stabmaster

Hey thanks for helping me out so much what--- 8 or so years ago? LOL. I frequent the forum but don't post. All of the CCTV stuff from years ago is so antiquated now! I ran a super new "wireless" setup back then on solar panels. I got some good responses here for being bold enough to try something so new. The wireless unit was the best I could find and it was just a piecer. Sent it back in a couple of times and it just gave up the ghost on me. Now i'm overhauling. Wireless isn't what it used to be! I still have a setup and instead of wireless it's EOPL "ethernet over power line" and it has been working solid for years. Literally 3 miles away exists a cool outfit (Radiolabs) that makes antennas and some pretty nice solid wireless devices, so I can go pick some stuff up from them any time. I've just gutted everything and I have a "Suddenlink" cable service and an AT&T dsl service. I'm not sure which I want for porting out to the world- but I do like the idea of running android dvr or something like that. I like the Robert Chou "IP Cam Viewer" for android and wanted to run that exclusively. I don't know where i want to store it but conceivably I can go intranet to a tablet pc and a HDD. I sortof want to make everything wirelessly connected to the router. I'll go over what I have selected so far and see what you have to say.. any help is greatly appreciated! I didn't really sink any major cash in this yet i'm just mucking around at this point. I checked out the IP Cam Viewer website and selected a cheap-ish camera for trying out. It's the TV-IP512WN which has CS mount lens. I already got it in and checked it out, changed the lens to some unitek lens. Unfortunately there is no "auto iris" pinout on it. It was a $150 camera so I can't expect too much, but auto-iris is still a huge upgrade for outdoor surveilance right? I haven't purchased yet but I'm looking at (pretty sure about) the O2Storm http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wireless/networking/1-watt-router.php I just selected this because it will be a strong wifi network. I've NEVER had any luck with routers- they all annoy me, burn out eventually, have poor support or front end.. At least I can kick the door down at radiolabs and complain if there's a problem. Also I may run "clusters" of wifi cams from various points and do repeaters with antennas, but i'm not going miles apart so i'm not stressing about this yet. I can also go EOPL on these- i've run EOPL for 5 years with NO PROBLEMS!!! it's the netgear something -- really popular device and never gives me trouble. Ok so what am I missing? I don't know where or how to store the DVR, which one(s) to pick, and why. I would prefer to pick up an android driven tablet and run the IP Cam Viewer PRO ($3.99) to a usb hard drive (maybe usb 3.0?) or maybe a wireless hard drive but I assume that will be an improbability because I've done a little reading on these and they're simply not very flexible. Anyways if i can get any opinions on the DVR, the storage, and the network layout I would greatly appreciate it. I realize the question is "what the heck are you trying to do here" or "how are you going to use it"-- well I can answer that- i've been running the security here for years with moderate success. I will be expanding based on the usability but I want employees to be able to pick up a tablet or their phones from anywhere and just see what is/was going on without being technical about it. This is for an RV park. Usually something happens near the facilities or some idiot from town drives in that we don't want around and I just need the employees to be able to review it on the following day. We don't have to get high res or send the files out or anything difficult. Just a "replay" of the shennanigans and tom foolery going on there. Hope this was an informative starting place (!) I have other questions too.. Id like to try to contribute here as well. I've built some really cool "one-off's" for abnormal security requests.... with varying utility and success. LOL. Any help with the new gizmos and security protocols (and programs and stuff).. that would be excellent!

I have to dig it up but I got a guy wearing a santa hat doing meth bleeding out his nose and using my overhead 1 way mirror to clean his face up. It's like a zombie movie lol.

Long time no see, but I figure I'd give you an update. The syste was flawless, until rain destroyed the wireless ML-10 transmitters and recievers. Those things are junk. Everything else was great. There has been no crime to speak of in the past year and a half or more. We don't need the security anymore! In the mean time, we caught a few bad people, a few missing people. It was great. We were able to show incidents to the police if they needed it. We also had a bit of power over the cops because we had info they wanted and we didn't need to give it to them. It was great.. anyways it has been dismantled and i'm selling the components. If anyone needs a kalatel dvr multiplexer (the one in this thread), i posted it on ebay but i'm not very good at posting things so it probably won't go for much. May want to bid on it. it's here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230183894173 thanks for all your help those years back. it made my family's life easier! be proud of yourselves!

