Hardwiring without a plug

[Nicholas_wage]

I’m currently in the middle of a big exterior project on my home, all new foam board sheathing and siding and I’m already finished half of the job before I realized I didn’t do enough thinking. It’s a single wide mobile home. I’m adding motion sensor spotlights on both gables and 2 more spotlights on opposite corners. The left over two corners will have doors and sconces. My late plan is to have an arlo camera mounted above each spotlight hardwired. I do NOT want to pay 12 bucks per camera for 24/7 recording so I am ok with hardwiring only to maintain battery and not having to take them down to recharge, OR hardwiring without batteries but not having the luxury of 24/7. My original plan was to have each spotlight on a 3 position switch so I can have it on motion sensor or bypass the sensor to turn them on manually. Which means, fortunately, I ran 3 wire to each mounting block. I decided I would rather give up the manual override luxury than to climb a latter 4 times looking like an idiot to charge my batteries. Unfortunately using the 3rd wire to install an outlet in each box is not an option because I can’t have the outlet exposed to weather on the outside of the block and I can’t access the outlet on the inside of the mounting block should the ac adapter fail or any futures changes to hardware be made. So here I am with 3 wire at each mounting block and I have to figure out how to utilize the 14 gauge wire to power up my cameras. I need some real tech savvy help please. The best thing I can think of is installing a hardwired adapter at the switch box to run low voltage through my 14 wire then splicing the 14 wire into an arlo usb cable with waterproof boot at each block for the camera. Whatever I do I want it to be somewhat reversible for versatility and resale purposes. I’m out of my comfort zone with the low voltage. What do I need to do? Can I use one standard arlo adapter for multiple cameras? Can I buy an aftermarket transformer? I would like to power up the whole run of 14 gauge to the correct voltage for the cameras rather than getting an adapter in each box. By doing so it makes any future changes to the next homeowner easier, they could easily install the originally intended 3 position switch and not have to worry about junk in the mounting blocks. There will be two different switch boxes and each box will power 2 mounting blocks (front and rear of home). I’ve been searching and searching for answers, I’m definitely salty I didn’t figure all of this out before hand because I would have ran Ethernet and invested in some real cameras with blue iris. But here I am. Please help

[michaelkenward]

Can you break that up into readable chunks?

>500 words of uninterrupted text is hard going.

[Nicholas_wage]

Basically I’m looking for somebody who is good with electric and can help. I want to know if I can hardwire a transformer then run legs of low voltage through 14 wire to each camera instead of plugging each one into an outlet with individual adapters

[jguerdat]

A transformer won't work - it has to be 5v DC, not AC. Theoretically it's possible to have a 5v power supply of sufficient current output (think 2A for each camera) as well as a sufficiently large gauge wire so voltage drops don't occur over distance. You may need to use multiple supplies even with large gauge wire, depending on the distance between supply and the furthest camera. Also consider that multiple cameras recording the same time will increase the chance of voltage drop over distance due to the increased current draw.

It's a hacker's job that can be done but you're on your own on this one.

[Nicholas_wage]

I Will have 2 40 foot runs of 14 gauge, from 2 different boxes (power sources). one camera in the middle and one camera at the end.
I wanted something professional but the more I think about it I might find a safe way to splice the 14 gauge into an adapter at each location behind the spotlight in the mounting block.
I would Have put an outlet inside each block And simply plug in but I need to be able to access the connection should the adapter or USB wire fail. I wouldn’t be able to access the outlet from the outside, The mounting blocks are permanent after siliconed and nailed.