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Hi there LLigetfa. As the others have said, you can use the camera composite video outputs with pretty much anything - encode it over IP packets, or connect them to a DVR. You'll just need to find out how to power the cameras... However, the WV-CS304 is a combination camera - one of Panasonics small PTZ devices. If you want to control this, you'll need something that can send the "up the coax" commands to it, such as an old Panasonic multiplexer, or Panasonic DVR. The WV-7260 is a pan-tilt mount, which is controlled through the WV-RC150 decoder via "up the coax" commands as well.

Hi there Gv200. The wiring from the PTZ to the lens sounds good. One thing you should check is how much voltage the PTZ will send to the lens. The lens motors will only handle up to 8 volts, best to measure before connecting everything together. Nice lens you've got there - 34x zoom! So you're going to use the camera to control the PTZ mount via RS485?

Thanks - glad to be able to help. The focus adjust would be used to force the automatic iris fully open, so that you can set the focus correctly with a narrow depth of field.

Hi there C8er. The screw ring you removed was most likely a C to CS mount adapter. A useful thing to have if you ever run into a C-mount lens (which has a 5mm shorter flange focal length than the more modern CS-mount). The 340 degree rotation is for convenience/cosmetic purposes. The change of focus when zooming will be because you have a varifocal lens. They are cheaper to make than zoom lenses, and are ideal for CCTV where the lens is only adjusted during installation.

Hey there. From the looks of it, the lens has a fairly constant aperture - 1:1.0 when it's looking at the widest view, and 1:1.2 when zoomed onto something distant. You could also consider the lens as being expensive - I'd hate to think what it originally cost new! For remote zoom and focus, all you need to do is connect a 9 volt battery across the correct wires. It doesn't need power to hold the zoom and focus settings. Use some light-weight wire like Cat-5 - it'll handle the current easily. You will need to connect the auto-iris to the camera. Without power, the iris automatically closes to protect the camera. You might be able to fool it into holding open by putting 12 volts across the red and black wires. It might think that the missing video signal is caused by a dark scene, and so opening the iris to compensate.

The cat-5 has 4 twisted-pairs. So have you used them like this: ==xxxxxxxx== is one of the four twisted pairs --------+ | --> UTP-11VL --> ==xxxxxx== --> UTP-11VL --> GV1120 (VIDEO) Spectra | --> ==xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx== --> GV-NET/IO (RS485) Dome | --> ==xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx== --> 24 V AC power | --> ==xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx== --> Spare, or 2nd pair 24 VAC --------+ So video and telemetry do not share the same twisted-pair? After more thinking, I suspect your GV-NET/IO card is faulty. I don't think it is sending the correct RS485 telemetry to the Spectra. It's not the software driver, or a ground loop. I think the actual card is at fault, because the Spectra works with the telemetry from the battery powered monitor. Open up the DVR, and check that the GV-NET card is connected correctly. Also, have you turned on the telemetry termination at the Spectra? It's SW2, described on page 3 here: www.fitch.ca/word/Pelco/spectra_ptz_quick.pdf

Nice score! That f 1:1.0 lens would be excellent with a modern low light camera. Like the Watec Joel is/has bought The zoom and focus motors are pretty simple. You should slide the 8 pin DIN connector boot off to see how many wires you've got, and whether the colours match the datasheet. There could be either three or four wires for the zoom and focus motors. For three wires, if you put between 6 and 12 volts between white and green, the lens will zoom out. Swap the polarity to zoom back in. Its the same for the focus - apply the voltage between white and blue to focus far, reverse the polarity to focus near. The PTZ controller would have driven these with relays, but you could use switches and a 9 volt transistor radio battery (like a PP3) to test it - the motors don't draw much current. The iris is a bit trickier. You could leave the green wire disconnected, and hope that the iris will work normally without the remote level control. It should be okay. Then the red, white, and black wires go to the four pin square iris connector on your camera. This lens needs the camera to be set to video drive (not DC-drive). If it's not connected to the camera, the lens will keep the iris closed. Some of the PTZ mounts had the controller board mounted inside. There was a connection between the camera iris socket and the controller, and between the pan/tilt motors and the controller as well. The controller would have either been controlled by a serial port, or a signal mixed in with the video over the coax. Other mounts didn't use a controller - you drove the motors directly. So you only got the lens and camera? Not the PTZ mount as well?

