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Nice! Maybe tying the camera (motion detection) or using a PIR sensor to trigger the lawn sprinkers would be less "messy". As a bonus, it'll keep the neighbourhood cats and dogs out of your garden. You can also use that as an excuse when he complains about getting soaked Just kidding as well... maybe?

Fatherford, is this going to be a covert install? Just wondering, 'cause this guy doesn't look like the type to be scared off by video cameras. As you say, monitor around the house, see who's entering the property, and what they're getting up to. Covertly, so the cameras don't get interfered with, or stolen.

The nearest I can find is this: http://www.costarvideo.com/downloads/specsheets/CD8.pdf I don't know how to get to that PDF from the Costar homepage. Maybe there is something in the CD8 guide of use to you?

Nice score with the VK-C77U. I take it you haven't had a play with the 12x optical power-zoom and auto-focus yet?

Hi there. Just a couple of (possibly wrong) thoughts on this. * Get a box style camera that uses CS-mount lenses. This will give you the best range of lenses to use. Look for a quality name-brand model, like samsung, panasonic, bosch, sony, etc. You don't need awesome low light performance, so look for an older, lower priced model. One with a resolution of 500 to 600 lines is about as good as they get. Get a camera that supports both CS-mount and C-mount lenses - these cameras have a wide back-focus range, which you will find useful for the close focus of your "macro" filming. * Use a varifocal lens so you can zoom into the machine. Those with a focal length of 3.5 to 8mm are fairly common, and shouldn't be too dear. The actual focal length lens you need depends on the size of the camera imager (1/2 inch, 1/3", 1/4" etc). There are formulas/diagrams to calculate this (search for "Field Of View"). You don't need one with an automatic iris, as you will be providing a constant light level. * Resolution. A 540 line camera will give you about 720 lines of resolution across the image. Image you're looking at a picket fence. Each wooden paling is a line, and the gap between the palings is counted as another line, so you'd see a max. of 360 palings. Footnote - What machine are you watching? Be aware that the camera may behave as a stroboscope, and make the machine appear stationary (youtube video: ). Edited: Removed suggestion about exposure times, 'cause suggestion wouldn't work.

There are pros and cons for both. I've gone for discrete, on the theory that otherwise I'll only see images of people with hoodie-covered-heads (or masked) trying to break in, or the cameras will attract the wrong attention. If the property is obviously well guarded or secured, then it must have something worth protecting. Other concern is that the place could get torched to destroy the recording equipment. Hey, if I wasn't (mildly - honestly, only slightly) paranoid, I wouldn't be using CCTV To expand on this, if you have a typically average suburban street, and only one house has obvious cameras, some of them moving about doing tours, then that house will get talked about, and probably by the wrong people

Hi andriusst. Have a look on Google for "depth of field". If you have the iris set wide open, the depth of field will be at a minimum. If the objects at either side of your picture are at different distances (large distances, possibly many meters) from the camera, they may be outside the depth of field, and be out of focus. If you partially close the iris, the depth of field will increase, but you'll have poor low light performance. The depth of field also depends on the lens design. The lens itself could be faulty, or a poor performer. Angle the camera so the object in the center of the picture appears at either side, and see if the object remains in focus.

Hi guys - I'm with Soundy on this, it's a signal ground, do not use it for surge or lightning protection. Use it with the reset wire to restart the camera. I don't know why you'd need to reset the camera - turning it off then back on would get the same results. If you're worried about surges, ask the AVTECH tech what surge supression they've fitted. Listen for words like sidactor, transil, transorb, MOV, varistor, gasseous arrestor, or diode array. I don't have much experience with lighning, thankfully don't see much of it where I live. A surge-protected power outlet will protect you from surges from the mains. Not too sure whether you need anything for the ethernet - how long are the cable runs?

No, not a mirror ball motor - use one from a car windscreen wiper. Make some panning heads for your cameras

Hi Roger. You should be ok to use the camera without the cap. It's probably only there to prevent the camera from interferring with radio or tv reception. Pelco would have needed it there to get FCC type aproval for radiated emissions. Or maybe it was put there "just in case".

The 78xx has a "typical" dropout of 2V, so needs at least that much to maintain regulation... ... maintain regulation at full load. Yep, being pedantic At full load, you will be dropping extra voltage across the mains transformer, and the rectifier diodes, so need to compensate for this. And extra ripple. Also then there's the +/- 5% or so variation in the mains supply to take into account. Maybe make that +/- 10% if you're feeling paranoid...). So it's a bit of a balancing act between designing for efficiency (close to the regulator's drop-out voltage) and reliability. Sorry, I'm being very picky, but there's all kinds of annoying stuff to take into account.

