Troubleshooting the vCam

This is Royce with Indepth Utility Solutions and today we’re going to talk to you about the Vivax-Metrotech vCam camera system and how to troubleshoot it. This video will cover a troubleshooting of the vCam Digital, the vCam Modular, the vCam-5 and the vCam-6. So first of all we want to inspect our just a physical condition of the control module and the reel. I’m looking for anything that doesn’t quite look normal. So one of the problems that we see on the reel is that the cable could be what we call kinked. That’s when the operator may be pushing it too hard and break the fiberglass stiffener inside the cable. Then the cable won’t look smooth like it does right now on the reel, it’ll have a little deformity where the cable is bent over and he won’t fall back into this nice little shape right here.

Another thing we want to look at as the control module, make sure it hadn’t been dropped, make sure that the unit turns on, and it appears to be operating fine. The main thing that I see with the reels is that it’s not the control module. It is going to be a problem with the interconnect cable. So there are three things that I look at when I typically have a problem. I look at the interconnect cable, I look what we call the curly cord, and then I look at the camera. I’d like to show you how to replace your interconnect cable on a Vivax, MetroTech Digital camera system, a Modular camera system, VCam-5, and a VCam-6 camera system. Now all parts are the same, as far as replacement parts, and it may be slightly different on the reel. This reel is on the back on the other reels it’s on the side.

However, if you’ll notice here that this is connected into this black box right here. So the way we’re going to take this off is that first, we’re going to probably best to remove the cable from the reel so that we have plenty of room to work in there. I’m just going to un-spin it off here. Then you can take your thumb and finger and you can usually do a quarter of a turn and it’ll be loosened up and then you can work it off. I like to use a pair of pliers and I just grab it right here. What you want to do is grab it closest to your axle. If you’ll notice, it appears that you can it apart right here also. Which just does come apart, but this is where we put all the wires together and these wires are soldered to some pins. So you want to take this part right here off and it’s a quarter of a turn. So just take it and it just, it’s a quarter of a turn off. Then you just work it off.

Now, which you want to look at right here is that you can just see there’s no real threads and it’s just a quarter of a turn. So don’t try to turn it more than about a quarter of a turn or you’re going to damage some stuff. Now to put it back on, it’s real simple. You take your new interconnect cable and you just line it back up and you just shake it a little bit kind of. Then you can use your thumbs and lock it in or I like to usually take a pair of pliers and just a quarter of a turn and lock it in. Then we just take the cable and spin it back on there.

I want to show you how to troubleshoot the curly cord inside the spring of the vCam Digital, vCam Modular, the vCam-5, and the vCam-6 camera systems. So what I like to do is I like to, the camera system is on… This camera system is working, but let’s say we have a flickering screen, or a black screen on our control module. I want to grab at the base of the termination and grab the camera head and then I’m going to turn it and I want to see if I have a flicker in the screen. If I’m holding this blue cable still and I grabbed the base and I’m moving in different directions and I see a flicker, then that indicates that there’s probably a short in that curly cord. So then we’re going to have to go in there and we’re going to have to replace it and see if we resolved our problem.

So to replace the curly cord, what we’re going to do is we’re going to find our spinner wrench. This ranch should have came with your control module. What I want you to see right here is this wrench it has a little bitty, just a little bitty tip on the end of it right here. We’re going to place at the end of the spring and we’re going to twist the camera head off. So let’s show you how that happens. So I’m going to take the tip and I want to place the tip right at the edge of that spring. I usually like to use the backside of this to support the spring a little bit. So once have it and then I just start spinning it off. It’s roughly three rotations around.

For more helpful videos and articles, please go to our Resources page.