Hole size for mounting & advice for water sealing

rpwooste · July 26, 2020, 4:54am

Looking for some help and ideas when mounting the camera to a wall.

What size hole do you drill through your wall to pass through the Ethernet cable when mounting the camera? How is it recommended to water seal the hole? I’m going to need to mount the camera to stucco, so the surface isn’t even flat which doesn’t help, although theoretically I could sand the stucco (perhaps?) to level it out before mounting. I’m going to be mounting the camera half way up a wall so it’s not protected from the rain by any overhang of the roof. I’m wondering if people generally push through the 12" attached Ethernet cable through the hole into your home, and either then fill the hole with sealant, or use some rubber seal around the camera mount when clamping to the wall. Or whether people run the Ethernet cable out of the house and connect it to the camera on the outside of the house, although that leaves a loop of the cable visible outside the house or a junction box, either of which feels less elegant.

Also, once mounted, does the camera’s ball joint provide 360 degree rotation, and up to 90 degrees bend at the ball joint? Or does it even go beyond 90 degrees a little?

Thanks,
Roland.

Jonty.S · July 30, 2020, 7:37pm

User Manuals:

rpwooste · August 1, 2020, 3:27am

Jonty - which page is the question answered?

Noice · August 6, 2020, 6:06pm

I’m not a certified installer, but here is some information:

If you are going to have the water-resist connector left outside, to minimize the size of the hole, you can run the RJ45 connector from the outside in rather than running the water-resist connector from inside out.
With the RJ45 connector on, you should be able to to use a 5/8" drill bit. It may need to be longer than regular bits (e.g. 12" to 18"), to get through whatever is behind the spot you are mounting.

If you are going to try to run the cable from the camera into that hole, you may need 1/2" (didn’t measure that, but easy enough to do).

You can seal the it with RTV or other outdoor sealant. You can seal the camera body to the wall or not, as long as the hole is sealed.

The joint should allow for a 90 degree bend and 360 degree rotation.

rpwooste · August 15, 2020, 7:51pm

OK, now that I’ve installed it here’s the real answers for size of the hole you need to drill through your walls to install the 8MPix cameras. I don’t know for sure but I would expect the cables, and water proof socket enclosures are the same with the other cameras too.

If you cut the Ethernet plug off the cable the cable is almost exactly 3/16" in size. Depending upon the material you’re drilling through you might get away with drilling just a 3/16 hole. I was drilling through stucco with a wire mesh backing and I couldn’t get the cable through the hole, plus it would have been super tight and would have made it very difficult to thread the cable back and forth through the hole. Ultimately I drilled a 1/4" hole and the cable (without plug) slips through easily. I then used an Ethernet crimping tool to put the plug on outside the house.

I chose to install a junction box on the outside of the wall, the best option I found was from Lowes they have a metal junction box extension, so it’s missing the back, I also bought the top plate and used a hole saw to drill a 1" hole in the middle of the front plate for the camera’s cable.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Sigma-Electric-Weatherproof-Extension-Ring-1-Gang-Gray-Metal-Weatherproof-New-Work-Standard-Box-Extender-Exterior-Electrical-Box/3136565

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Sigma-Electric-Round-Metal-Weatherproof-Electrical-Box-Cover/3395234

Obviously the junction box itself is not waterproof, but that’s not my goal, this was just a way to put the cables on the outside of the house inside a tidy box and have a easy way to mount the camera to the box. The only thing I need to waterproof is the 1/4" hole with the cable, this is pretty easy with general sealer,

The alternative to avoid cables on the outside is to drill a hole big enough to pass through the water proof cable enclosure. I measured that as 25/32" I think if you drilled 13/16" you’d probably be able to push it through pretty easily. However, this is a fairly big hole for sealing up and I didn’t fancy that option.

With respect to the camera’s bend angle, you can spin it around the axis 360 degrees, even after mounting to the wall. You can also bend it at the ball joint from pointing straight out to just slightly more than 90 degrees to the side, but it’s only a little more than 90. At a guess I’d say perhaps 93-96 degrees, i.e. very so slightly pointing towards the wall it’s mounted on.

Hope that’s helpful for some others.

Roland.