Armorview 6 Pairs (12 Pcs) Mini CCTV BNC Video Balun

These are perfectly competent video baluns, and honestly described in the product description.However, all purchasers of such items should be aware that while such inexpensive passive baluns will provide the desired impedance matching and common-mode rejection, they do NOT provide any sort of isolation at all -- they are wired in an autotransformer configuration.As a result, they provide ZERO protection for the video ports on your camera/DVR/whatever.You can see this yourself without gutting one by simply using an ohm-meter to measure the resistance from the balanced line terminals to the BNC terminal -- you will discover that one of the BL terminals is directly connected to one of the BNC terminals, and the other has a very low resistance between it and the other BNC terminal.Or you can go to the Wikipedia article for BALUN and see a schematic of a typical balun, right under the subtitle: "Types of balun"If you are running video over twisted pair, I sincerely recommend using some sort of grounded lightning/surge protection device between the BALUN and your more expensive widgets, like a DVR. The newer, inexpensive security DVRs do not seem to have much in the way of internal protection on them, and a nearby lightning strike or whatnot can easily generate voltages on the twisted pair that will fry an input port. Cameras seem to be more durable.

This last purchase we had 7 bad ones out of 5 sets of these (worst EVER). Not sure they are all the same manufacturer as there were light gray, dark gray, and black ones. The black ones seem to be the worst as many you could tell the pin wasn't all the way in and testing continuity with a multi-meter showed no connection to the positive terminal or the negative for that matter (we had two wired to negative from center pin so just switching the wires around fixes that). I've used these on several jobs regardless as you just can't beat the price point. Passive balun's are exactly that, they are not going to protect you from lightning or boost signal or fix interference. So know what your buying and plan around it. I also will let you know the really light gray ones do have a tendency to burn out and you can physically see rippling on the surface where it did so (only had about 4 of these that didn't happen right away). This may have been fixed as within the last 5 months or so I haven't had any issues like that and have installed well over 300 of these within the last few years. The former statements of weak connection spring was indeed the case about a year ago but now I often see the reverse where it's hard as hell to get them to lock in.

Mine seem to work okay although I've not tested every single one.I bought these to make jumpers from a sequencer (Multiplexer) to a DVR instead of paying as much as the same (each) for 3-ish foot coax jumpers as the box price of this set so my logic is if I get two or three pair to work I've come out ahead and the rest are bennies.As others have mentioned you need some end-point protection on passives and you will lose some gain. Impedance is out the window.You're paying around $2 a pair here, about the price for one BNC connector. Hook everything up and get it working then upgrade to better ones if needed.

These baluns do the job. As far as quality... what do you expect for the price? Yes the BNC end jiggles a little bit, but I took one apart to see and the way it's designed it's really not an issue. I did have one that has connection issues. I only needed 10 so I had two extra. My CCTV system was done on a tight budget, and being able to use $0.23/ft CAT5 cable instead of RG59/18-2 siamese wire knocked the cost down quite a bit.I had major ground looping issues due to using one 5A 12V power supply for all 8 cameras. Switched to 8 individual 1A power adapters and my ground loop issue went away.Would definitely recommend these if you want to save some money on your cabling costs and use CAT5 instead of RG59/RG6.

These work just fine. My only complaint is I wish I could find one of these with a strain relief for the cable. Cat 5/6 is often 23/24 gauge wire which is pretty thin and fragile when you strip it. There is nothing to relieve the strain on the wire, so any movement of the wires on back of the dvr tugs on the screw terminals and can easily sheer the wire off. The screw terminals on the balun looks like it will take a wire as big as 18 gauge. To make a solid connection, I'll probably do a transition block to bigger stranded wire or come up with some means of fastening the cable to avoid the issue.

There was perhaps 3 units that split open as I was securing the wires into them. The solder points were too long internally and forced the cases open. They still work with a little black tape around them and have not had a single issue with these since purchase.-1 for the splitting4 out of 5Would buy again.

These passive BNC Video Baluns sure make wiring video systems super-simple and fast! Until I got a mail-order video surveillance system I had no familiarity with this equipment; I'm a senior citizen DIY'er experienced with auto and home wiring, and bygone days of entertainment system wiring. Video wire is close to hair-thin (think phone wires), so having these Baluns with the screw-clamp insertion points for the wire makes putting them on easy, even with time-desensitized fingers! :-) I ordered 'just enough' but will be ordering more for 'supply' and further wiring additions. Indispensable and terrifically priced.

Received a 6 pack of the CCTV baluns for use with cat6 cable instead of coax. I actually hooked up 50' of coax and 50' of cat6 with these baluns at the same time and could not notice a difference in picture. I also like how the screw terminals are on these very easy to use. These baluns are smaller then other baluns Ive used making them a little bit easier to fit in back boxes and such. For the price they seem well worth it.