5 Dead Cameras - PoE issue?

I am having a problem with 5 WyzeCam v2s that I purchased, installed, and had fail within a few months. All 5 cameras are dead; I get no sound or indicator lights when when plugged in via micro USB, during the factory reset process, or manual firmware load.

The 5 cameras were mounted to a drop ceiling and worked fine for months using PoE for power. I used this PoE injector and these PoE splitters.

All cat5 runs were new cables.

Video on the cameras’ cards showed they all failed at the same time, but there was no indication of a surge or power event.

I have ordered new cameras but would like to avoid killing these ones. Suggestions? Where did I go wrong with the above setup?

If they all failed at once, either a common power feed failed or there was a surge. I’m not sure how you detect a surge or power event without specialized equipment connected, unless maybe you were looking for lights flashing or something. A short quick spike could be in the milliseconds range and would likely not show any visible signs.

So if your power equipment is still working and in spec, then the only thing I can think of is to put a really good surge protector in front of that. Maybe someone more familiar with PoE can chime in with other possibilities.

I don’t think you did anything wrong, other than choice of PoE gear. Your description of the failure (all cameras died at the same time) indicates a common cause. The only common element in your setup is the PoE supply (48V @ 60W). I suspect that it let through a spike, which then passed through all of the splitters and zapped the cameras. The splitters are advertised as having “over voltage protection”, but in hindsight that claim seems rather dubious. Newshound’s suggestion to plug the 48V supply into a decent surge protector is a good one. You might consider replacing the 48V supply with one from a different manufacturer.

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Would running the injector off an UPS avoid the problem?

I believe it would help to prevent power surges from the outlet as they act as a power conditioner. It would not help if there is an issue with the injector putting out too much power.

I concur with Gorilla-P’s reply. If the root cause of OPs problem is a dodgy 48V supply that generated a voltage spike on its own, powering it from a UPS wouldn’t help.

Adding a UPS would give the OP an added benefit of keeping the cameras up during a mains power failure. That would be helpful if they are recording to SDcards.

Thanks for the response. You’re right, I was looking at a lack of other logging devices losing power as an indicator of no power event, but I further agree that ms-duration spikes are probably was kills most electronics and other than not working there would be little indication.

The injector appears to still be working but I am hesitant to plug anything else into it. I have it on a surge protector, but based on some of the comments below I may upgrade to a UPS with AVR to cover my bases.

I mostly just wanted to run my setup by the pros to see if I missed anything obvious. Sounds like I caught some crap luck brought on by potential dubious equipment issues. Luck I can’t fix, but a better-quality injector is in my future.

AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulation) will extend the input voltage operating range in which the UPS can operate, but also make sure the UPS has a pure sine wave output. Some cheaper models may not guarantee this, and those would not be a good UPS to select for sensitive electronic equipment.