Following Storm Doris back in February 2017, one of my cameras at the back of my house stopped working. Part of the roof had been blown off (only a plastic cover, thankfully nothing more serious) which exposed the cable and allowed things to get a little damp. On closer inspection the 3 far pins in the connector had corroded.
I’m presuming the corrosion had been going on some time and the storm was the icing on the cake. I tried a mixture of WD40 contact cleaner followed by a strong acid based electrical cleaner and the pins had cleaned up nicely but it still wasn’t working.
I was really trying to avoid was chopping the connector off completely as after all it is over £100 worth of camera, but it happened. For speed I opted for jelly crimps (scotch locks) as these are waterproof, the alternative was either a surface mounted punch-down box or RJ45 coupler both which would have corroded over time and eventually left me with a broken camera again.
After making sure everything was working I wrapped the jellys in a fair amount of electric tape followed by a healthy dose of vaseline.
Colour Combinations
It came as no suprise that the camera didn’t use standard 568B colours but here is the combination I used:
Key: 568B Standard Cable / TRENDnet Cable
- Orange White – Orange
- Orange – Yellow
- Green White – Green
- Blue – Grey
- Blue White – Purple
- Green – Blue
- Brown White – Brown
- Brown – White
I found the colours by refering to this guide here. I did manage to get the green and green white cables mixed up, however this hasn’t affected the camera in any way that I can tell. If it does ever cause a problem I will swap the cables around at the patch panel to avoid having to tamper any further!
Update – 05/07/2022
I’ve ditched most of my TRENDnet cameras now in favour of Hikvision, although corrosion is still a common problem it turns out. Luckily the wiring colours as the same and the above works fine for Hikvision cameras too.