fa chris

recently picked up a dewalt 20v max hammer drill and impact driver. rugged, more powerful than the 18v, has bright LED lights so I can see (and they stay on for like 30 seconds after I quit drilling), batteries last a long time and are quick to charge, and most importantly... they're super light. if you like 18v dewalt, you'll love the 20v max line. downside is cost but i got these on a black friday sale for cheap.

What sorts of jacks are these, and how are they mounted/enclosed? Is this some sort of weatherproof Ethernet jack that can mount inside a standard electrical box, or is this something different? Got any pics of these installs that you'd be willing to share? This is a great thread, I'm learning a lot. For outdoor cameras we usually put a single gang box with a jack in it inside of a 12"x12"x6" nema 4x enclosure, along with a power supply, surge protection, service outlets, whatever else we need, then stub conduit out to the camera with a patch cord & power cable. You can also put a keystone jack inside of a 4"x4" weatherproof box and run a patch cord and power out to the camera. Typically the enclosures will be indoors, and conduit will stub out to the camera with patch cords. For indoor IP cameras we just have them provide a 4"x4" box with a single gang trim plate and a modular jack. Works well for cameras on suspended ceilings or pendent mounts because the camera will only ever end up hanging by the patch cord if it gets ripped off, not the main cabling. Worst case we have to replace a modular jack with a patch cord connector broken off in it. For people who live in municipalities which require everything be in conduit (like Chicago), I don't know why you would try doing it any other way. I'll try to dig up some sketches / diagrams later. Ill look for some pictures too but I don't have any right off hand I can think of.

Depends 100% on the existing network. Talk to their IT guys, explain to them the bandwidth you'll be putting on their network and ask for a vlan to isolate the security segment. Find out where their switches are and tell them how many drops you'll need in each IT closet as well as how much bandwidth you expect to need at each IT closet. If they can handle the requirements, then you're fine. Otherwise, you need a separate network. Biggest issue with having it on someone's network instead of your own is if a problem arises, you have to figure out if it's your issue or a network issue and get someone else involved to deal with it. Proving it's the network is never an easy thing to do. It's been my experience IT guys are willing to deal with cctv cameras if you install some client software on their machines. They're control freaks, being able to watch the site is something they all want access too.

The easy fix is to request an in-office demonstration to compare it to other products, tell them it's the only way you'll consider their product line. Chances are they won't fly to the midwest to do it, and if they do just send them to a vacant field a few states over... or postpone their trip at the last minute a few times until they give up.

You mean you haven't stocked up ALREADY? oh i have. no point in stopping now though.

less than a year before the zombie apocalypse, i plan on stocking up on guns, ammo, and mre's.

I would've used a pendent mount and taken it from the structure above. Plenty of places to clamp it too.

Aiphone's JF series might have worked. It's 2-wire video, but I think it might be limited to only 5 stations total.

Our office has put in / serviced tons of digiops from 7/11's. There's nothing special about them as far as I know. I just checked their website, all 7/11's use G2 series DVR's which are now discontinued, as is the G3 replacement (which was never used because it wasn't available in a wall mount version). You can't buy a new G2 anymore, but almost all of the internal components can still be replaced if you have a broken one.

Doesn't matter. Ideally you'd run solid core in the conduit and terminate it to something permanent on each side then use stranded patch cables to make the connections to your equipment. If you're only looking to buy one though, get stranded. It's more flexible so you'll have less problems wiring.

what's been plaguing ssd's isn't the actual disk, but the controllers can fail at any time, making the 2,000,000 hours thing useless.

the connector won't fail, the cable it's connected too will.

fa chris- So even with the outside internet cut, the connection string from CATV modem to router to PoE Switch to IP Camera and the connection from PoE Switch to the recording video PC is not affected? You sure 100%? Yup. Whatever is connected to the PoE switch will still talk to each other, they'll just lose their ability to talk to the outside world.

The PC version is awesome.

The Hobbit was written before the Lord of the Rings, and in my opinion is better than the trilogy. You could easily make 3 movies out of the one book probably.

I wouldn't worry to much about your electrical panel, if its a concern call your power company and they should be able to lock the panel or give you permission too, and they can definitely lock the meter. If you pull the meter, you pull the power to the house. The panel isn't needed on the outside at all (around here they don't put them outside), and locking it won't prevent the meter from being pulled. When the electrical company shuts off your power, they simply pull the meter and put non conductive material over the prongs in the back of it, then they put the meter back in. If someone pulls their meter out, removes the material, and plugs it back in to turn their own power on, the electric company will put a lock on the meter when they come back out. Your CCTV system will still operate if the phone/internet/tv lines are cut, you just won't have remote access. Unless you have a berg alarm requiring a phone line instead of using cellular, it won't matter if they are cut or not, so I wouldn't mess with the brighthouse equipment at all. Your best bet is to put a UPS on your NVR, camera power supply, and any switches or other CCTV equipment.

