Introduction

Howdy Folks. Today, I'm going to review the Sanyipace Model S8951DM sewer camera system. A company specializing in the production and sales of sewer cameras, inspection cameras, drain cameras, and pipe cameras, which was founded in 2018 by a plumber and has the goal of providing high-quality, budget-friendly inspection products.

Here is a little background on why I'm doing this video. Over the years that I've worked on pools, there have been some times when I wished I could have located or seen what was stuck in the pipe around the pool or in the pool deck drainage system. I tried some low-cost solutions from Amazon, like this unit from all whack, and found that the camera wire and head just weren't stiff enough to navigate any distance inside a pipe. And also, the lighting needed to be more brightly to make sense of what I was looking at. I also looked at the name-brand units and found that the prices for what the plumbing professionals are using are pretty eye-watering. So, that brings us to the S8951DM unit that we're going to review today.

When Lisa from Sanyipace contacted me about their system, I was excited to find what looked like a professional quality unit that was priced at around six hundred dollars. And that's about seven percent of what the name-brand systems run for. So, with all that said, let's see what this camera system can do.

Initial Set-up

The first thing we'll go over is opening it up and setting it up for inspection. I'm going to take the camera out and connect it to the cable. The camera head comes with two protective covers, one for pipes over 1.5 inches in diameter and a pipe pulley for pipes over 4.7 inches in diameter.We're going to connect the camera to the cable, and there's a small gasket at the connection to prevent water from seeping in.

After connecting all the connections, turn on the power of the device. I've inserted the camera into a section of PVC pipe that I prepared, and I'll show you how I do it.

Display Operation 

1. Menu Settings: Press">/PHOTO" "</ZOOM" to select, press "REC/-" to confirm, and press "MENU/EXIT" to return.

2. How to Record Video: Press "REC/-" to start recording (video with audio), and press again to stop recording.

3. How to Take Photos: Press">/PHOTO" to capture a photo.

4. How to Modify Video Length: The default length is 3 minutes. You can adjust it up to 10 minutes. Press "MENU/EXIT" and">/PHOTO" to select "Video Menu", press "REC/-" to change it to 1mins, 3mins, 5mins, or 10mins, and press "MENU/EXIT" to exit after setting.

In addition, these buttons have many functions, which you can find out just by reading the user manual.

Pipe Size Capabilities

Real World Testing 1" diameter PVC Pipe

Let's look at the pipe sizes that this camera will work with. So, starting with just the head itself, it will fit into a one-inch PVC pipe. Here's a one-inch pipe right here, and let's go inside. It works just fine. The challenge with this is when you get up to a joint, navigating that joint needs more flexibility. 

Let me show you up close. This is a PVC pipe with a 90-degree bend. When the camera head reaches the bend, it isn't easy to pass through. So, for a one-inch pipe, the camera can easily pass through straight pipes or pipes with bends larger than 90 degrees.

Real World Testing 1.5" diameter PVC Pipe

Let's install the 1.5" protective cover, which has four little plastic set screws. You can take the screwdriver that they provide for you. We're just gonna stick it into each of these set screws and cinch them tight. You don't need to over-cinch it too much. The plastic's not going to take a whole lot of torque. But as long as it's pressing up against the camera head, then it will stay in place just fine. After that, you can tug on it, and it's solid there. So we're going to use this start with a two-inch pipe. What you'll find on a one-and-a-half-inch pipe is the same kind of issue we were having with the one-inch. Without this corner, it can go straight down the one-and-a-half-inch pipe without any problems, but it will get stuck on any 90-degree joint. The cable coil ran smoothly, and I had no trouble pushing the camera. And when retracting the cable, you only need to turn the spool.

Real World Testing 2" diameter PVC Pipe

This is a two-inch pipe, and we're going to go ahead and take a look down. I made a U-bend on it, so I'll be able to show you how it can navigate around corners. Let's turn on the camera, and I'll show you one other cool feature about this. The distance the cable is pulled is marked on the camera display, which tells us the detection distance. In addition to this, I can zero out the extra distance pulled out to get a more accurate measurement of how far the camera has traveled. The distance the cable is pulled is marked on the camera display, which tells us the detection distance. You can also switch the units from feet to meters.

 

So, let me go ahead and get it to the beginning of the pipe. It should be roughly six feet. It's three two-foot sections around this pipe, so this is a two-inch U-shape. I'm going to start pushing it down the pipe here. As I feed it out, you'll see the meter read the additional feet of line that have strung off of the spool. I'm going to come up to the first 90-degree turn, and sometimes it takes a little bit of pressure to get it through that turn. You can also find the LED brightness display on the screen. These are the 12 LED lights equipped on the camera head, with five levels of adjustable brightness.

Real World Testing 4" diameter PVC Pipe

So now we're going to look at using the camera in four-inch drain piping for the deck drains on my pool deck. As you can see, there's some dirt build-up at the bottom of the pipes. But it actually moves through the four-inch pipe fairly. Easily, it makes the turns. 

It went through about four or five turns on this pipe and went out to about 30 feet before it had gone through too many turns. I'm pulling the camera back, and you'll notice that whenever I pause, the footage on the display is really sharp. You can identify cracks or anything you're looking for there.

Real World Testing 3" diameter PVC Pipe

Next, we'll go into a three-inch pipe. I'm setting up the camera over at the equipment pad, and I'm going to take the cover off of one of the pumps. We're going to go down the main drain line, which is a three-inch line, and try to make it back towards the pool here.

Now, you can see me pushing the wire down as we go into the three-inch pipe. It's hard to see because I'm having to kind of jolt the camera through these bends. But there are actually three 90-degree turns as I go down into the ground. As it re-angles towards the pool, I had to slam it through each of those turns to get the camera to make it around each of the lips of those joints. You can see the PVC cleaning cement there and as we go down the pipe.

We're about six feet into the pipe and you'll see another turn as it redirects towards the pool. So, at each turn, you get to push it and give it a nudge to get it around that corner. I've gone through three turns in the three-inch pipe. That's about the limit unless you come up on 45-degree turns, which are easier to make, or radius turns. You can go through maybe a couple more turns, but this will be about the limit of the number of turns I can push through.

Here, that'll be the end of the video for the three-inch pipe. But it does make it through three turns. We're gonna scope out one of the return lines at the end of the pool and see how far we can make it up the pipe. I'm going to spin off the sprayer heads here. The first thing we'll do is record, and we'll clear off the footage counter make through this line. Now we're coming up to an elbow, and this is as far as I could make it with the one-and-a-half-inch return line. The camera system won't make 90-degree turns in one-inch and one-and-a-half-inch PVC.

Pipe Compatibility Summary

• For 1" and 1.5 "PVC, the camera only works for straight lengths of pipe.
• For 2" PVC, the camera can navigate ~(2) 90-degree bends.
• For 3" + PVC, the camera can navigate ~(3) 90degree bends
• Radius turns and 45-degree turns will typically increase the number of turns that can be made before the camera stops forward progression.

Final thoughts

• Sanyipace S8951DM offers excellent value for prosumers and professionals.
• The larger pipe diameters allow for easier navigation.
• IP68 rating is rated to 1.5 Meters of water for up to 30 minutes
• This is Sanyipace's mid-level model. They have more robust systems as well as budget-friendly systems available on their website.

Here are the links to this particular product and their website.

Product link: https://bit.ly/3PW69xT

Our official website: https://sanyipace.com/

Check the video review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2fCd0djJWU