Sorry it's been so long.. I'm always out of town doing one thing or another. The information is very useful. I don't understand, though, what a siamese powered RG6 does-- more specifically, is the RG6 actually powered (amplified) by this pos/neg connection or is this pos/neg used to power the camera? if the latter, why would one run a power line seperate from the signal line when they are already run together?

thanks for your help everyone. I have been looking into everything that has been suggested. I'm removing the really super-cool solar panel setup that i built and i'm going to try to hardwire 110v and hardwire the video. I think the distance is 150' - 200' but may be less. Is there going to be huge line loss issues with this? I assume that the voltage drop accross the coax (rca) line will be too great.. but i don't know. I did read that I could go with an IP converter which will give the ability to run fiberoptics over the long stretch. the advantage here is that i will have no interference at all. I will also have the ability in the future to screw around with PTZ or some other whackyness (i guess?!). Anyways am i on the wrong track?! there is so much to consider!

thanks rory. I am actually putting more cameras up inside the laundry room and elsewhere indoors, so i was hoping to find some more effective cameras to throw on the poles, and then scavenge the existing cameras for indoor use. i doni't NEED to get license plates, but i would like to be able to resolve the types of vehicles at least, to identify who is in them (i live in a small enough town where this would be possible). I think that the locals have slowly gotten bolder at night time, knowing that we are basically blind at night. Also, some people only come through at night and don't even know we have cameras. Anything that would increase our night vision would be helpful. I havve the ability to run IR from a remote location onto the vehicles... which i will probably do. Any suggestions on the camera? The big black hole in my head here is thus: the average B/W night camera probably won't perform as well as the camera made for IR, correct? What specification reflects a cameras ability to resolve IR light? thanks!

Hi again. I am revamping my CCTV setup and I could use some help, as you folks had so graciously done in the past. Short version: Members of this forum helped me out months ago to get my security system done in my RV park. I ran a pole in the ground, a serious 130W solar panel, a pair of 12v batteries, and I'm running 24V on 2 outdoor cameras. Now my question is about converting these to infrared. I don't know if it's much of a good idea at all. Mainly, the idea is to be able to pick up license plates and vehicle makes/models at night time. The trick is that the headlights and taillights are going to close the iris and all I end up with is two bright dots on my screen. In a perfect world, i would have a good normal day camera (B/W or color, not important), and at night the infrared lights would show up and the camera would cut off all non-ir frequencies. Not only that, but somehow it would be sensitive to only one certain IR frequency. If i could choose i would pick 880nm-- because this is the frequency which appears to have the highest candela per watt (efficiency) according to one reference. Since I'm running 24v off of my solar panels right now, I would hope to find all of this in 24v application. Oh yeah, I would also like this to be done on the cheap. So the first problem i am facing is finding a varifocal auto iris 24v lens with IR lights integrated. Something like the following is what i would hope to find: http://www.supercircuits.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=3575 but in varifocal auto iris 24v form. plus more IR lights would be nice Unfortunately i doubt this is going to happen. I could go with one of these: http://www.ledtronics.com/ds/PAR20/default.asp its a PAR20 IR with the angle of my choice. Since i think they're normally used for track lighting, i would probably find a hard time locating an outdoor housing. Luckily i have some Pelco camera housings that i'm not using that could work (and it wouuld be more intimidating with 4 camera housings!). But i digress. I would like to solve this mystery. Is this just much ado about nothing? Am I sunk here? A little help is much appreciated.

The transmitters look as though they work excellent- but I still have work to do. I didn't mount them outside or high enough, and my 2.4GHz wireless router makes the video flash when data transfers (changing router channels didn't help all that much). I am working on changing the transmitter channels, but there was no information in the installation manual (1 page) about which dip switches do what. One of the transmitters has the wrong power cable connector type coming off of it. I am calling the place i bought it from tomorrow to fill in the gaps. The image quality varies substantially by placement, but it is clear that a crisp video signal is achievable. I am hardwiring some cat5 from the DVR and the office computer to the router tomorrow (100 foot run). I am mounting the recievers in a better location as well. Rory- if you are serious about selling these kits, I would be serious about putting together a good weatherproof design and working with you. The base pole i used happened to be a 4+3/16" and it was about 8' high. I built the solar unit on the ground with a seperate 8' pole that had a flange that just slid over the top of the base. I could include a, say, 4' length of pole instead (with a flange). The flange is important because the solar panel is fixed to the pole, and it's very nice to be able to rotate the solar panel exactly where it needs to be. I also designed the mounts so that the cameras and transmitters could rotate easily. If i were to put a kit together, I think that i could cut the cost significantly on a couple of key peices. First, the transmitters had audio transmitting ability- which is most likely unnecessary. The second thing is that these transmitters/recievers are just dropped into $8 utility boxes and sold as "weatherproof." If i could find the electronics alone, I could probably cut the cost by dropping some units into weatherproof boxes myself. My assumption is that these utility boxes double as really crude waveguides (due to shape and depth). I think that the design can be imroved upon, personally. Of course aesthetics is important here so I wouldn't be strapping them into a pringles can! Anyways, if i end up doing that job for the storage facility, i would be making some nice prototypes. I would probably experiment with the waveguide idea as well.

