Snow and Ice nothing nice for your PTZ Camera

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Revo2Maxx
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Snow and Ice nothing nice for your PTZ Camera

Post by Revo2Maxx »

So I started to write this a few times.. I don't know how newer cameras work these days or what Options are on new cameras.. However in the case of one of mine and if others have the same Option I thought I would remind people to change over your PTZ heating cooling system to heat if you don't use the Auto Option.

Case in point...

I get a Menu pop up to check my camera on CH8 of one of my 16ch Recorders.. So I take a look and seems my poor camera is getting a cold lol.. So I check the menu and find that it is 60 in the dome and while that don't seem cold it really isn't however that heat is at the top of the camera housing where the Internal Power Supply is. This unit takes a 24vac 3.5amp power supply and converts it down to 12, 5 and 3.3v DC.. Right now that heat that is being made is by the camera and power supply nothing to do with the built in heating device.. SO turn on the Heat to the dome and before long the dome is Free of ICE and my dome right now is sitting at 77 degrees.. That is 17 over what it was and the thing about it's heating system it is also using a 12v fan to pass that heat to the inside of the dome cover and now all Ice that was once covering the dome cover is gone even though it is 8pm and 15 degrees cooler then it was when I turned on the heater in the unit it is heating and dome clear to run without damage..

In the first Video you can see what the Temp is, that it was setup for Cool and I changed it to heat and then a shorter Video the second one you can see that at that time and not long after the first one that the Ice was starting to melt and you can see it was still snowing out...

If you have a Dome camera that is icing over in the cold be sure to check out the OSD to see if your camera has Heat option to keep it free of ICE.. As I said clear of ice now and worry free..

First Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISozqKZDjKk Little over 5min
Second Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8xecJSdFSE 1 Sec less then 3min
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jack7
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Re: Snow and Ice nothing nice for your PTZ Camera

Post by jack7 »

I have a "high end" Amcrest PTZ IP2M-858 and it apparently never gets cold inside even though it sees freezing temps and precipitation (nothing like you have). Maybe it has an auto heater. OSD camera temp showed 69° when outside temp was 39°. Life Statistics below are interesting.
Screenshot_20201201-203115_Chrome.jpg
Screenshot_20201201-203115_Chrome.jpg (350.23 KiB) Viewed 8395 times
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Revo2Maxx
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Re: Snow and Ice nothing nice for your PTZ Camera

Post by Revo2Maxx »

Very awesome info.. only thing I get that has LIFE info not even on all my PTZ domes only some of the even higher end ones then the one I showed is Fan Life lol... WOW your camera says it wa in HIGH temp for 18 days.. That is one reason I have always set my Heat and fan Manually so I don't have to worry about it over heating.. However I don't know some of the PTZ cameras I have only offer a Cooling fan without Heat but then to be honest it has 36 LEDs and 6 of them are High Output like I am guessing yours is as well. Where yours shows your IR in Near is used more often then in Zoom mode... Updates lol Mine or most of mine have never seen an update.. I do have hummm would have to go look but I do have some other IP domes that do get updates but I think even then the last one was in 2016 lol.. However my others like the one in the video is from 2014 might be 2013 and never seen an update.. I do have a 2011 PTZ analog that I did a Update on in 2014. It was a chore having to setup a RS-232 link from my computer to the camera... Then having the feeling that I killed the camera because it took forever for it to come back to life lol..

I have been toying with the idea of getting a 853 or 858 I do like all the info yours has... Sadly most of my IP domes are from 2011 and 2014 is the newest maybe 2016 I think that I think about it..
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Revo2Maxx
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Re: Snow and Ice nothing nice for your PTZ Camera

Post by Revo2Maxx »

So While this next camera isn't a PTZ I thought I would put it on for others that might have had some issues with the Ice Storm a lot of us had little over a week ago.. So I did make a Video the night I did this on the 16th however didn't double check it and must have hit the stop button before I was done.. So I only knew where to start it from did not remember every part of messing around. This is just Raw un edited of playing back on the 16th made today..

This is from a 2mp Bullet camera that isn't covered by anything more then just a Sun Shade that is less then an Inch over the Lens Glass so it did take little time for it to start Icing up to the point I couldn't view the camera footage. I do have a few different cameras in this area of View so it wasn't 100% needing to be Thawed I just prefer this camera over the others in this location..

This is a 2mp BNC cameras
https://youtu.be/8JVcFEMI7oM
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