Network problem or overheating camera?

T

t_andersen

Young grasshopper
Oct 5, 2014
88
17
Sweden
I have a Chinese no-name 1080p cam with a CS pinhole lens looking at my house from a distance. To keep it discrete, I have hidden it in a birds nest box. The problem is that when the Sun is low by the end of the day, it enters into the field and it is difficult for me to change that.

I have now over the past year or two installed 3 or 4 cams in the nest box and after a couple of months, they all seem to stop working. In the beginning, I assumed that they were overheating, so in a desperate attempt to do something, I installed a thermostat to cut the power, when the temperature inside the nest box gets above 50 deg C (122 deg F) but it didn’t help.

I have now again removed a failing IP cam from the nest box but this time I put it inside the house right next to the network switch. Guess what? It has been working ever since.

The Cat 5e cable to the nest box is about 50 m (165 ft) long and has an POE injector, a POE splitter (both passive) and an Ethernet connector down the line, all with insertion losses. My present suspicion is that there is something fishy with the Ethernet line to the nest box. My question to you clever guys is then:

1) Is it “forbidden” to see the Sun with an IP cam?

2) Is there any simple way to test the Ethernet cable for losses or noise? I can’t afford an expensive network analyzer (and don't know how to use it) but maybe I could attach some dummy load and then run a test program to see if packets are lost?

Hope for your help! Thanks!
 
What was the measured high temp in the nest box and what is the measured high temp inside the house?
 
Inside the house it's like 23 deg C (73 deg F).
In the nest box I do not know. But the sensor chip for sure gets hot when looking at the Sun, even when the Sun is low above horizon. Don't others have the problem that the Sun gets inside the camera field of view?
 
It is somewhat common for a low end camera to succumb to high ambient temps, but I don't think it would fail due to the sun being in the FOV.
 
Plug a laptop into the cable at the birdnest and then you can run all kinds of network tests easily using the laptop.

You might have a problem overloading/damaging a sensor with the cam looking directly into the sun, but mainly the problem is just blinding the cam until the sun is out of the FOV again.

If you have a thermostat there, why not set it to turn on a small 12v computer fan to vent the box when the temp is too high?

Why not change your nestbox to hold a "real" turret camera. A bird-sized hole will easily allow viewing from a flush-mounted turret lens and then you can put a Hik or Dahua in there instead of noname crap that keeps failing on you. Even a $60 low-end Dahua 2mp turret should outlast your dollar store stuff.
 
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Thanks Kawboy. The camera is actually looking through a small screw hole and not the bird hole, so it's hard to swap it with another.
I like your fan solution and will do as you propose.

Can you suggest how to test the network with a laptop? Is it just a question of pinging and looking for delay time? It would be good if there were some program that could test the ethernet line over, say, 24 hours and report of dropped packets. Can you suggest a program?
 
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Super, will do!
I keep getting impressed how these internet fora raise the collective wisdom! I have learned so much here.
Is there a "network bible" handbook that you can recommend? I already have an introductory book but it doesn't give me enough.
 
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