gb5102

As stated previously it's my belief that your problem is caused by all the different(un-bonded) ground rods. With separate ground rods you are introducing multiple paths to ground which can actually cause current to flow between them. Surge damage is caused by current flowing from a point of higher voltage to a point of lower voltage- you want to try to keep everything at the same voltage potential, which is why I've always been taught its best to use a SINGLE grounding point for all interconnected equipment. For example- possibly the nearby strike is closer(either electrically or physically) to your 'building' ground rod(s), which will cause your 'building' ground to be at a higher voltage for a split second than the separate ground rods at your cat5 surge protectors- which is causing current to flow over the cat5 from your from your PoE switch in the building to the ground rods at the cams. Are you using shielded cat5 for the underground cable? Also curious what PoE switch are you are using? EDIT: nevermind....in the 1st post...

Sounds like ground loop(s) causing interference to be picked up/amplified Guessing you are using 12vdc cams, and the power 'ground' wire is tied to the video 'ground' wire? (can verify with a multimeter...) If so, use 24vac or dual-voltage cams as these typically have isolated 'grounds' due to the layout of the power circuitry(even if you still run them on 12vdc)

Well I admit I am not a 'surge protection expert' by any means, but I have been taught to make sure everything is tied to a single grounding point to avoid creating 'ground loops'. We get quite a bit of lightening activity in Wisconsin during the spring/summer months and besides direct strikes(which NOTHING is going to stop) we rarely have issues, whether its analog CCTV cams or IP/network equipment. When I deal with outdoor cat5 runs: -I use shielded cable(STP) -I isolate the camera and cable from ground at the outdoor/camera side of the cat5 line -I use a surge protector at the head-end which is grounded to the same point as all head-end equipment(switches/router/nvr/etc) -This protector has served us well: http://www.l-com.com/surge-protector-indoor-high-power-10-100-base-t-shielded-cat5-lightning-surge-protector -if incoming internet service is Cable, make sure the line is well-grounded where it enters the building. The CATV installers in my area always half-ass it. Either the ground lug is only finger tight, or even worse they will stuff the ground wire somewhere so it just *looks* like its grounded...

If these cams are on their own ground rod, that is probably part of the issue. You want everything tied to a common ground so all equipment is at the same voltage potential. Separate ground rods are going to be at different potentials during a surge event which is going to cause current to flow(unless they are tied together with some heavy copper) EDIT: just realized this is a pretty old thread....but still helpful for reference purposes

Makes sense if it is an unregulated power supply. With unregulated, the voltage is dependent on how much load is on the power supply, little or no load=higher voltage output. But as far as I know all 'switching' type power supplies are regulated, I've only seen heavier transformer type power supplies being unregulated. If unsure, measure the voltage on the power supply, if it is 12v with no load(cams) on it then it is regulated

I will never buy anything from Surveillance Video...3-4 years ago I made the mistake of buying 16 cams from them and NEVER AGAIN! Took almost a month to receive, was literally lied to numerous times, finally received the cams and they were the wrong model- they insisted they 'upgraded' me even though the 'upgraded' cams were cheaper, wrong color(needed black) and had an insanely stupid mounting system(I'm sure they were just trying to get rid of them). Never got them to send the correct cams, I finally had enough of them and gave up and chalked it up to 'live and learn'...

I would get drives designed for 24x7 usage, such as WD-AV or WD Purple drives. The Purple drives are pretty new, I've used a few of them and had no issues, the WD-AV line is more mature, I have lots(~60+) of these out there from 500GB to 4TB with no issues whatsoever. 3TB WD-AV = WD30EURX 3TB WD Purple = WD30PURX

Great to hear you got it figured out! Thanks for posting back.

From what I can tell, Ganz GH-F24 looks to be a standard enclosure, pretty much any universal enclosure will work. Like this one: http://www.sti-usa.com/Products/CCTV-Housing-Aluminum-with-heater-blower-sunshie-STI-7100K.htm

If there's no way to move it to a soffit or other flat surface, I think I would just space it out with washers in the low spots so the cam sits straight(I carry nylon washers for these exact situations!) then just silicone around the perimeter of cam, leaving a weep hole at the bottom for any moisture to escape. I have also had to break out the SDS chisel bit on a few past installs to knock down high spots...with the property owners permission of course!!

