Yeah this is just a complete hardware failure on Amcrest...Disappointing cause all my other cameras are Amcrest which have been great and I already gave my Ring Pro to my neighbor
So being an engineer, I just had to figure what was going on. I used a volt meter, at the transformer, at the door, tried 16V and 24V, everything seemed ok. So I took the Chime inside and took the cover off. I saw there was a USB port, so connected a Zmodo power cord I had, and the camera setup completely fine, connected to Wifi, can see cam in the app. So I put it back outside and still dead.
Went back inside and figured out the copper contacts on the back cover are not touching the circuit board. The one on the left side, the little nipple is pushed down into the circuit board. See the attached picture.
Carini33 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 1:42 am
Hi Revo2Maxx,
Yeah this is just a complete hardware failure on Amcrest...Disappointing cause all my other cameras are Amcrest which have been great and I already gave my Ring Pro to my neighbor
So being an engineer, I just had to figure what was going on. I used a volt meter, at the transformer, at the door, tried 16V and 24V, everything seemed ok. So I took the Chime inside and took the cover off. I saw there was a USB port, so connected a Zmodo power cord I had, and the camera setup completely fine, connected to Wifi, can see cam in the app. So I put it back outside and still dead.
Went back inside and figured out the copper contacts on the back cover are not touching the circuit board. The one on the left side, the little nipple is pushed down into the circuit board. See the attached picture.
IMG_2626.jpg
Interesting... I am not sure it is hardware fail... I think it is a mount issue.. If the area this is mounted isn't 100% flat then the 2 pins that just make contact with this area are going to just bend out of shape... The part that is on the back where your screws go just has 2 pointed edges that makes contact with the Board inside.. While it does have this USB port inside it is ment for programming and there is no hole on the mounting plate for a cord to go through there and if someone was to take the cover off the back plate to use a USB type cord that would also change the rating of IP from its 55 to a much lower rating... So anyone that is thinking about making such connection I would make sure your camera is far away from any water that would make it inside if modded...
So for me... I to had a Issue for a short time with my Camera not making a connection... Sadly By opening the camera the ability to return for RMA is most likely gone...
However as I was saying with my camera I have Dutch Lap and when I first make a connection I found that I had 2 problems One my Dutch lap made it so there was just enough flex that the pins didn't make contact to the Motherbaord I made an adjustment and put it back in and was able to get it to power on well until night fall.. Then then IR came on and I burnt my Under sized wires that I had coming from my Transformer so I then went and Pulled new 18awg wire... I knew it wasn't my Transformer seeing i was using one of my Camera 24vac 100va Power Supplies and knew for sure it wasn't a Power Issue... Tested the wire that did have 18ga printed on the casing but looking at the internal wiring you can see it is no way a 18awg aka ga wire and is one of them things that people like to try and get over on people... The stuff in there now is Multi Stranded 18awg low Resistance wire that might even be better then 18awg but is marked as such... With this my Door bell camera has been working just fine without fail since...
Again main issue was plate on back can flex and camera can be maybe just shy of making contact but I think it is spring loaded and should not have an issue touching the 2 contacts on the MB... If away form water well you get my point.. sadly opening it most cases then not the item isn't returnable after doing so...
Sorry for the issues... hope you get it sorted... The cameras are very nice and solid feel very heavy duty by means of others that I have had my hands on....
Really? The camera came today, it would have been mounted on a flat surface, and you're assuming I pushed in into the mount so hard I pushed the copper contact into the circuit board because the back flexes? Just so you know, I didn't even attach it to the mount yet on the wall, it was hanging there with wire nuts to make sure it worked first. Give me a break, that is ridiculous... My wire is 20 gauge wire, and worked fine with Ring, and there is a physical damage that you should be able to see with my photo.
Since your saying I can't RMA it now, i'll soldier a real connection and this will be the last Amcrest product I ever buy, and will give it the best review on Amazon I promise...
Please don't miss understand what I tried to say.. Hummm maybe I mis wrote it.. But what I mean about the flex is that there is no contact other then what is from the peg on the back of the camera to the MB No I am not saying that you made it break I am as I thought I said guessing that when mounted if not flat or if there is a slight tweak it might cause the contact plate to flex so it no longer is making contact?