Did you have any luck finding info on this lens? Is it a motorised zoom lens (CS or C-mount)? I've got a few similar lenses, so might be able to help.

Hello Karmarock. What are you using to connect the Spectra to the DVR? Coax or Cat-5? I wonder if you have a problem with your wiring? You should be able to go faster than 2400 baud over that distance. Also, do you have between 18 and 30 VAC at the camera? If it drops below 18V when the Spectra is moving, the Spectra may become erratic.

Hi Nathan. Looks like it's been moved into their archives. You can find it here: http://www.pelco.com/sites/global/en/products/video-management-solutions/software-archives.page Or if that doesn't work, this might take you there directly: ftp://ftp.pelco.com/SupportSoftware/CM6800/ Bit of a coincidence, since I've been looking for this software as well. If I post the location here, I can find it again in the future!

Hi Joel. The kolumbus meteor site has a good comparison on the 902H, H2, and H3 cameras, and some others. The H3 has a 1/3 inch sensor, and is less sensitive. The CCD sensors are also listed on the site. The main differences he(?) found are the addition of extra features, rather than better low light performance. The KT&C camera Kawboy mentions sounds interesting. I'll keep an watch in case one turns up in an auction. Speaking of auctions, they they are a great place to find extremely cheap broken cameras with good lenses. Keep a watch on ebay and see if anything shows up. Otherwise, aliexpress or dealextreme can be good places to search. Not to sure of their quality though.

Hey Fireball. I think the Watec 902H is an old camera. It only supports old style video-drive irises, so I reckon the adapter only swaps the pins around. It won't allow it to support dc-drive irises. I've found the manual for the newer WAT-902H2 here: http://www.jouin.eu/phpBB/images/WAT-902H2_Ultimate.pdf It looks like they fixed the problem, and also provide support for the newer dc-drive irises as well, so you'd want to use this camera with a dc-drive lens like the Computar Ganz HG2610FCS. Also, the 902H and H2 have 1/2inch imagers, so the lens must be 1/2inch or wider as well (which the Computar is). I have one of the WAT-902H cameras and ran into the iris pinout problem. My solution was to take apart the camera, and rewire the connector. Not something I'd recommend, as it is soldered directly onto the circuit board, and requires fine surgery to cut tracks, and wire in some links. I didn't make up an adapter, because I didn't have the plug and socket. And I was at work, with access to soldering gear, scapels, and a stereo microscope...

Hello gelliott. Try focusing the camera at night. If the camera has an automatic iris, the depth-of-field will be narrower at night when the iris fully opens. During day time when the iris closes up, the depth of field increases, so more of the image appears in focus.

Hi Joel. I can't find much info on the LCL 902k either. Most sites claim 0.00015 lux. There is one catch with using the Watec cameras - they (or at least the 902H series) have a non-standard pinout for the automatic iris connector. The 902H manual and pinout is here: http://norbain.co.uk/downloads/manuals/902H-1.pdf Also, this meteor watcher has a comparison of different low light cameras and CCD arrays: http://www.kolumbus.fi/oh5iy/astro/Ccd.html

Hi Joel. The aliexpress camera uses a sense-up count of 1024 to get the 0.0003 lux rating. I think such a high count is nearly useless for most applications. It means an exposure time of about 40 seconds (?!), so anything not absolutely stationary will have motion blur. For the PAL standard you have 25 frames per second (so 0.04 seconds between each frame), and 1024 frames are averaged to create the sense-up image. I think that's what the 1024x relates to, but 40 seconds seems like an insanely long time, so maybe not?

Yep, the Watec 902 is a awesome low light camera, but only does black and white. An advantage is that it doesn't use sense-up, so will view moving objects without motion blur. Sense-up is a problem in that it uses long exposure times (up to 2.5 seconds for some cameras), so moving objects become a blurry mess. This isn't a problem for Astronomers, as they can lock onto and track the object they are videoing.

