In The Trenches Video Series
Security Experts discuss Weatherproofing Security Cameras
In this series we're talking about weatherproofing, the importance of it, best practices, actionable tips & advice.
Our speakers today are:
- > Micah Shearer
- > Gil Illescas
- > Calver Brewer
- > Ben Larue
Video Transcript
Micah Shearer:
Do you think... Where would you want IP68?
Calver Brewer:
Fish tank, all day.
Micah Shearer:
A fish tank? Yes, because I put security cameras in my fish tank.
Ben Larue:
Hey everyone, thanks for joining us for another In The Trenches episode, we excited for this one today, we're going to be talking about all things weatherproof. So if you can't geek out about weatherproofing then... Let's go. I'm super excited.
Micah Shearer:
What can you geek out over?
Calver Brewer:
Turn it off.
Ben Larue:
That's right. What can you geek out over? So seriously, we're going to be talking about weatherproofing, the importance of it, why you should consider it so much when installing or thinking about installing equipment or maybe who is even going to be doing the installation of the equipment. And so we've got our awesome panel of experts here with us today. Hope everyone's doing well.
Micah Shearer:
Hey.
Ben Larue:
Great.
Gil Illescas:
Hello.
Ben Larue:
Awesome. And so I think first we should probably start by taking a step back and we're going to unpack a few questions about waterproofing cameras specifically, and I would like to start with the weather rating our cameras actually have, which is IP67 and some have IP66, but most have IP67. So can we start there and experts, can you help me understand a little bit about IP66, IP67, what that means?
Calver Brewer:
Sure. Yeah. So IP, it stands for International Protection Marking. So it's just a rating that an enclosure is given around a piece of equipment and it's consisted of two and sometimes three digits. The first digit, so IP, in IP66, the first six would be the protection of the enclosure from foreign objects like dust or anything like that, and then the second digit would be from liquids from water mainly. So 66 or 67, obviously the 67 has a little more robust protection from liquid than 66 would, but the same from dust or foreign objects, and then sometimes there's a third digit and what was it I say? A mechanical impact I guess, but that's not required by the electrical code so you don't usually see the third digit.
Gil Illescas:
Very good.
Calver Brewer:
That's IP ratings.
Gil Illescas:
Yeah.
Ben Larue:
Awesome. Anybody have any other thoughts on the IP rating?
Gil Illescas:
Well, it's important because ingress of solids and water can happen a lot easier than people realize. We've put these cameras in just about every environment you can think of and it never seems to shock me that somehow, every now and then, a camera will get something inside of it that probably shouldn't have, and that's even with meeting the ratings or exceeding them because things find a way no matter what, water's going to find the path of least resistance, somehow dust just can crawl into things, but with these IP ratings, it definitely signifies that we've done our best to make sure, and we being a manufacturer, that these items, solids or liquids do not get inside and affect the device, which in our case is a camera.
Micah Shearer:
I think it might be important to point out that that rating is applied to the camera, there's a couple other points of vulnerability that you have to take additional measures to protect. So things like the connection point is not necessarily covered under that rating, that's why we have weatherproof connectors and other measures that you need to take and where else do you see those places where the camera meets something else, is a point of potential failure, and you have to be very careful that you're taking the appropriate measures in each of those spots.
Ben Larue:
That's a really good point.
Gil Illescas:
Absolutely.
Ben Larue:
That's a really good point. Before we move on to things like some of those other vulnerability points, IP66, IP67, how do we back up? Are those pretty good rankings? Are they not good rankings?
Gil Illescas:
The timeline has been, I remember IP65 was awesome, IP65 now, then it moved to IP66, now we're at IP67 pretty standard. Who knows? I am seeing a lot of cameras out there that are IP68, that may be the standard a couple years down the road. Who knows?
Micah Shearer:
Would you say that IP68 is overkill for most applications? Or do you think... Where would you want IP68?
Calver Brewer:
Fish tank all day.
Micah Shearer:
A fish tank? Yes, because I put security cameras in my fish tank.
Gil Illescas:
I mean, maybe they thought IP66 was overkill back in the day. I think it's all the way the manufacturing goes and now if it costs less to do better, why not? Kind of thing. And like I said, even with IP67, I've still seen water get in, I've still seen dust get in, it happens, and it's not just our cameras, it's a lot of different manufacturers. So it all depends on... They can affect the rating just by how they unscrew and screw back parts of the camera, and we know our technicians and others that do install stuff sometimes don't do that right. So everything can affect it.
Micah Shearer:
I feel like I see IP67 with PTZ, things with moving parts that are a little more difficult to secure
Gil Illescas:
Yeah. For sure.
