Camera Grounding

[vintage65]

I have read many recommendations about grounding outdoor cameras/cables before the POE cables enters a building. It's seems the recommendations are based on situations where the camera is mounted on a pole or other structure away from a building in which the POE cable actually enters. What I have not been able to determine is how to ground a camera/cable, or whether it's necessary, when the camera is mounted directly to the siding of the building and the POE cable is inside the exterior wall on which the camera is mounted.

In my situation, I'm mounting the camera to cedar siding on an outside wall of my house. The POE cable runs inside an exterior wall from a switch inside the house. It then pokes through a small hole in the exterior face of the wall and connects to the camera mounted directly to the wall. The cable is not exposed as the camera is mounted directly over the hole in the wall. While technically the POE cable is "entering the building" from the camera, is grounding needed/recommended in this situation, and if so, how and where would the grounding device be located? The ground rod for the house is on the opposite side of the house from the camera location.

Thoughts/suggestions appreciated...

 

[gmorganVA]

I am new to this forum, but am wondering if the intent of grounding (in the case where the camera is on a pole or other detached structure) is to prevent inductive coupling causing dangerous voltage traveling down the wire and frying your network gear (lightning - doesn't have to be a direct strike, could be just near)? If I was concerned about that I'd probably end up using shielded twisted pair cabling and connecting the inside end of the cable shielding to ground and using a surge supressor on the actual data lines (which will also need to be grounded). Tripp lite made some products that are surge suppression for ethernet cabling many years ago...haven't looked into it recently (and am not sure if they block PoE power delivery). Also, Ubiquiti makes some expensive ethernet cable that is direct burial rated and fully shielded for use in radio tower applications.

All this being said, I am interested in the answer to your question as well since my first camera will be an outside installation.

This page talks about some of the concerns for outdoor installations: Avoiding the most common problems with your new outdoor installation Hopefully the more experienced people on the forum will share how they solved these issues (I have more searching to do in the forums as well)

 

[iseeker]

there are a couple of good posts by if you search only titles for "lightning"

 

[DsineR]

Here's a couple resources:

UL 497 | UL Standards & Engagement | UL Standard

UL 497 | UL Standards & Engagement | UL Standard | Edition 7 | Protectors for Paired-Conductor Communications Circuits | Published Date: April 25, 2001 | ANSI Approved: July 25, 2022

standardscatalog.ul.com