Bunited2

I feel your pain....but. I hate to say it but you have what's called stranded coax. If you look at the designation (don't have any in front of me at the moment), but in most coax we get these days the very last thing it say's is 'solid' that means the center conductor is solid. I hardly even see stranded anymore. You're going to have to get soldered connectors after the 1st 8 or 10 you'll get better at it. You have to solder the center conductor pin on the strands, it's a pain but that's all you can do to make it a proper connection. Just a hint get some hemostats (forceps) work better than needle nose pliers, use them to hold the pin in place. But 1st sweat some solder on about 1/8" of strands then apply the soldering iron tip on the pin while sliding it onto the strands. The heat on the pin should re melt the solder on the strands, why use forceps?....that pin's going to get pretty friggen' hot. In the time it takes to try to use regular crimp connectors doing it wrong, you can get the right connectors and do it right. Good luck Bunited2

If anyone is still viewing this thread I think Trigon still makes a unit for this solution.

I do rep for the 'Jaberfribbitz' line, I can get you guys a deal on the new Jaberfribbitz1000 and the Jaberfribbitz1000Plus. Bunited2

Wow. I've had a couple nightmares like this myself and 9 out of 10, it's the dumbest little thing. Something that even crossed my mind 3 hours before, but was checking out an employee and lost all sense of........anyway. ___________________________________________________ In times like that it's best to have the P&T right at the controller, in the SOC, equipment room, whatever. Start from scratch, set everything to default, uninstall the software re install it, etc. ____________________________________________________ Get 1 camera working at the controller so you're not up/down ladders, etc. Then as you go introduce cable runs, additional cams, etc. Then when something quits, go from there. _____________________________________________________ I didn't actually catch what the 2 cond was (18/2, cat?) usually if it's a cable issue there's either no control, or the camera will actually do stuff on it's own, which actually is kind of funny because it looks posessed. _____________________________________________________ Go to Cabo, drink some rum or whatever.....you'll clear your head and eventually at a beach somewhere, a restaurant, etc. all of a sudden you'll think 'damn it's the jaberfribbitz, crap why didn't I think of that before?' Good Luck! and Good Trip! Bunited2

Hey Sooki, Just do as I do when (possibly) presented with a question there is no way you can answer on the spot. Tell them you'll check into that and you'll get back within the next day with an answer, then change the subject. Or, in that (obvious) unnecessarily asked question by them, tell them it's negligable and change the subject. __________________________________________________ Was with a sales rep with a natl company (I was their sub) and we were w/an IT guy in an equip room looking at the fiber I was going to have to go over with the video and controls. We were walking out and the IT guy looks at me and say's "you're going to use FC connectors, right?" I said "of course, what else would I use?". __________________________________________________ A few minutes later, the sales guy say's "wow, you know what those FC connectors are?" I said "hell no, never heard of them before, but I'm not going to let IT guy know that". __________________________________________________ Bunited2

I actually did miss the previous information about the 'failure', my bad. I had experienced in actually a 1/2 dozen spectras an eeprom failure which would either cause non-functioning and/or video malfunction. Or, as stated power supplies are also an issue with some spectras and of course moisture. Almost funny: I had an army base I picked up in North Cal, one day they told me there's always rain drops on the dome, I got out to the base and tilted the camera down (yes, surprisingly still operated) it was like looking down into a fish bowl. Although the previous company (by all appearance) had installed what looked like a very good install, moisture was able to collect into the dome unit (about .5" worth). For the record guys: I had installed parapet mounts on the very edge of a building, with specially made mounts. The bottom of the actual mount (pipe) was right above the roof gutter, well my domes continuously fogged right in front of wherever the lens was pointed then would clear up, as the day went on (I have always respected pelco tech support), but all tech support could give me was the domes weren't sealed properly. After a lot of headaches, I finally realized that moist air was rising up the pipe and into the dome. Anyway, expansion foam resolved the problem. Bunited2

Did you try using a completely separate power source? get an inverter for 120 vac, plug a 24 vac transformer into it for a 24 vac camera, or for a 12 vdc camera connect a 12 vdc battery to it. Even changing cameras is not going to resolve whatever issue there is. Bunited2

Wow lots of good info from you guys, surprised he would still have any issues. I would get an inverter ($ 29.00) plug into a cigarette lighter (to get 120 vac locally) of a vehicle and power a (problem) camera at the location to completely isolate if a power problem. I actually agree with electrically isolating the casing, physical grounding of the camera itself. High voltage systems are (not in all cases but some) do not use earth ground for grounding, thus the power to equipment and structures will/could be a different potential. Also, there is a difference of inserting V ground isolation transformer at the video source and at the home location. An isolation transformer should not help with signal over a twisted pair, but a twisted pair should not experience interference anyway. Judging by the pictures (w/o seeing them moving is difficult to see) but it almost looks more like a ghosting problem...? My guess would be (since most cameras are affected) a power problem. Along with powering separately like I said, I seriously think the plant power is not inducing emi interference, but dirty power interference/noise. Bunited2

When was the last time it worked (as far as you know) properly?, then if it all of a sudden had a problem try to figure out if someone could have gotten in the programming. But, you said you re booted the server, so I take it that the control for this dome is addressed and running on a '2 wire' data rs-422 card out of the back of the comp? As opposed to a controller connected to a matrix? is there a 2 wire, another 2 wire and 01 coax to the camera/dome or is it only 01 coax and a power cable? If it is being controlled over the rs-422 I would check for something simple like 1 leg of wire on the connector on the rs-422 board is off, if it's coming from a matrix/controller and it's working with coaxitron control....impedence is everything! that has to do with proper termination. So, 2-wire? or only coax? Bunited2

Actually as listed by Soundy is the most common way these days to get a composite video into a machine. If you are looking at using your laptop for setting up the picture on a camera, the use of a laptop is not as good as a composite video monitor. And my all time favorite has been a mono (since you are not concerned with colors anyway) 9" B/W monitor. There is a way to get 'perfect' focus when adjusting a camera in the field w/o even using any monitor. Bunited2

I think that since the culprits are local (youths?) that IP cameras are overkill, the video only needs to record probably recognized 'persons of interest' like an incident recorded in a company, if the recording is at least fair to recognize who it is then that's good enough for law enforcement to press charges. I would go with a simple capture card like from say 'avermedia' with free software embedded. I really do not see a need to view from the outside world, but with comcast or AT&T obtain a static IP address and do port forwarding. As far as the original list, I would start with motion detectors (not specific motion detector lighting) and have the motion detectors trigger x-10 lighting controls to turn on porch, garage, patio lights, etc. Good Luck PS this is a great forum, just got on today.