ICE buildup on Cameras

[schasegleason]

With the recent Ice storms/winter weather I am seeing several of my cameras get iced over.  

I am thinking of applying something like Rain-X or maybe even car wax on some Camera domes to see if I can at least minimize the amount of ice build-up. 

Does anyone have this problem or clever solutions to it? 

Secondly looking into Heater Status Event logs, I haven't seen a single camera (I have several hundred MV72 outside) change their state to on all year, even on the coldest night getting down to about 20f in late January. 

Anyone else seen this, or have insight as to when or how to see the MV72 heater kick on? 

[BlakeRichardson]

I would contact support and get them to look into whats going on. The heaters should be turning on at a certain temp threshold. 

[Bruce]

As @BlakeRichardson said, the heater should just kick in, there is no configuration required. The only caveat I know of is that if they are on 802.3af power then it won’t, as there’s not enough power (the heater needs minimum 802.3at). Obviously that also means the heater may not be kicking in if power negotiation over LLDP is failing, over if you’re exceeding the switches PoE budget.

[schasegleason]

Thanks, @BlakeRichardson, and @Bruce 

Yeah, it is all Cisco Switches the vast majority of which have 802.3at capabilities. I would assume there would be some sort of Alert or Message of the heater wanted to turn on but couldn't.

I also expect the internal temperature of the camera to be a good bit warmer even without the heater. Assuming the heater kicks in at an internal temp of 32f an exterior/ambient temp of 20f I would expect to turn on the heater.