gilray

I have fallen foul of another AMG firmware problem with the AMG5000 series fibre transmission devices. If you want to use Alarms in/out with these products there are some problems. If you specify a dual channel device, AMG5625,5626 or AMG5725,5727 then you will have trouble with the contact closeures being seen. There is a firmware bug because of the dual channel fuctionality that prevents it from correctly indicating the alarm state. I think the same is true for the Quad channel boards but it does work ok with the single channel devices AMG5615/6 or AMG5715/6. It would seem to be the same old problem of insufficient testing before releasing the product to market. If you have this problem there is no field solution - you will have to return the boards to AMG for a firmware upgrade!! How easy would it be if you could just down load the upgrade from their website???

Is all the equipment interconnected using just coax or is it going over a fibre network? Whichever method of interconnect is employed, the problem could be due to termination problems with the RS485/RS422 Bus, asuming that is what has been used. You may find that if you pull one side of the RS485/422 bus to ground via a 120 resistor the problem with go away. (if you try -ve side first and it makes no difference, then move the resistor to the +ve side and try again). This problem can arise due to differential noise on the bus which wont be enough to cross the threshold of the bus receiver circuits untill a real signal is applied (activating the PTZ control), once that happens the noise level increaes very sightly or the hysteresis of the reciever (Im not sure which) means that the noise is now permanently seen causing the camera to continuosly move around.

If you are using any of the AMG Systems 3000 or 4000 series of fibre products and you are connecting data signals for RS485 or RS422 this can be a real pain!! The problems arrise when you are using Channel A data which is via the RJ45 connector. There is no provision for terminating the Data Bus on the AMG product so it has to be done externally if it is required - which it is 9 times out of 10. You have to find some way of connecting 120ohm resistors across the data connections going into the RJ45. Obviously you cant crimp them on with the cable into the connector because there is insufficient room to accomodate the normal UTP cable and a restor wire. The only solution is to find someway of splicing into the cable and soldering the resistors to the wire ad then insulating the connection, ideally with heatshrinK tubing. A real pain!!!! It is a real drop off that AMG havent provided termination inside the unit that you either select or deselect with an option switch. Its bout time they modified the units.

There is problem with the AMGSystems 3000 and 4000 series products with the DC input. The specification states that it operates from 12V to >15V but there is a problem if the DC voltage is less than about 13.5V where the cards will lock up on power up and fail to operate. only solution when this happens is to turn it off and back on - not very practical if there is a temporary loss of power on an unattended site!!! AMG don't seem to know what the problem is and will tell you to use their psu (AMG2005) as it has a 15V output or one with greater than 13.5Volts. (They have actually side stepped the issue by changing the data sheet to read 13.5V min) But since they dont know what problem is, you could get the problem if the rise time of you PSU o/p or it particular load charactersitics happen to drop you back into the original hang-up problem even if the DC level is greater then 13.5Volts.

I've had problems with using Bosch cameras with AMG Systems 5000 Series products where the is no video signal received over the fibre optic cable. On investigation it would seem that there is a firmware problem with this product that affects some cameras, particularly if there is a bit of a low composite video signal. Apparently there is a firmware fix but AMG have not done a general recal to fix affected products and there is no capability to download firmaware and upgrade the product yourself. I have seen another manifestation of this problem with Axis cameras where you get horizontal bars and sensitivity to strong light causing again loss of video. Although the AMG 5000 series doesn't seem quite as difficult to get RS422/485 working as some of there products and they have at least provided termination resistors (unlike 3000/4000 where you have to attempt to splice into the cable connected to the RJ45 connected), they seem to be a bit of an afterthought being just screwed into the connector termnal block making it prone to intermittent and loose connection of signal wire or resistor. This product is still under development with the audio capability, contacts in/out and multiple serial ports still to come on line. History would suggest that there could be more problems around the corner when this happens as another daughter board is incorporated and the firmware changed and I suspect it may suffer from a lack of comprehensive testing before it is released. So beware - if you are thinking of specifying/using this product, make sure it works with your cameras before you get too committed and beware of a raft of new problems when they start releasing the new features for multiple serial ports and audio in/out and contacts.