Cold Weather Precautions For School Bus Camera Recorders

Memory Storage - 
Those suffering through the use of fragile hard drives prone to freeze and crash in freezing weather are, at best, problematic. The best choice may simply be to replace them with dependable 100% Solid State Drives. A company contacted us asking about our memory storage devices as they had fragile Hard drives on their forklift and skid loaders that were crashing frequently.

They purchased a small number of our Forklift HD Industrial Operator Extended Reach order picker Safety Camera Systems and liked the fact that every SD card we provided comes with a free lifetime warranty on the memory card, so they could drop the SD cards. They would not crash as, apparently, in the past, someone had dropped the fragile hard drive based on the memory of their current system, and they lost everything, and the hard drive was damaged beyond repair.
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Those using 100% Solid State SDXC memory cards must be vigilant not to put them in their pockets in the winter months, as static in pockets can scramble the memory on those SD cards. It is better to keep them in the plastic Static-Guard cases, where many of them come in for transport or purchase some specifically for handling to ensure they remain functional.


Cameras-
Interior cameras can fog when they go from sub-zero temperatures all night long to a bus that now has the heater blasting. The temperature differential can cause condensation inside the cameras because low-cost cameras are not Nitrogen-filled like those used by NASA.

Exterior cameras can have much worse issues. Those cameras mounted outside the school buses are often damaged by bus washes or those using high-pressure wands to remove the dirt and grime on the bus exterior. The high-pressure wands spray water at 3,000 PSI, blasting soapy water past the rubber or silicone weather seals on the Stop Arm Cameras or forward and rear-facing cameras outside the bus.
The water in the camera shell shorting out the electronics is bad enough, but combine that with the solvent chemicals in the water that eat the connections on the circuit boards. Then, it freezes, and when water freezes, it expands, damaging the internal contents even more.
HP Wands are not to be sprayed directly on the face of external cameras. This causes irreparable damage and is NOT covered by any warranty we offer.

Waste Collection, Recycling, Video Camera Surveillance Systems are often operating with both wet and freezing environments without issue. Remember that the cameras provided by American Bus Video Inc. come with a 10-year Warranty standard, excluding abuse and tampering.


DVR Operation In Cold Weather-
The DVRs operate better in cold than in normal temperature ranges due to the fact the DVR Program chip generates high heat that must be absorbed by the aluminum case and then dissipated through ambient cooling. So in winter, the high heat of the program processor chip is easily cooled by the cooler DVR aluminum than in the summer months.
Electronise components that generate heat, performing computing calculations and recording, often work more efficiently when cooled.

The reality is that Paratransit Driver Safety Video Camera Surveillance Systems, transporting passengers from place to place, handle the cold much better than the passengers in those vehicles, as the cooler weather helps the DVR function more efficiently.

Non-Emergency Medical Transit Camera Surveillance Systems that transport medical patients from medical facilities for treatments and diagnostic procedures benefit from the 100% Solid State memory ruggedness in extremely cold weather.

Keep in mind the systems that use SD memory cards are susceptible to static electric discharges. Static charges can scramble the SD card file directory and make accessing the files difficult if not impractical. For this reason, it is necessary to resist the urge to put the SD cards in pockets, especially in the winter months, as the dry air contributes greatly to the propensity of static charge buildup in pockets in the winter months.
Most SD memory cards come with a small plastic case that protects them from most static discharges.

Elderly Day Care Shuttle & Assisted Living Transportation Vehicle Video Camera equipped vehicles will have similar issues with cold weather operation. Exterior cameras need to be washed and rinsed without the use of high-pressure wands that can blast water past the environmental seals and into the camera interior, where the water can damage the electronic components of the cameras.

NEMT, aka Non-Emergency Medical Transit Camera Surveillance Systems, will not operate reliably in extreme cold due to the chance of ice crystals forming on the platter or internal spinning disk that can crash the recording heads that ride a few thousandths of an inch over the recording disk. This is where the 100% Solid State SDXC memory cards of the 100% SSD will be the best choice in the memory storage devices for the MDVRs.


Should you have any questions or concerns or require more information about Testudo Lifetime System Warranty School Bus Camera Systems, various applications or Affordable School Bus Student Transportation Video Camera Recorder configurations, please let us know. We will be happy to offer our 35+ years of market experience in sales and service of digital recording devices to respond to your concerns or questions.