Well there's always that. Just because it's labeled RG-59/u doesn't mean it's manufactured to military specs anymore though. I'm sure they have an all new longer, equally archaic name for whatever cable they designate as RG-59/u which they have a specification for manufacturing.

Breaking up a cable into segments lets us test and verify each segment, , easily replace the weakest segment in the chain (in this case, the part between the keystone jack and the camera), and lets us use different cable for each segment. This holds especially true in the OPs case where he used direct burial cable for his run. What happens if the last 6 inches gets crimped during routine maintenance? Especially since it's cable not meant to take tight radius's? Bury a new cable? What happens if you abandoned a camera location? Leave a cable hanging somewhere or cut it off and shove it down inside a wall making it useless for any future application? With a jack, you simply put a dust cover on it. Do what you want to do, I just see a lot more advantages of doing it one way over the other.

Are their specific requirements? If you just want to record a drive, get a GoPro. http://gopro.com/hd-hero2-cameras/ They don't work in low light at all, but are otherwise awesome for this type of stuff. We've mounted them to wake boards, ATV's, bikes, boats, etc.

The US military named "RG-59/u". The R stands for "Radio Frequency" because it's meant for transporting RF signals, the G stands for "Government", 59 was just a sequential number with no meaning behind it other than there are 58 other coax cable specifications before it (like RG-6), and the "/U" just means universal specification. Put it all together and you have the common name RG-59/u which today has no real meaning behind it, just the common name for a common cable manufactured to a common specification (it's no longer tied to the US military). The A/B/C means there is an updated or modified specification the cable was manufactured too, so RG-59c/u was manufactured to a newer spec than RG-59a/u. None of it's important for us, just find RG-59x/xx and you'll be fine. It's all coax, it all terminates the same, it'll all work for cctv. Most people seem to drop the "u" at end nowadays too.

On large installs we sub out the wire pulling. We always require the sub to provide a patch panel in the termination room and a jack in the field where we need a camera. They can certify their cable run and it should never be touched, moved, or changed. We come in, hook up our switches with patch cables to the patch panels, and in the field we hook up our cameras with a flexible patch cable to the provided jack. Make's it real easy to tell if something is our problem, or our electricians problem. With the patch cord method if someone drops a camera with the cable attached or bends or flexes the cable to much, pinches it while mounting the enclosure accidentally, or whatever else... you're not pulling a new cable, you're replacing a patch cord. Add a few cameras in the same location? Mount a box with a switch, run a patch cable to the jack. There's a lot of long term benefits to doing it this way, not seeing many cons.

Not a bad little system, good job. I would think snow would keep most trouble away.

Westom, I've never seen a surge suppressor which didn't require an earth ground. http://www.protectiongroup.com/ProtectionTechnologyGroup/media/PTG/ProductDataDocuments/1453-003.pdf?ext=.pdf http://www.ditekcorp.com/product-details.asp?ProdKey=59 What type of products are you suggesting the OP use/not use for suppression? And for what applications are you recommending he use it? (ie: outside, inside, at the device, at the panel, etc.)

I was just pointing out public perception of the CCTV industry. We (all of us are guilty I'm sure, customer has the ultimate say in what we install) put in a lot of cameras meant to protect assets with outdated technology. Look how far digital cameras have come in the past 10 years, and up until a few years ago we were all pushing analog cctv systems touting 4cif, while the first gen of IP cameras where working out their own set of problems. Now we have decent megapixel options, HD cameras, etc. so when John Q public see's a heavily pixelated black&white cif image from a convenience store robbery showing no details and they're wondering why CCTV systems suck when their iPhones simply obliterate the quality. Sure we can say there's a pricepoint a customer has to choose, but at 11k... dude's going after some kid who stole his ipod instead of the guy who really robbed him.

You need any remote that can activate a relay when pressed. Wire the relay to an input on the system which is programmed to release whatever door you need it to release, or tie the relay directly into the REX on the door if it has an input. This will prevent any alarms from popping up on the SMS whenever the door is opened from the wireless device. The receptionists phone system might even be cable of relay outputs on dialing an extension or something.