Waterproof Junction for 4 strings of POE?

TheWaterbug

TheWaterbug

Getting comfortable
Oct 20, 2017
946
1,954
Palos Verdes
Well, my fake rock is good at looking like a rock:
1712536269125.png

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:

1712536326229.jpeg

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.

1712536678117.png

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:

1712536824508.png

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!
 
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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
 
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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.
 
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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
 
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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.
 
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I've had good luck with Flex Tape (at Home Depot).
It's a sticky tape so first I wrap all external connectors with saran wrap, then completely cover it with the Flex Tape and zip tie them tightly. I've also used it to seal all gaps on my ipcams after mounting and also used the spray version on a couple of IR illuminators - anything exposed to rain/moisture.
1716789771602.png
 
Put some plastic or edpm shower pan around the conduit below the wires and mound the dirt to get water to move away from the wires toward the edges. Drill vent holes in the rock.
 
mat200 said:
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
Click to expand...
I actually have more than enough cable slack to do that, but I was trying to hide this installation as much as possible, which was the motivation for the fake rock!
 
tangent said:
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.
Click to expand...
Originally I did have a POE-powered POE switch in there, but then I changed things around and took it out.

But now I might put the POE switch back in there and mount attempt some casual LPR from the adjacent tree.
 
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TheWaterbug said:
Originally I did have a POE-powered POE switch in there, but then I changed things around and took it out.

But now I might put the POE switch back in there and mount attempt some casual LPR from the adjacent tree.
Click to expand...
You can try something like this

PoE extender and two cams on 1 wire

I'm slow so I'd never had the opportunity to install one of these and use 2 cams on one wire. I had a spot where I really needed 2 cams but only had one cable run there. So recently decided to try a PoE extender to run 2 cams off same wire. I bought this, which is I think way overkill, but I...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
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MikeLud1 said:
You can try something like this

PoE extender and two cams on 1 wire

I'm slow so I'd never had the opportunity to install one of these and use 2 cams on one wire. I had a spot where I really needed 2 cams but only had one cable run there. So recently decided to try a PoE extender to run 2 cams off same wire. I bought this, which is I think way overkill, but I...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
Click to expand...

Interesting. The downside to that product is that it requires 2 POE ports at the source.

The price on all of these types of products has really plummeted recently. The 1-to-4 POE switch I had in there previously was $68 after coupon when I bought it, and now a comparably-specced item is now only $21 after coupon. I gave that previous switch to the office when we needed one in a hurry, so work owes me $68 worth of networking gear.
 
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TheWaterbug said:
Interesting. The downside to that product is that it requires 2 POE ports at the source.

The price on all of these types of products has really plummeted recently. The 1-to-4 POE switch I had in there previously was $68 after coupon when I bought it, and now a comparably-specced item is now only $21 after coupon. I gave that previous switch to the office when we needed one in a hurry, so work owes me $68 worth of networking gear.
Click to expand...

Ok, this $21 "waterproof" unit is a joke. I thought perhaps the website photos were omitting some things, like perhaps some gasketing or seals or ???? But nope. It's just exposed to the elements:

1717114742355.png

1717114755882.png

Back to goes to amazon!
 
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TheWaterbug said:
But now I might put the POE switch back in there and mount attempt some casual LPR from the adjacent tree.
Click to expand...
And, as it turns out, I may not attempt this. My (and my neighbor's) procrastination has paid off, and our HOA has secured funding from the adjacent city for managed LPR cameras at the sole entrance to my neighborhood, at no cost to us!

1717114978114.png
 
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^^ That's a nice box! But I'd buy another switch to put in there. I'm not giving my money to someone that advertises "waterproof" and then ships me something like that.
 
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