About the ability to sit there and work with wire nuts again makes me think that the issue was a plate flex not that you caused it.. It is because there is just very fine tolerance between the plate and the MB....
20ga wire and you being a Engineer? Then you should know the Ohms Law and the Voltage Drop over distance and all the other things that are needed to know... I am not trying to dis credit or say anything bad it is question of what might have happened and what has happened to me... GEEZ why everyone have to take so much into what someone said with trying to give help on what could be an issue....
To Dispel everything here.... I said That I had issue with to small of wire that It could be an issue as well... I rewired mine I could care less if you were to re wire yours... Just that I had to.... Then i said I had an issue with mine being mounted on my Dutch Lap siding and it caused a flex in the thing that made my issue so it wouldn't work.... These is Real world things that Happen to me... NEVER did I say that you did anything to cause harm to your MB contacts.....
Then again about the whole wiring issue... Not all wire is equal and as such mine was marked as 18ga but was not even as good as the wire I replaced it with.... THere is the issue of Power Drop over distance I don't know where your Transformer is to your Bell Switch location... I can tell you this there are some people that have such large homes that might have the Transformer on the other side of the house over 100ft away is 18ga wire going to work for them MOST LIKELY NOT
About your Ring Camera working.... Sadly there is no telling what the Power Requirements are for the Ring over the Amcrest doorbell camera... I can only go off real world issues that I have had myself and some that I have helped others out of.... By the way if your RING only takes 1.2amps and the Amcrest takes 1.875amps and your transformer only is only a 16v 20va as most doorbells that I have seen have only 10va transformers then it wouldn't work.... However back to the 20va that would work for a Ring doorbell that only needs 1.2amp because 20va at 16vac is 1.25amps so it would be within the ability to make it work OVER DISTANCE maybe not so well... On small wire most likely not....
I can say that 20ga wire is good for upto 1.5amps and 18ga is good for upto 2.3amps as per AWG... Don't know your Voltage Drop because I don't know the distance from Power to device but I can tell you that on mine if Idid the numbers I would have a 1.9v drop in power where with the wire I have now I have 1.23v drop in distance over wire and is within specs
Also by the way I ran my Doorbell camera on my Desk for 2 days before putting on my house. So when I connected it and I had the issues I described in my first reply I knew there was no issue with the camera to start with so it was wire or Install related issue for me....
Sorry you took my Reply as a Personal Attack or something of that Nature it wasn't meant to be
Sorry I know you were trying to help. It's not a voltage drop, as my transformer is about 6 ft below the front door in the basement. Soldiering the connection did fix the issue for 3 days, so it was definitely a contact issue to the MB. Unfortunately this POS now has another problem. I wasn't satisfied with the color and brightness of the picture compared to my other Amcrest cameras, so today I used the ConfigTool that I have used for years and that bricked it... It's too bad I didn't read the threads of all the other users bricking their doorbells with the ConfigTool before I did it. If they don't support a tool they provide, they should block that tool from modifying device settings. Like everyone else, the reset button does nothing. Still I can say this product is very disappointing compared to the cameras I've loved for years.
i really tried to warn folks on this forum not to use the ipconfig tool. i'm very happy with my ad110 working very well with an amcrest nvr. hope you get it rma-ed soon in the time of covid-19.
Yeah but the problem is most people don't read forums unless they need help. I had no idea using an Amcrest config utility would brick my doorbell. If anyone has a solution like a firmware file I can flash, it would be much appreciated.
Hi Revo2Maxx, thanks for the PM, sorry I guess I haven't posted enough to send a PM.
OK Now, LOOKING FOR HELP! I have successfully created a USB to UART cable, and can read the uBoot startup from the device. I'm trying to setup my own TFTP server to reflash the device, but I do not have any firmware files to try. Does anyone have the file from Oct? If you do, PLEASE reach out to me. Thanks!!!
also it looks like it might look for the file on the SD card because it tries going there first, and then tries the Hisilicon ENT net controller. I'm just not sure how it wants the file on the sd card like path/format, so going to try TFTP server because I used to have to flash controller boards for Xerox using TFTP.
