Repairing old IP cameras.

Have some questions or having issues with your IP Camera(s), Post them here for the mods and other users to assist you with.
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Revo2Maxx
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Re: Repairing old IP cameras.

Post by Revo2Maxx »

I can't say that is the issue and with PTZ cameras there are many levels of PCB's in them. Hikvision I don't have any IP PTZ. Most of my PTZ's are Amcrest, Samsung and PRE-HD Hikvision and OEM's

So when it comes to powering up but won't stay connected it could be related to many different things. Most of these cameras have system checks that they go through and if they fail that the system will shut down. Some might have had a failed Firmware update (Won't be fixable) Some might have issues with Network transformer. However if it turns on does the dance that is normal because there is no talking from the Camera until the Camera powers on.

It could be IRC, Iris and many other things that are related to the camera module booting up. My guess is there is going to be some type of Regulator that is no longer working, Could be from dead Cap or Diode. It could also be on the way out and not yet dead but while it is loading going into a Over Load protection or Over Heat Protection. It is worth the 25 just for the housing and the Stepper motors as they would cost more then the 25 that is being asked. However without knowing for sure it wasn't Software Bricked I wouldn't buy it with the idea that you will be able to fix it without the right testing tools and soldering abilities. I just had to fix one of my Friends cameras that he damaged trying to make a repair with a under powered soldering iron. Had to repair a couple traces off the PCB and now I just found out that I forgot my last roll of repair foil tape lol. I will have him bring it next time he is this way. Don't use it often so there has to be at least 20m left in the roll. Velleman VTCFT1 is one of the ones I use in case you ever need some. Just need to tame the Iron down some when you use it.
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Re: Repairing old IP cameras.

Post by Revo2Maxx »

Oh lol. Sorry I was wrong. I don't have any Full size PTZ Hikvision IP cameras. However I do have a good few of the mini PTZ from Hikvision. Sorry have so many cameras I have a hard time sometimes remembering what all I have lol..

One thing I like about this PTZ is when I move the pan or tilt the VCA rule stays with the Preset that it is set at. So if I go to say Preset 4 the Intrusion box is gone. Once I go back to Preset 1 it turns it back on. I can setup different rules for different presets and or just use Motion detection. I have 4 of these total 3 are still on a property many miles away. The POE NVR they were connected and this PTZ camera died. I was able to fix the camera no luck on the 16ch POE NVR.. For now I have my Amcrest 4216E-AI there until I get a replacement to put there..
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Re: Repairing old IP cameras.

Post by Revo2Maxx »

Here is a reason that it is a good idea to get a good AI camera from Amcrest rather then one of these.. A bird will set off the Intrusion. With most of the Amcrest line AI they have the ability to only alert on real events like Humans and Vehicles. Other then that this camera has alarm and audio in/out as well. So little more advanced then the IP PTZ full sized one you were asking about..
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Re: Repairing old IP cameras.

Post by Pogo »

Thanks for your usual extended response(s). The attraction to this camera was its 18x optical zoom for 25 bucks and the seller being located in my area..., and it supposedly fires up but just drops its network connection. Hell, that could be just a rusty RJ-45. But you're right, it could also be many other things as well. Was mostly curious if you recognized what it actually is and/or if you happened to have parts if I took a chance on it.
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Re: Repairing old IP cameras.

Post by Revo2Maxx »

No sorry, Even with Dahua the issue is they can all look the same.
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Re: Repairing old IP cameras.

Post by Revo2Maxx »

So I had someone reach out to me and ask what part was bad in my IP camera and I thought I posted it however maybe I didn't. So it is the Motor controller. When you are trying to find a short or something that isn't working there are many different things that you can do to find the bad parts. After looking over the PCB and doing some testing on different things that I could see with the PCB still mounted, I then went to the pain to remove the board from the housing. I again took care to go over the board a part at a time and looked over everything that I thought might cause it to fail. After not seeing anything I would have thought could be the problem I Installed the connecter back for the Power and left all other connectors disconnected. I then put 12v power to the 12v connector like you would if you were to power it with 12v. Normally it is powered POE but I used the 12v jack. Once I did this I used a Thermal tester that I normally use for testing the head of my Revo or other Nitro cars to locate parts that were HOT. Sure enough it was able to locate a Micro Controller A3988. It is a 36pin QFN package that is in the picture below (Wow I was able to add a picture today lol) Anyway after looking up the part I was able to get one from the USA market and ordered a couple seeing these are small and didn't want to only order 1 to find out that there was more on the board bad after installing it and POP. So for me I like to be safe as I don't like waiting for things lol..

If you don't have a good Hot air station I hate to say it but a Soldering pen isn't going to cut it. Also the board is double sided and should be multi layered but I am not 100% sure the person that built the camera followed the design requirements to be honest.. However once the QFN was removed and I cleaned up the pads, I then added a very thin layer of solder paste (You won't be able to solder this with a PEN) and using my hot air station I put the new one back in place. Added some sticky flux from Amtech to make sure all is seated nice and then I used my Hakko Soldering Pen with JL02 tip to make sure there was no solder bridges left behind from the center pad that can push extra solder out from under the chip. Remember this chip is small and not having a Stencil for the chip adding soldering paste manually can be tricky lol..

