Hi,
I work for a company that processes meats, and I inherited control of our plant security environment (about 85 cameras), and have had to do a bunch of on the job learning the past year.
We have an area of the plant that contains industrial smoking ovens, and we have dome cameras in place to cover the area.
The problem we are having is consendation in/on the cameras. This area of the plant stays anywhere from relatively warm to above average temperature when product is removed from the hot ovens. Then, across the hall, we have blast freezers that will drop the temperature in the hallway a good 30-40 degrees in a few seconds when they are opened to load product in.
Our problem is that most of the time, the cameras are so fogged up, or have so much condension in the dome that you are left with a bad to unusable video feed. (See Examples below)
The company that installed this system pretty much used the same Speco dome cameras everywhere (regardless of what was needed).
I am seeking ideas on what type of cameras would be best suited to this type of environment. The current cameras are analog, but I would prefer advancing to IP for better video quality and management. I have been in the process of upgrading our environment with IP cameras in a managed rollout process, and so far have been very pleased (more importantly, the boss has been very pleased) with the improvements.
I realize that a dome is probably not the best solution because you have this big bubble of space that if(when) moisture does penetrate, there is no where for it to go.
I have considered 'bullet' type cameras, but havent' tested one in there yet to see how tightly the seals may be in keeping moisture out. If I can keep the insides dry, we still have the issue of the lenses fogging up during the rapid tempurature changes.
I even thought about coating the outside lens cover with Rain-X to see if it would 'roll' the moisture off the lens, but even that would require re-treatment on a regular basis.
Does anyone make a good IP camera with windshield wipers :)
Thank you in advance for your help.
Examples: