Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Scary Incident with Camera install as components catch fire due to Faulty Power Supply

I have installed thousands of cameras over 35 years of working with them and never had such a dangerous incident happen as I did the other day .
After hooking up 1 camera to test the DVR Recorder to see if it was working properly all of a sudden I see smoke coming out of the Camera.
I intermediately shut off power to system and then opened up camera junction box to find that one of the Baluns a device which converts coax to Cat 5 wiring had started to melt and burn .
I suspected intermediately it was the 12 volt 18 amp  DC Power Supply a private label product made for  Everfocus   by LT Security was putting out the wrong voltage.
But it was not .



It was then I checked camera video feed I was getting 1.4 volts something I should not be seeing. Normally it is Micro-volts you will not normally see a full volt .  It was after I put a Oscilloscope type meter on line where I saw the power supply was defective and sending out AC voltage with the DC voltage causing the baluns to heat up. I disconnected the power supply  and baluns put in all new and problem solved and I am in process of letting manufacturer know they have a problem so it can be resolved. as this very well could have lead to a fire had I walked away and not checked on system like I did .
now why this one particular supply did what it did and not the other ones in stock that's a good question which will need to be investigated and answered. if I do not get satisfactory answers from manufacturer I will be notifying CPSC over the matter .

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