Can You Take Out A Vandal Dome With One Swing?

Looks like he's giving it little love taps with a rubber mallet.

I've seen Lexan bubbles survive heavy blows with a framing hammer, the type with the diamond-pattern face... left a bunch of dimples and scuffs in the plastic, but the bubble survived. A return attempt a couple days later ended up killing the camera just from the impact, but the bubble itself still survived.

That said, if I really wanted to disable the camera in that video, a couple solid blows to the side of the housing with something like a bat or small sledge should nicely bend or twist the whole thing, or even knock it right off the wall.

I recall a test many years ago on dome rated IK10.

We essentially put the camera on a stand and had a little leaguer swing hard with a metal baseball bat.

After two good whacks the stand fell over, but the camera and bubble survived. In fact, it kept recording the entire time and we could see the bat hitting the bubble and the camera falling over with the stand.

Sort of confirms Mr. Ion's thoughts that there are better ways to manipulate/damage the camera than trying to break the bubble.

He isn't giving it all he's got and if he is then, well... I will agree with the above statements, don't go after the dome go after the bracket/housing... I am confident I could end that cameras life if I was given the opportunity and a sledgehammer... Am I the meanest? Sho'Nuff!

My thought was that if you were going to make a video like this you are obviously ready to sacrifice one, but only one camera.

Not knowing exactly what force could be applied before failure, the prudent thing would be to make a series of short videos, the first one starting with minimal force and then gradually increasing with each video until something breaks.

Then use the previous video as the demo.

If this is the video made just before the one that killed it, its not very impressive.

I think it depends on what you're swinging. A rubber mallet, no way. 10# sledge, at that height, I can make the bell ring for sure! However, trying to swing a sledge overhead at an object 10' off the ground may be hard to do with one swing. You are going to loose leverage and accuracy.