Calver Brewer:
But yeah, I mean back to what Gil said though, I mean the IP rating can definitely be completely negated just due to poor installation or just one small step that you missed in terms of sealing or screwing, let's make sure the threads are connected when you're putting everything together, completely [inaudible 00:06:18]
Micah Shearer:
Removing and losing the gaskets.
Calver Brewer:
Yeah. I mean no one would do that [inaudible 00:06:24]
Ben Larue:
That sounds like a lot of fun. That's actually a pretty good segue into another question I wanted to cover which, what are some installation tips you might have for waterproofing?
Micah Shearer:
Waterproof the connectors.
Calver Brewer:
Yeah, definitely. The first line of defense that's going to keep your camera lasting a long time is make sure that the connection, the termination is completely enclosed correctly with the weatherproof cameras or connectors that come with all of our cameras, just kind of like a plastic housing with a rubber grommet that screws together from the pigtail to the cable ends once they're plugged in, it's just like a plastic case that fits tightly around the cabling on both ends and then gives you an extra layer of protection in case any water gets inside your electrical mounting box or anything like that, keep your terminations from corroding so much and get longer life out of your camera if you use those weatherproof connectors. It is one extra step though, and it's a tedious step to do, so some technicians will just throw them to the side and forget about them, but when we get these service requests, a lot of the time we find that that is the reason why the camera is dropped off lines, just because water damage to the termination from not using the weatherproof connector. So definitely that.
Gil Illescas:
Cal nailed it. Tech laziness can really affect this. There are manufacturers out there, our SEW cameras, the waterproofing's fairly simple, it's a little bit of a process, there are manufacturers out there where the process is a 15-minute video or a three-page manual on how to do it properly, and let me tell you, a lot of people don't do it properly and it affects... But it's one of those things, once you've done a couple, you get used to it, you can knock them on.
Ben Larue:
So yeah, the importance... It sounds like that there should be a significant importance put on weatherproofing the cable connection between the camera and the actual cable. That was one of the points of vulnerability that you talked about, Micah. Some of the other points of vulnerability, let's talk through some of those things. We talked about the cable connection, the pigtail from the camera and the cable connection. What are other points of vulnerabilities for water?
Calver Brewer:
I think I said this in the electrical mounting box video, but water has a really good way of traveling down the cable. So how you situate and support your cable going into the camera or the electrical mounting box housing is really important. Say that you have a camera that's installed on a wall, underneath an eave near a gutter, and you've got your cable coming out of the wall and going straight into the camera housing, if there's any water that travels down to that cable, it's just going to just ride down the cable into the electrical mounting box.
So I like to tell technicians to use, what we call, a drip loop, with the cable coming into the electrical mounting box. So where you take the cable or the conduit and kind of make a U-shape. So if you have the penetration here, U shape to the camera so the water can't travel down and then back up the cable into the camera housing, that'll definitely cut down on the water that gets in and around the termination, which makes the camera last longer, and you can use... Regardless if it's a exposed cable or outdoor rated cable with TMB straps or if it's flex or flexible conduit, you can do that, obviously you can't do it with EMT without a bend, but you got to make sure that your cable is situated in a way that's not going to make the camera as susceptible to the water traveling down. It's another big one.
Ben Larue:
I want to circle back to points of vulnerability. We talked about a mounting box, I think, couldn't we say that the camera connecting to the mounting box, that alone, a connection point is probably a point of vulnerability potentially? I think I've heard some stories about that.
Gil Illescas:
Yeah. Actually, I want reinforce what Cal said several times, he said the word down, I've never seen water travel up. So if we're concentrating on making sure when we're installing everything that everything is in a downward manner, where things go into the mounting boxes or the camera itself. Some people go directly into cameras, we don't suggest it, but it happens, but like Cal said, if you're making the water have to travel up, then there's a good chance that you have reinforced the waterproofing just with that procedure right there, because it's not going to go up, but it's always going to go down. So if you put the camera below or the mounting below, anything that can travel water on it, it's going to find its way.
Calver Brewer:
And then also too, where... I mean, after the water has traveled down the cable, then you get to where the electrical mounting box meets the camera and our cameras like the [inaudible 00:11:28] that Micah was talking about, I mean, honestly, all of our cameras include some rubber grommets that go in between the electrical mounting box and the camera to take another step in weatherproofing and prevent that water from getting inside, reaching the termination. Those are also really tedious, you really want to make sure that the grooves in those grommets are matched up perfectly to the outside of the camera and the electrical mounting box and they fit snugly together.
I mean, if they're turned a little bit and any kind of gap is exposed, then water is definitely going to find its way in. You do have the option of taking an extra step on top of the weatherproofing that comes with the manufacturer and adds stuff like silicone or caulk, that does make it a little more difficult if you have to troubleshoot and access the camera again because you've got to cut the silicone or cut the caulk and reapply it, but taking that extra step does help a lot.
