Preparing your webcam for wildlife weather and insects

When you deploy webcams outdoors, you have to be prepared for Wildlife, Weather and insects.  Keep all access points to the camera closed, seal all gaps with silicone or heavy tape.  Box cameras make great heated bird nests and birds will build a nest inside your enclosure if they can get inside.  This goes for bee hives as well, the smallest gap will allow insects to setup a heated home.  Expect Bees, Spiders, Birds and more. The Weather problem is usually related to lighting hits.  Systems will burn out the cable plug or POE injector if they are hit.  In many cases the camera will still work when the burned out POE injector is replaced from a lighting hit.  Sometimes the network plug itself will arc and melt and make the camera unusable.  Snow slides from the roof will sometimes be an issue, as well as frosting of the image in cold and wet temperatures if the camera is not sealed or weather rated.  Keep everything sealed and make sure there is not gaps open deeper into the webcam enclose.