I ended up with the Kalatel unit we were discussing. I am going down there today to focus the cameras and wire everything in, and play with it! It's funny you mentioned the kit rory- someone with a storage unit business liked my idea and wanted me to do a system for him. I told him to let me know when he needs it and i'll try to price it out for him. The one thing i wanted to do here that i couldnt was to build a battery tray tucked away under the panel (in the air). The genius of it all would be that I could use 2 batteries and counter-balance it on each side of the pole. Time was a constraint for this project so I didn't get that done. I also had to consider that the batteries need maintenence, which would be a PITA for the manager to do. The solution would be to get sealed or gel-cell batteries. Lifting the unit up was also a task- it took a lot of muscle and we didn't have the proper tools (like the trucks that the power company uses on towers). My cost of the system was not as bad as you would imagine (because i have access to wholesale solar equipment). The rewarding thing about this system is that i made all my mounts myself. This was my creation- and I used only my imagination and know-how. One great thing was that I didn't need a power inverter becasue the panel was 12VDC and I selected equipment that was both 12VDC and was rather efficient on power (about 1.5A total at 12V). The panel is about 7A and i sized it for the sunlight (25% or 6hrs). The other great thing about this creation is that you don't need to bury or secure any wires.. and any contractor knows that you need a permit to wipe your a$$ in california. I'll try to finish up today and get some screen shots. One of the wireless recievers actually CAME with the wrong connector on it-- so i have to get out my saudering iron. A few little thigns here and there and this thing will be up and smokin. I'll keep you all up to speed. THANKS again for helping me out with this! It will prove to have been one of our best investments here so far. P.S. - i'm in the process of installing an automatic security gate with proximity sensors (proxi cards). this system, and some lighting, will be running off of solar power as well.

Well, it has been a while, I know.. I have been busy, and also have spent time waiting on extra little peices for my project. I'm not done yet- but what i've done is pretty cool. I'm really tired from working on it ALL day so my typing might turn out a bit convoluted. There are 2 cameras monitoring the activity directly at the entrance of the Park. It is mounted to a giant 4.5" pole that is cemented deep in the ground. I have them connected to wireless transmitters. Here's the cool part: they run completely, entirely off of solar power. The top of the pole supports a 110W solar panel which drives all 4 peices of equipment (2 transmitters, 2 cameras). There is a battery box at the base of the pole which stores the power from the solar panel. The only other equipment needed for my free-standing "wireless" cctv unit was a voltage regulator/charge control whcih i managed to sneak in one of the Pelco housings. here are a few pictures that I took: http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/stabmaster5150/album?.tok=phbC80ABW9_1DU2k&.dir=/d5a2&.src=ph I have more work left. I might do something to conceal or secure all the wires, but at 18 feet in the air i don't know who is going to try to clip them.. the people who would stand to gain from it don't seem to have much drive to do anything, let alone climb 18'. I am gong to do some work with a backhoe and i'm going to find a big friggin boulder down on the river bar and put it in front of the pole so that nobody tries to ram it over. probalby 1 on each side. the battery box at the base needs locks, but i didn't bury it which kindof sucks, but I really didn't have the option for various reasons. I am going to spend tomorrow focusing the cameras and reading all the manuals to all of these damn toys-- and get them running smoothly. I am running 3 2.4ghz accessories and there is another dude running a 2.4ghz router on channel 11, so it's a squeeze.

awesome. Thanks for your help everyone! I am making some minor changes witht he housings and mounts, wires and power supplies... but i think i got the core of the system figured out. we have a couple of cheezy old security cameras that are going to be mounted to the office, just to see if that's a location we might want to consider for monitoring activity (since we have expandability, and it takes about 10' of cable and 1 hole). If we decide to ix-nay instead of upgrade the office cam, we will leave the dummy housing up there for sure. These people are afraid of electronics! Oh and i'll be sure to post some images of the project since you guys were so good and patient with me. This forum is obviously just going to grow indefinitely as CCTV gets more popular (from what i understand, it never really caught on, but it's due up). Also, I plan to keep an eye on the industry and if demand blows up for security here in California, I wouuld consider taking some courses and running my own little CCTV proprietorship. There's just nothing better than working for yourself and tinkering around with electronics, eh?

