection.

 

[IAmATeaf]

I mounted all my cameras with a junction box, even ones where I could have got away without one but as mentioned above you’d need to make a larger hole as there is definitely not enough room to store the cables behind the cam without the box.

 

[TonyR]

And I concur with mat200, aristobrat and whokilledbambi.
Essentially, it boils down to this (IMO):

• 3/8" hole for un-terminated cable = box or bracket
• 3/4" hole for pigtail = no box or bracket

 

[rzkman]

Thank you all for your valuable feedback. Looks like junction boxes are the way to go! Cheers!

 

[IAmATeaf]

The other advantage is that using a box stands the camera a further inch away from the wall which can give you a perspective advantage.