Hi there. The most important problem is that the regulator is operating at or beyond it's maximum input voltage. When you rectify the 24VAC, you get 34VDC. The 7812 can only handle a maximum of 27 to 35V, depending on manufacturer. Please don't use this regulator - it will fail, and probably kill your camera! The thermal shut down is happening because the regulator is not very efficient. It is a linear series regulator, and has to drop a lot of voltage across itself in order to provide the regulated 12 volts. I calculate that it will be dissipating 5.5 watts, so you'll need a heatsink. The math: (34V - 12V) * 0.25A = 5.5Watts What you could use is a switch-mode regulator. They are more expensive to build, and it's usualy easier and cheaper to buy one. Although if you're cunning, you can scavenge and modify a cell-phone charger. Here's a link: http://makeprojects.com/Project/Repurposed-Switch-Mode-Power-Supply/233/1 You want to find a 24V charger (for use in 4 wheel drives and trucks), as these chargers are more likely to use switch-mode, rather than linear regulators. You should also look into installing a "crowbar" across the camera input, to protect the camera incase the regulator fails and dumps 34VDC into your 12V camera. Follow the link: http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/circuits/scr_overvoltage_crowbar/scr_over_voltage_crowbar.php Another helpful hint is to use a dummy load (rather than your camera) to test out the power supply. Something like a bulb out of a car dash board would do the trick - cheaper to replace than the camera if something goes wrong

Hi Roger. That's excellent news! And thank you Survtech for the pointer to Time Lapse Supply. There's lot's of useful images there.

At a guess, that the DVR can not share the control of PTZ cameras with another device (such as a joystick/keyboard, or a second DVR).

Hi Dustmop. Shame to hear that these are failing. It looks like who-ever designed them went to a lot of effort and expense to protect the camera from spikes. The board is chock full of Transils on the aux/relay/comms lines, and there's even a gasseous arrestor on the video feed (?!). I'd hoped there was similar protection on the power feed (somewhere out of the photo frame), but maybe there isn't. There doesn't appear to be much else to the board, at least what's shown in the photo. Well, there is a small series regulator, but i'm not certain what it powers. Also, what are the white connectors for? Fans? I'm curious about these boards, because Spectra domes (or at least parts of them) sometimes come up for auction locally. I've usually assumed that they were being auctioned due to faults, since the cameras are usually missing the back box and dome. There is enough detail in the photo to allow me to rig up a replacement back box, and any other info I can find will be useful. Schematics would be even better

Yep, totally agree. I prefer ceramic over the other capacitor types, although the others (electrolytic, tantalum) also have their advantages. Large capacitance ceramics are a bit expensive. However, you still get the odd one that is defective at manufacture, or which hasn't survived the thermal stresses during soldering.

It could have been a spike, but more likely just a bad capacitor. The voltage spike would have come from the mains, then passed through the 24V power supply. You could fit one of those plug-in surge suppressors into your wall outlet if you're worried about another spike. The 24V supply will still be ok - it takes something pretty major to damage it. It's more likely the capacitor has failed due to damage during manufacture. They sometimes just fail like that, although normally they're very reliable. The camera itself should still be fine, and wouldn't have caused this. I reckon it's still worthwhile to remove the burnt cap, and then test the camera. You don't need to unsolder it, you can grip it with some pliers and gently work away at it. It's brittle (having been over cooked!), and should come away in pieces. Don't bother trying to remove the soldered ends, its the part in the middle that is removed, like digging a ditch across a road, kind of thing. Also, being brittle, some eye protection is needed There is probably a fuse somewhere that needs replacing. It's worth trying this before splashing out on a new board, in case the camera is stuffed.

Hi Roger. I'm not familiar with these boards, so I'm mostly guessing from the photo. That used to be a ceramic capacitor. Probably either a voltage spike destroyed it, or it was faulty/marginal when manufactured. Basically, the insulation (dielectric) layer between the capacitor plates has broken down, and the capacitor shorted out. If you're handy with a soldering iron you could remove and replace it. There appears to be an identical capacitor on the other side of the two black and silver inductors (which are immediately above the burnt cap in the photo). You should replace the burnt out capacitor with one like that - remove the identical one, and measure it's capacitance. If this is part of the 24 volt AC power input (which I suspect it is judging by the thick tracks), then it will need to be rated to at least 50 volts. This gives you a 50% safety margin above the peak power supply voltage. However, if this is your own camera, and you don't mind the extra electrical noise it might radiate, you could remove the capacitor and see if the camera still works. The dead cap is part of a filter - it helps suppress interference from (I'm guessing) the power supply mounted on the camera assembly. So options are: * Replace whole board <-- expensive, but easy * Replace faulty cap <-- what I'd do, because I'm cheap and I can * Remove the cap <-- not the best, but will prove that the camera still works.

It might be possible to spur off the power, but it depends on several things: * On how generous the installer was with the power cable. The main problem with spurring is that you'll increase the voltage dropped (lost) along the power cable. If the cable is heavy enough then no worries. However, if it's of too small a gauge then the voltage drop could be too much, and there won't be enough volts to power the cameras. * You might also draw too much power from whatever is powering the existing camera. Do you have a central power cabinet, or a lot of wall-warts plugged into a power strip? I haven't had much luck finding info about the American Dynamics cameras. They want me to register to gain access to the manuals. From what I can make out, the camera probably works on 12 or 24 volts? Do you know? It's usually less hassle in the long term to run the power lead when you put in the new coax. Light weight speaker cable is fine; it doesn't have to be fancy. You can also get siamese cable that combines both coax and power in the one sheath. It looks very smart and professional, but costs more. If you use the CAT-5 cable, you can carry power over the unused pairs, so you only have to run the one cable. However you will need to buy a pair of baluns for the video. What sort of distances are you thinking of? Shorter distances make spurring more practical, longer distances are more of a problem.

