Lightning Protection of Video Surveillance PowerCube
Preface
Edgeware Edge Span series Video Surveillance PowerCube is an integrated video site solution all in one. However, because it is deployed in an outdoor environment, special attention should be paid to the lightning protection design, otherwise it will affect the reliability of the whole machine. However, the Surge Suppressor generally used in the market is bulky, inconvenient to install, and has a low level of integration. In order to further improve the integration and reliability of the Edge Span Video Surveillance PowerCube, Edgeware has specially designed this function. This article will describe this design consideration.
1.The Challenges Lightning Brings to the Outdoor Video Surveillance System
Lightning is a natural phenomenon that can have harmful effects on a lot of electrical equipment, but has very little effect on outdoor surveillance cameras and power system. If the lightning strikes the power system, the voltage on the lines can reach over 300,000 volts.The voltage will discharge and flow down to ground along any path that offers a lower resistance than the lightning strike. It can cause damage to anything electrical in its path and seriously harm people nearby as well.
The deployment scenario of Edge Span series Video Surveillance PowerCube happens to be outdoor video surveillance network, so we also pay special attention to lightning protection. Years of designing and deploying outdoor power solutions have made us well aware of the impact of lightning on system stability. However, the general outdoor power solution, the surge arrester will use din-rail based surge standard suppressor which can protect the system from lightning, but they are too big, which is contrary to our philosophy of miniaturization and high concentration. Therefore, Edge Span Video Surveillance PowerCube adopts a miniaturized, highly integrated and ready-to-monitor solution to meet these challenges.
This picture shows a typical Surge Suppressor. If it is deployed in the Video Surveillance PowerCube, the overall volume is too large and the integration is too low, which will greatly increase the size of the Video Surveillance PowerCube. The Video Surveillance PowerCube was originally designed as an Integrated Video Site, so it must be miniaturized and highly integrated. Therefore, the traditional surge suppressor must not be suitable for Video Surveillance PowerCube. And such traditional devices also have weaknesses in monitoring and maintenance.
2.Highly Inegrated Surge Suppressor in Video Surveillance PowerCube
Edgeware’s solution is to combine lightning protection and smart break into a highly integrated unit, which can minimize the size of surge supressor and smart breaker. Outdoor deployment will face different of challenges from power grid as well as from installation. To provide protection of the whole system , we embedded smart breaker with surge suppressor in meet the following challenges:
• Surge from lighting
• Overvoltage/undervoltage from power grid
• Overcurrent because of system short circuit
• Current leakage
