Waterproof Junction for 4 strings of POE?

[TheWaterbug]

Well, my fake rock is good at looking like a rock:


but it's also good at holding in moisture. After our wet winter, 2 of my cameras stopped working. After troubleshooting everything else ‍, I pulled up the rock, and it's soaking wet underneath:



So I have 4 strings of Cat5e coming up out of some conduit, and I made the mistake of punching those down into two of these basic 2-port, surface mount boxes that do nothing to protect the circuits.



Then I have 4 short cables plugged into those boxes and running up the mailbox post to power the cameras. I'm actually surprised that the remaining 2 cameras are working.

What's a good solution for junctioning 4 cables down there? Originally I used those boxes because I want to be able to easily disconnect/reconnect/test/reconfigure things out by the mailbox, but it turns out that was a bad idea.

I could re-terminate everything with 4 of these couplers:



but then ideally I'd need way to mount them to that wood block, just to keep them from descending all the way into the mud.

Any other good ideas?

Thanks!

 

[mat200]

Lookup French drain ...

I would take a home depot bucket and cut out the bottom .. French drain to one of the hole in the brick work .. put the bucket on top of that with smaller rocks .. thinking French drain bucket bottom .. and have the wiring at the top of that with the bucket there ..

This inaddition to the usual dielectric gel and coax seal ..

Too bad cables so short .. otherwise I prefer to terminate above ground .. in this case a box under the mail box would have been nice

 

[tigerwillow1]

When I have more than 2 wires I use a waterproof plastic junction box and very carefully make tight-fitting mouse-hole-shaped wire entry holes in the box body just below the lid, and grease around the wire entry points so the grease seals the tiny airspace between the wire and the box lid. Also, try to have the entry holes all pointing down. If the box isn't 100% moisture sealed, water will make its way in. Same with the couplers. Use a little grease at the wire entry points and where the shell covers mate. I have a few junctions in below-ground boxes and have learned the hard way.

 

[slidermike]

Yep amazon has several outdoor rated boxes for this sort of case.
They come in various sizes.
This one could be mounted to the backside of the mailbox post and run the wires/gear up into it.
Waterproof Junction Box

 

[tangent]

If you can fit a NEMA junction box of some kind inside the rock or mount it to the post, that would be a good option. For insurance, I'd put some desiccant inside the box.

Use dielectric grease at all of your connections. In this case it would have been better to just run the cables straight to the cameras. I was thinking you had something like a PoE switch in the rock.

 

[ludshed]

Maybe just drop a pano in and power from inside?

 

[looney2ns]

Dielectric grease ALWAYS in any outdoor Rj45 connections.
You have some sketchy looking crimps on the RJ45's, that aren't properly terminated.
You have too much untwisted wire exposed at the back of the RJ45.

 

[tangent]

You have too much untwisted wire exposed at the back of the RJ45.

Agreed. I sometimes put a squirt of silicone adhesive in the RJ45 plug before I crimp it, dielectric grease works here too (kind of like a scotchlok connector).