If I had a Schematic I could do more testing of the PCB to know if I had other bad parts. However without one it is better to buy more then 1 chip. When I was done I connected the PCB back to the housing and pushed the bearing back on the board. This time plugged all things back in besides the camera because I didn't add that back for testing. Plugged it in and the bracket that holds the camera started to move and at that time I knew the issue was solved.

Please keep in mind that my system had an issue where the Micro SD cage caused the damaged chip as the cage was jammed into the Pan motor. (Honestly I don't know for sure what caused the damage) but the cage was jammed and my guess is that was what caused the damage to the controller..

The problem with your camera if being a Mini PTZ like mine or any camera could be caused by many different things and testing is only way to know if there is no visual damge.. Also if you don't have a Thermal tester you can used Compressed air upside down to freeze the board to find bad parts. Or spend the money and buy Freeze Spray. either way that does work and I do it from time to time as well.. With Freeze Spray.. (Chemtronics Freez It. there are cheaper ones.
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Re: Repairing old IP cameras.

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So had someone reach out to me yet again about the repair and asked if I still had the chip once it was removed and asked if I would post a picture if I did. Because I can't post pictures in DM I will again post pictures here of the front and back. Keep in mind that these are very small and the writing was very hard to see to start with.

So something when it comes to making very small repairs like this. One it is easy even using Kapton Tape to pull off something that is sitting on the close area of the chip. So oddly I had a resistor second one in from Chip pin 10 that is on the PCB move to the resistor that is closer to the chip It moved. Second issue I had was the Cap the larger on the board next to pin 36 of the PCB marked that are next to the Resistor R330 the one next to the medium size came off the PCB when I pulled up the IC chip because the Kapton tape was so close to the chip when I grabbed it (The chip) with my Tweezers I caught the edge of the tape and pulled the chip and tape off and the Cap was stuck to the tape and came off so there was some other things that I had to put back in place. Again with the right tools it isn't hard to do..

So here is the top and bottom of the chip that was removed. That camera has been shipped back to my place in the NW and no I didn't take any pictures of the new chip or after the Install. I don't normally record my repairs as I don't have any cameras to make such recordings but maybe I should start lol. Anyway the camera as I said was shipped and installed back in the place in NW and to keep my parts as backup I keep them with the hardware in question so the extra chips were sent with camera so incase something like this happens again and I am in the place of the camera I can make repair without having to worry about shipping parts and having to wait. Yes I have soldering equipment in most of my locations besides my cabin 2 hours away from me. One of my sons wanted to take up soldering as a hobby so gifted him one of my older Hakko Solder stations that was there. I say older but it is just the model before the one I use here so not to old lol.
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Re: Repairing old IP cameras.

Post by Revo2Maxx »

So I wanted to show a picture of a board that has Physical damage on the PCB in case you wonder what I may be talking about when I say that I look over the board, Then test parts and so on. On the 2mp AI camera it is older and while it does have some nice features for the age of the camera there is more damage then what was shown here and what is odd is I think the other damage was caused in Manufacturing. It just took time to come apart.

Now this is just from what my friend told me about when it was working. When he had it mounted on something that could move around in the wind the video would go in and out and he would loose connection to the camera. We had a little wind storm today and after the wind the camera no longer showed any life so he asked if I would take a look at it..

Main issue besides the Picture is there is a bad ribbon cable that goes from the camera to the PCB. I have looked all over and I can't find one to replace it with. It is strange flex cable with 50 pins. My Amcrest cameras with flex cable like that don't even have that many pins.. So for now he said it will remain a shelf queen until he happens to find a replacement ribbon. (His main issue is the cable isn't a straight through and one might need to be made special for it. I told him that I could solder from the camera board 50 wires that would match the pin out but I couldn't say for sure it would work.

I did repair the camera and I added back a protection diode for the PCB. The issue is with the repaired flex ribbon it is to short to fit in the camera to the PCB now so the camera could be tested that it worked still just not able to mount it in the holder as of now. (Camera type is like the Amcrest IP3m-965 and the 751 however both of my Amcrest cameras have less pin connectors so it wouldn't work for his camera.

Right now I let him use my Amcrest 3mp POE camera until he gets a replacement as it was in an area that he felt needed a camera connected.

In the picture you can see the destroyed little Capasitor and the diode (Sk24A Rectifier) next to it was also bad just not able to be seen from the picture. I had some on hand that was pulled from a different device that still works and while I don't have the Schematics for the POE Ip camera I did pull a like sized new 0805 cap as I keep many different ones in my repair kit..
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Re: Repairing old IP cameras.

Post by Revo2Maxx »

Crazy the last 1080p camera I thought might have been close wasn't even the one I was thinking about. Plus that camera didn't even have a PCB on the base this one does but isn't like @Pogo camera so still not much to help with it. The whole time this camera was 3ft from my pc sitting on shelf under my desk.
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Re: Repairing old IP cameras.

Post by Revo2Maxx »

Here is bottom side of PCB
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