Point taken. For the small difference in price, buying a US made power supply might be a better option. Had I known when purchasing, I would have likely done that.
PoE Splitter/Adapter of choice to power IR illuminator?
- Thread starter 105437
- Start date
Matters not, because the next iteration you’ll do just that!
The same with how you learned and iterated your network to a proven wiring topology in using a dedicated multi channel PSU. 
The reality is in most cases in 2021 it’s really hard to buy anything truly shitty! The Chinese are using proven electrical designs and the only compromise is the quality of components and if it’s tested to a minimum standard of safety.
You can perform a simple test right now! Again this doesn’t mean the PSU won’t power your equipment it simply means the price is reflective of the longevity, consistency, and margin of error.
Take a fluorescent tube and AM / FM radio with an antenna. Turn on both and place it 50 feet from the PSU line of sight.
Tune the radio to a clear AM channel and note the amount of back ground noise / hiss / etc. Watch the tube light and insure it’s been up and running for at least 30 minutes.
Now, go turn on the PSU . . .
If you see and hear anything this shows you empirically there’s RFI / EMI radiated from the same. Don’t see or hear anything at 50 feet?
Good, move closer at defined increments until you do. If you don’t see or hear anything while you’re literally next to the PSU - You Win!
This simply affirms the hardware you purchased regardless of the safety and standards markings is based on proven and well established designs and you were able to select such a unicorn beast!
Rock On . . .
Last edited:
Yes, I tried a different PoE port on a different switch and no luck. I have not tried a different camera at the endpoint.
Do you have the camera's internal IR shut off? I'm running about 10 Dahua cams with 4 watt illuminators on 802.3.af ports with no issues. I'll qualify the "no issues" with one thing. A few of the cameras cycle their internal IR on bootup. If a camera resets in the dark when the external IR is active, the port can overload during the boot sequence, causing a reboot, causing an overload,..... Happens to me maybe once a year on one camera.
This run is to my mailbox and is ~400'. The are several connections along the way from the Unifi PoE switch.
Here's how it lays out...
Unifi PoE switch Cat6 -> Keystone at house dmarc -> Cat6 to GPeR Poe Extender at dmarc -> Cat 6 to mailbox Active Splitter -> Active Spliter data cable to camera -> Active Splitter barrel power cable to Y Splitter -> One Y to camera for power -> Other Y to IR.
Here's how it lays out...
Unifi PoE switch Cat6 -> Keystone at house dmarc -> Cat6 to GPeR Poe Extender at dmarc -> Cat 6 to mailbox Active Splitter -> Active Spliter data cable to camera -> Active Splitter barrel power cable to Y Splitter -> One Y to camera for power -> Other Y to IR.
Initially internal IR was disabled. After an hour or so I turned on Smart IR to see how that changed the available light once it got dark. An hour later is when the camera dropped off line.
Wow, you've got a bunch of potential issues there with the cable length and number of connectors. You will lose some power just from the cable length. If I crunched the numbers right it's about a half watt, no bigge by itself. Looks like about 8 connectors in the run, each of those will have some power loss, plus the extender will draw some power (spec sheet says 2 watts max). My own experience with electrical gadgets is that the majority of failures occur at connections, so I try to minimize them. Some people go for neatness with a patch panel between the POE switch and cable run to the camera. I go for reliability and plug the run to the camera straight into the switch. In your situation I'd start by just undoing and redoing each connector a few times. After that, maybe bypassing individual cable runs and connectors to isolate what is hopefully a single problem. I have a couple hundred foot spare cat6 with RJ45s for temporary runs and troubleshooting, and with gadgets like the POE splitters I always keeps a spare for troubleshooting.
Appreciate the reply @tigerwillow1, I think you're right and that there are just too many connections in this long run. I was hoping to add our light to the area since it is a very, very dark area. It just may not be possible. I'm going to try to go through all of the connections again and see if I can get it up and running. If I can get it running, I'm going to disable the camera IR first thing.
biggen
Known around here
- May 6, 2018
- 2,688
- 3,060
That should rule out a faulty switch port then. So its looking like a cable or camera issue to me.
TheWaterbug
Getting comfortable
With some cameras you can power an external IR illuminator directly from the camera's 12 V input port, but you have to bypass an internal diode to make it work. Here's how it works on an Amcrest IP5M-B1186EW-28MM:
Explanation: there are two 12 V inputs on circuit board, one from the external 12 V barrel connector and one from the POE circuit. They're connected together before they go into the camera, because the camera doesn't care which one is supplying the power, but there is a diode (essentially a one-way valve) on path to the external barrel connector, to prevent us doing exactly this. So by bypassing or removing that diode, it will connect that barrel connector directly to the power from the POE circuit, turning that 12 V input into a 12 V output. Then all you need is a 2.1mm cable with the correct gendering.
I have done this on several Amcrest cameras, successfully. I'd guess that most Dahua or Dahua OEMed cameras would work as well.
Explanation: there are two 12 V inputs on circuit board, one from the external 12 V barrel connector and one from the POE circuit. They're connected together before they go into the camera, because the camera doesn't care which one is supplying the power, but there is a diode (essentially a one-way valve) on path to the external barrel connector, to prevent us doing exactly this. So by bypassing or removing that diode, it will connect that barrel connector directly to the power from the POE circuit, turning that 12 V input into a 12 V output. Then all you need is a 2.1mm cable with the correct gendering.
I have done this on several Amcrest cameras, successfully. I'd guess that most Dahua or Dahua OEMed cameras would work as well.
I've bypassed the diode on about 5 different dahua models. With each new generation of camera the geometries are smaller and the job gets more difficult and risky. On the 5442 zoom the diode isn't much bigger than my iron tip. With all of them, a 4 watt load is the max they can reasonably support. It's nice getting rid of all the extra cables and splitters out at the camera.
So I've been doing a little testing this afternoon. I took another camera which is the exact same model (Dahua 5231) and firmware down to the location and it worked as expected and powered the IR with no dropped packets while doing a persistent ping. I'm not sure what it means, but perhaps the other camera has some sort of a slight difference.
sebastiantombs
Known around here
sebastiantombs
Known around here
Have you tried a factory reset on the problem camera? If not I'd suggest two or three consecutive resets just to be sure.
Good thing you have another camera. Troubleshooting gets pretty difficult when you aren't able to swap out every component if you have to. Now it's down to figuring out what's different about the cameras. You could compare every setting between the two.
sebastiantombs
Known around here
Another thing to consider doing is to run the camera on a test bringing it inside and using a known good cable.
I actually spent several minutes going through all of the settings and I didn't find any difference. Would be a GREAT tool if someone could find a way to export the settings to a file for easy review!
Right now, I'm running that camera on a 100' run from PoE switch to keystone at the dmarc. So far, no dropped packets and working fine.