Micah Shearer:
But if you're caulking the mounting box and then the camera's on top of the mounting box, you should be able to pull the camera off and troubleshoot without interrupting that seal, it's one of the reasons why we strongly recommend mounting boxes in pretty much all situations.
Calver Brewer:
Absolutely.
Gil Illescas:
Yep.
Ben Larue:
Exactly. We earlier talked about a little bit, waterproofing with the camera itself, and then we talked about how sometimes with certain cameras, like traditional domes, there's installation techniques that can cause dust or water, potentially give it into the dome itself while installing it. Do you all have any recommendations or tips, tricks, suggestions on installing domes to help with that?
Gil Illescas:
We kind of nailed a lot of it.
Calver Brewer:
Yeah.
Gil Illescas:
With the back box and the loops and the different ways of bringing in the cable and the reconduit silicon. I mean, the biggest thing... The thing is, with domes, if there's manual adjusting going on, they're going to pull the dome bubble off, they're going to make the adjustment and they're going to put the dome bubble on. Like Cal said, those seals in there or gaskets or grommets, whatever you want to call them, they need to align, I've seen more water get into cameras because they didn't put the dome back together properly and the seal didn't align and it's just that little space, that's all it took. So paying attention to that is huge.
Ben Larue:
[inaudible 00:14:08]. That's awesome. Are there any other final thoughts on weatherproofing?
Micah Shearer:
I don't know why I did that. It was completely random and I was like, why am I...
Gil Illescas:
No, I'm not sure...
Micah Shearer:
So I can put a camera in my fish tank? This is what I'm hearing
Gil Illescas:
I mean, all this is [inaudible 00:14:25] about. Is, can or can't we put a camera in a fish tank?
Calver Brewer:
Do we want to see Barracuda's very closely, see what they're doing? Yes, absolutely.
Micah Shearer:
Of course.
Calver Brewer:
But we got to have a good IP rating. Got to make sure the second number is eight
Micah Shearer:
An IP67 is not sufficient for that, has to be IP68.
Calver Brewer:
Nope, got to be the eight.
Micah Shearer:
Okay, good to know.
Gil Illescas:
Yeah, and if you're talking about an aquarium type fish tank, then IP68 won't work. Then we're getting into fathoms. That's our next discussion.
Micah Shearer:
Is it?
Ben Larue:
Nice
Micah Shearer:
Because we do so much business with cameras and fish tanks
Gil Illescas:
Right.
Micah Shearer:
And aquariums
Ben Larue:
No, that's good. Any final thoughts from our panel of experts on waterproofing, weatherproofing, tips, tricks?
Gil Illescas:
When in doubt, caulk it out.
Calver Brewer:
When in doubt, caulk it out. Use some silicone and just use common sense. Kind of like every one of these videos that we've done so far, think about where you're mounting the camera, is it going to be susceptible? Think about the features on the mount and on the camera that you're susceptible to having water get in, try to keep those areas away from the water and just take the necessary steps to install it how it was designed, and you're going to get the longest life out of your camera that way.
Micah Shearer:
I mean, one of the things that jumps out at me is, you're right, it is common sense. A lot of these things that we talk about are, it's a matter of making sure that you are not rushing it. I think that's what we see a lot with techs, they're rushing it, they're like, "oh, I can save five minutes by leaving off these connectors", but understanding why they're there and being really diligent to think about each of those steps is important, it's the difference. It's not rocket science. It does require diligence.
Gil Illescas:
Cal and I have primed examples of why rushing it in the beginning cost twice as much work on the back end because of what we're talking about.
Calver Brewer:
Every day.
Gil Illescas:
Yep.
Calver Brewer:
Seems like.
Gil Illescas:
So, keep that in mind people.
Ben Larue:
Absolutely. I just want to reiterate as well, the waterproof connecting kit is included with the purchase of our cameras. There's guides on our website and in our quick start guide to help you walk through all of that, but we'll link a lot of those resources in the description below. If you need to contact us, we'll have all our contact information below as well. Be sure to check out our other videos and installation tips and tricks on our YouTube channel, post in the comments if there's anything that you want to see coming up next, thanks so much for tuning in today's episode. Thanks panel of experts for being here and hanging out for this one. Looking forward to seeing you next time.
Gil Illescas:
See you.
Micah Shearer:
I want to hear Ben say, "like and click below" or what is it that they always say?
Gil Illescas:
Yeah, but [inaudible 00:17:22]
Micah Shearer:
Click and subscribe.
Gil Illescas:
The problem is James puts it above.
Micah Shearer:
Does he?
Calver Brewer:
I bet it's even funnier doing that. Click the link below and then it just comes right above
Gil Illescas:
Every time I'm like, "it's above again."
Ben Larue:
That's hilarious. Wait, click the link below.