I hope your house didn't burn down! I've been there before... Here's what I've come up with for my system: Kalatel SDVR-4-40 $1495 Toshiba IK-6400A Color day/night camera (2) at $159 each 1/3" CCD 480 lines resolution 0.2 Lux sensitivity 12VDC operation accepts CS type lenses dimentions: 6.2cm x 5cm x 11.3cm (this is a spec for the IK-644A) 5.5W max power draw Tamron 5-50mm Auto Iris $127.95 Auto Iris (DC) CS Mount Aspherical 1/3" Tamron 2.8-12mm Auto Iris $69.95 Auto Iris (DC) CS Mount Aspherical 1/3" Pelco EH2508 8" Aluminum Camera Housing (2) at $61.95 each Water/Dust proof Accepts cameras with fixed focal length or "or Motorized Zoom Lens Accepts camera and lens combinations up to 15.8cm x 7cm x 7cm MLV10-WR Weatherproof 2.4GHz transmitter (2) at $299.95 each 4 channel selectable 12 volt DC 700' range total: $2734.70 shipping ground: 9.81+32.23+14.12=$46.35 shipping air (2-3 day): 30.14+53.94+31.83= $115.91 tax: 0+0+0! GRAND total: $2781.05 (ground) $2850.61 (2-3 day)

Cool. Just a little more work and i'll be able to have this thing laid out. How about those MVL-10 units for wireless transmission? http://www.supercircuits.com/STORE/prodinfo.asp?number=MVL10-WR&variation=&aitem=2&mitem=21 The videocomm units appear to be really expensive. They aren't quoted much online (i assume that they are not authorized to post online).. but from the prices i saw, it was much more than the MVL-10. Also, the MVL-10 operates at 12V, which makes sense (whereas the videocomms run at 9v, which hardly makes sense). I noticed that the toshiba IK-644A has just about the same spec's as the IK-6400A, but the 6400-A doesn't appear to be listed on the Toshiba website (indicating that it is discontinued). The 644A is 40 bucks more, and it just might be worth it. at this price i could move over to the Everfocus EQ500 ($195). The specs appear very similar to the toshiba units. The one "plus" is that the Everfocus operates at 12V, just like the MVL-10 transmitter. I assume that i would have to get either 2 power supplies or a voltage regulator to run the 24V toshiba in tandem with the MVL-10 (If it ain't one thing, its another!). So, for the peace of mind of it all, the Everfocus is at the top of my list. I would like to look deeper into the issue before i commit, though.

cool. actually, i am one of those yagi nerds who likes to make my own antennas- so if I have an issue i'll probably take pleasure in playing with some sort of omnidirectional design I have already built for 2.4GHz. I even have some friends who are yagi ubernerds who can probably get me antennas that are more 'professional' (e.g. not made from a Yuban container) for pretty cheap. Of course if my experiments fail I would go the traditional route and buy one I'm also trying to figure out how the add-on lens prices are expensive? I looked around and within 10 bucks those seem to be the going rate (5-50mm is $80-115, 3.9-8mm is $35-60 more or less). I also have no idea if i'm getting a decent brand (or if it matters).

Phew.. thank God i can get out of this camera mess without paying an exhorbant amount of cash. I was looking around and most day/night hi res are like $400. When you buy 4, it starts getting expensive! I'll look around for the varifocals, some casings, and... yes... wireless transmitters. I'm going to purchase wireless transmitters/recievers and 2 cameras. We decided to get two up front and install them on the big money spots immediately (we're adding mailboxes, change machine, and candy vending machine). We can't put all the $$ up front for the extra 2 units right now- we at least want to test drive the cameras and transmitters before we jump into anything else. I think we might go with some dummy cameras for the dummy tenants. The tenants were basically harassing the on-site manager at his home last week, and as an experiment we put up a dummy camera and a note that says not to contact the manager during off hours unless it is an emergency. Every single tenant walked up, saw the camera, and walked away. These people respond incredibly well to bluffs. We'll let the camera trick sink in here before we decide if/where other cameras are necessary. So I'm going to cross my fingers and give the transmitters a shot. We talked it over and there are serious problems with burying conduit. First, we willl likely run into other line. Second, we will likely be doing some landscaping in the future. Third is the "plus" of the mobility of the cameras. If i can swap a dummy with an authentic, we can keep these people on their toes. So... if indeed these toshibas don't have a serious problem, i think we will give 'em a shot. Now I am looking at the final peice: transmitters/recievers. Rory- you mentioned getteing extra recievers. Now for one thing, these units aren't usually listed with any brand name to speak of. Second is the issue of how many cameras per transmitter/reciever. I assume 1 camera to 1 transmitter. Are there recievers that pick up 4 cameras/channels? If so, i would get at least 1, for expandability. Rory- you mentioned that I would want another reciever just to be sure i got a clear signal? I'm not sure i completely follow.