The invention discloses a contact network insulator detection method based on reconstruction and a classification convolution self-encoding network. The method specifically comprises the following steps: 1, imaging a high-speed railway contact network supporting and suspending device; 2, establishing a sample data set of the insulator, and carrying out insulator target detection and segmentation;3, adjusting the insulator to be horizontal by utilizing coordinate transformation, removing noise by utilizing outlier detection, carrying out edge detection on the insulator, then carrying out quadratic function fitting, cutting the acquired insulator images one by one, and finally establishing an insulator piece data set; 4, building a reconstruction and classification convolution automatic coding network, judging whether there is an insulator misclassification or not, and extracting an insulator fault region; 5, clustering the separated foreground images, and establishing a fault judgmentcriterion according to a clustering result; whether the insulator fails or not is judged by setting a threshold value, and the fault level is further evaluated. The detection result is objective, realand accurate, and the defects of a traditional detection method are overcome.