I'm fairly certain the capacitor and inductor will work, but I've never had the opportunity to take apart one of these cameras. Panasonic did make some up-the-coax power supplies, like the WV-PS140C Camera Drive Unit. They probably used a more complex method to get a better quality image.

http://www.adata.co.uk/downloads/ProductManuals.aspx ? If they don't have your exact DVR, you could look for one with the same DB25 alarm connector, and assume that the pinout is (hopefully/maybe) the same.

Hi again. Your other option would be to open up the camera and try to feed the voltage regulator directly. There is probably an inductor between the BNC socket and the regulator, which you should remove. It's a lot simpler to just use C1 and L1 from the circuit to feed directly into the BNC socket through a short length of coax. Just use 28 volts instead of 15. You might be able to use less voltage, but it depends on the regulator in the camera. L2, C2, and the LT3080 (or equivalent) are already built into your camera.

Hi there. I don't know the details of your cameras, but if they use DC power up the coax (I would hope so - AC power would be awkward), then you could try this circuit: http://www.discovercircuits.com/H-Corner/Remote%20TV%20Camera.htm I don't know what voltage you need. Try 15V first as per the circuit and see how you go. Hopefully it doesn't smoke the camera. Good luck!

Have a search through this forum - look for discussions on "ground loops". Try powering the problem camera from a separate power supply (wall-wart). Make sure (this is the important bit) that the wall-wart is not grounded, in that it only has two power pins, and not a third grounding/earth pin.

For starters, you do not want to be running a heater from solar, or you will need a lot more panels. See if you can find a PTZ dome that will work from 12 volts - it's a lot easier than changing DC to AC. If you already have the dome, check with the manufacturer whether it can run off 24V DC instead of AC. Also, the solar panel will provide 80W pointing directly into full sunlight. You need to chose a panel sized for your sunshine hours. Are you planning to run this during Winter?

Hi there. I can't help you with this specific board, only make some suggestions. It appears to be a generic decoder to control basic domes - those without preset positions. Have you tried the basics, such as switching the RS485 A and B lines over? Also, are you supplying the decoder with 24V AC (it doesn't look like it'll work from 12V DC)? It uses 24V AC to control the dome motors. What protocol do the domes claim to support? The dome manufacturer will have set the decoder board DIP switches set for one protocol and baud rate. If the DVR and dome protocol matches, have you tried different baud rates? A quick look around the web hasn't revealed any instruction manuals, so your best bet would be to contact the manufacturer: http://longyang.en.ec21.com/Built_in_Decoding_Board--821307_821389.html and see if you can get the switch settings. Worst case you might have to buy one of the boards. Hopefully they don't have a minimum order of a dozen! Have you removed one of the decoders? Maybe the switch settings are silk-screened on the back of the board. A bit of a long shot, but you never know... Otherwise you could replace the decoders. I've seen similar for sale on Ebay for $20 to $30, brand new. I think they only did Pelco D and P.

So does anyone know why Vector's camera blacks out the over exposed pixels? In my opinion it looks terrible. There's surely no design/engineering reason behind this? As for Shockwave's camera, I guess it's overheated and begun to fail. Does it come right after it cools off?

Hi folks. The tv lines refer to the horizontal resolution, measured across the center three-quarters of the image. The edges are ignored, due to poor focusing from the lens or electron beam (vidicons, CRTs). It allows the line count to appear higher (besides, usually only the center of the image really matters). http://www.sumasmedia.com/pages/TV-Lines.html - note that the lines shown on the link should be centered on the screen, not off to the left as shown. Sumasmedia doesn't quite undertand the concept! So the max. resolution of your 704 x 480 pixel 4CIF recorder is limited to about 528 TVL across the screen. The amount of comression used (MP4, H.264, wavelet) can further reduce the effective TVL count, as the compression is lossy - information is lost during compression, resolution degrades. A higher TVL may indicate a higher quality camera, or it could be that the marketing dept. has gotten to the specification sheet. Vertically, each image is made up out of two fields, each measuring 240 lines (pixels), interlaced so one field uses even lines, the other odd lines only. In television terms, the vertical resolution (number of scanlines) is fixed by the PAL/NTSC standards, and it is only the horizontal resolution that can vary. This depended on the amount of bandwidth allocated to the TV channel, and the quality of the video amplifier in the TV.