Excellent! How long is the cable run? With good quality coax, you can get some decent distances. Have a look at the Pelco document here: http://www.vfmstore.com/choosing_correct_cable.pdf which will tell you everything you've never wanted to know about the different types of coax you'll run into, and what distances you can get. Note the warnings about cable TV (CATV) aluminium braid, steel cored cable. Best to stay well away from that, and use good quality copper cable. Alternatively, you could use baluns and twisted pair wire (Cat5/ethernet). It can work out cheaper overall, depending on how much cable you need. An interesting document to read is this one from MuxLabs http://muxlab.com/assets/files/application_guides/VE_CCTV_Balun.pdf There is a risk of ground loops (well, more of a risk) when using twisted pair, but this shouldn't be a problem with your cameras, as it is very likely that they internally use an isolated power supply which will prevent this. Anyway, that should be enough there to get you started...

Hi Alan. That's a nice old-style lens you have there. At 3kg it's a bit of a monster! If you got to: http://www.securityinfo-online.com/Brands/Tim%20Temp/Technology%20Partners/Pentax/Datasheets/Pentax%20Catalogue%202001.pdf you'll find all of the data for it. Page 41 has its specifications. Page 48 has the specs for this lens with the preset feature. It's a c-mount lens (not the more modern cs-mount), so you'll need either a camera that can be adjusted to accept c-mount lenses, or a C-CS Mount Adapter ring as shown at the top of page 56. The three wire cable is for the automatic video iris. It goes to the four-pin square connector on the camera. The camera has to be set to video iris, not DC-iris (which is the newer method for iris control). The wires should be coloured red, black and white, which are used respectively for positive power, ground, and video drive. The 12-pin cable controls the motorised zoom and focus, as well as iris (but don't bother controlling the iris this way - let the camera do it with the other cable). It looks like there are four different methods to control the zoom and focus. I don't know which suits your lens. Does it have Type 1,2,3, or 5 written on it anywhere? Page 51 has the pinout for the 12 core cable. If your camera is a B12zcme-P, then it has the Preset feature with two variable resistors VR1 and VR2 to tell an external controller what the focus and zoom are set to. You could use a small 9 volt battery (like a PP3) to locate the motors. Connect it across two wires at a time, and listen for a motor spinning. Connect the battery the other way around to drive the zoom or focus in the opposite direction. Once you've sorted out the connections, see if the motors work with 6 volts. If they are too sluggish, then they're probably need 12v. You could also use an ammeter to check the current the motor draws, and compare it against the specs on page 41. It's an old lens, but they're great to play with, and I'd consider it a good score. I've got a few of these from other manufacturers.

Hi halsaps. Just checking the obvious - are these cameras using the PAL standard, or NTSC, and is this match your home CCTV setup? It's just that you mentioned that they are "pal 3-9 mm VR Discover", and I don't know whether you are in the US or not. As to whether they are good camera, any camera that is free and (sort of) works is a good camera

Hi cgcmgr. The purple colour between the trees and sky is chromatic aberration (usually called Purple Fringing - see wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_fringing). It's caused by the lens mis-focussing the blue/purple colours, which the camera CCD then displays. Either reposition the camera so it sees less sky, or get a camera with a better lens. The pictures from your new camera are very blocky, and show a lot of aliasing (wiki again, I am feeling lazy! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliasing - see how jagged the power line is? Is the capture card set to a low resolution like CIF? Take SEANHAWG's advice, and adjust the sharpness down a bit. Maybe some blurring will reduce the jaggies. In my opinion, your first camera provides a much nicer picture. I had a look at the camera specs, but it only mentioned the day/night feature. Nothing about a mechanically removable IR-cut filter. Without this filter, the day time colours will appear a bit washed out. It's not too bad when compared against the first camera.

Hi mnm99. Not intending to insult by this, but are you measuring the voltage at the camera end, not at the powersupply? Reason is that you'll want to see how much voltage is dropped over the cable. With IR on, this could be significant.

Fatboyelroy, it could be a power supply problem. This could also explain your problem with the monitor. The hard drive could draw 10 to 15 watts, which could cause a marginal supply to collapse, but appear to work fine without the drive. Also, have you completely disconnected the monitor from the Sentinel? So it's no longer being powered by it? Does the Sentinel have an internal power supply, or does it use a plug pack? It seems these days that capacitors are to blame for most power supply faults. Can you see any of these that are leaking or bulging? It sounds like you know what you're doing, but please take care around the high voltages anyway (there - that was the generic warning).