Powering illuminator off of POE camera?

Nov 18, 2020
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1
United States
Is there a way to piggy back off an ipcamera's (loryta/ipc 5542tm) POE power to power a 12v IR illuminator? Seems like most splitters take POE IN and then 12v dc out and non-poe ethernet out. If not how is everyone powering them? All I can come up with is an 12v power supply and a lot of 12-14awg wire.
 
You need to use a splitter and "Y" cable or run a separate cable.




And in case you were wondering, no you cannot use the 12VDC cable from the camera to power the IR. It is not designed that way and you will probably blow out the camera board. Maybe not immediately, maybe a few days from now or next week or next month. Just not worth as there are other ways.

The camera is designed to accept power from either the ethernet cable or the 12v cable, but not provide power from one to the other.

Now if you take a reading on the 12v, you will see some voltage (most see like 11.5v or so), but what you're reading is voltage leaking through the diode that is there to prevent drawing power from that connector and would fail under load. The PoE converter in the camera is designed to support the camera only and no external devices.

We have seen a few guys that have opened up a camera and bypassed things to get 12VDC out on that connector, but I would not suggest doing that and risk overloading and ultimately blowing the PoE board in the camera and then you are stuck with a bad camera.
 
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You need to use a splitter and "Y" cable or run a separate cable.




And in case you were wondering, no you cannot use the 12VDC cable from the camera to power the IR. It is not designed that way and you will probably blow out the camera board. Maybe not immediately, maybe a few days from now or next week or next month. Just not worth as there are other ways.

The camera is designed to accept power from either the ethernet cable or the 12v cable, but not provide power from one to the other.

Now if you take a reading on the 12v, you will see some voltage (most see like 11.5v or so), but what you're reading is voltage leaking through the diode that is there to prevent drawing power from that connector and would fail under load. The PoE converter in the camera is designed to support the camera only and no external devices.

We have seen a few guys that have opened up a camera and bypassed things to get 12VDC out on that connector, but I would not suggest doing that and risk overloading and ultimately blowing the PoE board in the camera and then you are stuck with a bad camera.


Do any of those splitters actually provide POE out in additiion to 12v out? The few I looked into that were near identical the Q&A section said that they simply isolate the 12v from ethernet rather than provide 12v out and POE out.
 
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No they don't that is why you need the splitter and the Y cable.

The splitter pulls out the power and then data only on ethernet.

Then the Y cable allows you to provide 12VDC to the camera and the illuminator.

So you end up having the ethernet cable in the camera for the data and you use the 12VDC from the Y cable to power the camera and then the other cable from the Y to power the illuminator.
 
No they don't that is why you need the splitter and the Y cable.

The splitter pulls out the power and then data only on ethernet.

Then the Y cable allows you to provide 12VDC to the camera and the illuminator.

So you end up having the ethernet cable in the camera for the data and you use the 12VDC from the Y cable to power the camera and then the other cable from the Y to power the illuminator.

gotchya, thanks
 
Is there a way to piggy back off an ipcamera's POE power to power a 12v illuminator?

Dahua camera mod to power external IR light

I'm running illuminators off of a bunch of 5442tm-as. To access the blocking diode you have to split the camera open, then remove the circuit board with the actual camera. The diode is on the camera side of the board. I'll highlight two things: (1) Risk of ruining the camera, and (2) 4 watts maximum 12 volt load. I've modded about 20 camera this way and haven't broken one...yet. Now that I said that I'll probably fry the next one,

Do any of those splitters actually provide POE out in additiion to 12v out?

They exist. Cost more. One example:
 
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Is there a way to piggy back off an ipcamera's POE power to power a 12v illuminator?

Dahua camera mod to power external IR light

I'm running illuminators off of a bunch of 5442tm-as. To access the blocking diode you have to split the camera open, then remove the circuit board with the actual camera. The diode is on the camera side of the board. I'll highlight two things: (1) Risk of ruining the camera, and (2) 4 watts maximum 12 volt load. I've modded about 20 camera this way and haven't broken one...yet. Now that I said that I'll probably fry the next one,

Do any of those splitters actually provide POE out in additiion to 12v out?

They exist. Cost more. One example:

Pardon my curiosity. Why go to the trouble of opening a camera and modifying it while running the risk of flying the camera when a POE splitter and DC y-cable would do the same job without anywhere near the risk nor the trouble.

Not a criticism.
 
Pardon my curiosity. Why go to the trouble of opening a camera and modifying it while running the risk of flying the camera when a POE splitter and DC y-cable would do the same job without anywhere near the risk nor the trouble.
It gets rid of the rats nest of wiring involved when using the POE splitter and Y cable. With the POE splitters I've seen it's impossible to waterproof its RJ45 connections, so it needs to be in a waterproof box or otherwise sheltered. When using the camera to power the illuminator there's just the RJ45 connection to the camera and the power connection to the illuminator, both easily weather protected without a box. If you are already using junction boxes this all might be moot. All of my cameras are mounted without j-boxes.
 
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It gets rid of the rats nest of wiring involved when using the POE splitter and Y cable. With the POE splitters I've seen it's impossible to waterproof its RJ45 connections, so it needs to be in a waterproof box or otherwise sheltered. When using the camera to power the illuminator there's just the RJ45 connection to the camera and the power connection to the illuminator, both easily weather protected without a box. If you are already using junction boxes this all might be moot. All of my cameras are mounted without j-boxes.

Got it. I use boxes so I don't mind the wiring.
 
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