Preventing Operational Faults Due to ESD

WARNING
Camera installations which do not protect against ESD (electrostatic discharge) may exhibit operational faults. Problems such as random packet loss, random camera resets, and random loss of Ethernet connections, may all be solved by proper ESD management. When used with a simple power supply and Ethernet cable, the camera is not properly connected to earth ground and therefore is susceptible to ESD caused problems. An Ethernet cable has no ground connection and a power supply’s 0 volt return line is not necessarily connected to earth ground.

WARNING

Camera installations which do not protect against ESD (electrostatic discharge) may exhibit operational faults. Problems such as random packet loss, random camera resets, and random loss of Ethernet connections, may all be solved by proper ESD management.

When used with a simple power supply and Ethernet cable, the camera is not properly connected to earth ground and therefore is susceptible to ESD caused problems. An Ethernet cable has no ground connection and a power supply’s 0 volt return line is not necessarily connected to earth ground.

Teledyne DALSA has performed ESD testing on Nano 10G cameras using an 8 kV ESD generator without any indication of damage to camera hardware (however the camera might reboot and reconnect to the application).

The two following methods, either individually or together will prevent ESD problems.

Method 1: When using Power over Ethernet (PoE), Teledyne DALSA strongly recommends using a shielded Ethernet cable to provide a ground connection from the controlling computer/power supply to the camera. PoE requires a powered computer NIC, or a powered Ethernet switch, or an Ethernet power injector.
Method 2: Mount the camera on a metallic platform with a good connection to earth ground.