Here is my opinions: 1. Junk, more than likely...you want CCTV-grade RG59 or RG6 for video(or cat5 with QUALITY baluns), and for power cables it depends on the distance and power draw of the cams 2. No, unless each output is individually fused and your cameras have isolated the video ground from the power ground(or you will likely introduce ground loops/interference). Your cheap 12v eBay cams do not have isolated grounds...I don't even need to know what brand/model they are... 3. No, length of cables has nothing to do with amperage of power supply. Voltage drop under full load(IR on) is what you need to be concerned with. The proper way to address voltage drop is to run the correct size power cable, but you can also buy power supplies that allow you to boost the VOLTAGE to compensate. http://www.supercircuits.com/resources/tools/voltage-drop-calculator 4. You want regulated...switchmode power supply will always be regulated, transformer-based power supply can go either way

Great to hear you got it set up! I recently setup a new system using the exact same 39" Seiki monitor(and it looks AWESOME...) but I am not using event popup on the display. Only thing I am concerned with is how the monitor will hold up to 24x7 usage...I guess time will tell. If it lasts 3 years I would be happy with that! Only things I can think of for the black screen you mentioned are: 1. Are you using the 'on-demand display' feature? If on-demand is enabled, the delay may be due to switching from the sub-stream to the hi-res main-stream. 2. Do you have the same delay if you use one of the '+1' matrix layouts? For example the 16+1 layout shows 16 static cams around the perimeter, and the center of the layout(the +1) is dynamic and displays the active 'popup' cam. Otherwise I could definitely see it being related to the older CPU/chipset. If I get some time in the next few days I'll try to do some quick tests on a Haswell-based i5/B85 system I am currently burn-in testing.

No offense but if you need to get on an internet forum to ask a question like this I think you are not qualified for this job.

ummmm, wouldn't it be installed at the front door?? I suppose they could have an entry gate I agree with Varascope, Aiphone is rock-solid and well-established in this area.

have you tried to reverse the polarity of the RS485 connection? try swapping the D+ and D- wires also on most cams using Pelco-D you would use Preset 95 to enter the OSD

Wireless cameras, in general, are not reliable, I'd go hardwired/PoE except for special circumstances(like outdoors long distance point-to-point link). 8 cams on a gigabit wired network should not be much of a performance hit, would consume maybe 30-50mbps depending on resolution/encoder settings. VLANs/subnetting will not reduce congestion as you are still sharing the same transmission medium, its more about security/isolation but if you have a lot of devices then subnetting will reduce broadcast traffic.

ZyXEL ZyWALL, very good business-class feature set and cant beat the price compared to a Cisco ASA or similar. May be tough to setup for someone without networking knowledge though Heres the entry-level USG 20: http://amzn.com/B0042W7CAI

yes those connectors from amazon should work. Or you could cut the connector off the power supply, splice it on to the end of your new extension cable, then just splice the 'extension' cable directly onto the cable from the power supply But using the connectors would be a little neater way of doing the same thing i guess.

Agreed, and Zyxel is good quality/reliable I've found

802.3af requires 48vdc. And I would not trust that piece of junk from ebay you linked to...(no offense) Suggestions: http://www.ebay.com/itm/PowerDsine-6001-PD-6001-AC-Mid-Span-Power-Injector-POE-Hub-Power-Over-Ethernet-/121287560614?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c3d4d4da6 http://www.ebay.com/itm/POWERDSINE-PD-7001G-SINGLE-GIGABIT-PoE-ADAPTOR-/251527717258?pt=US_Network_Switches&hash=item3a9038618a

Just pick up some 14awg or larger cable at the hardware store and splice it on. Speaker cable, landscape lighting cable, even a standard electrical extension cord will work(just cut off the ends...)

-If you have an old ethernet HUB (not Switch...) you can hook DVR and PC running Wireshark up to it, PC will see all packets from DVR since HUB repeats all packets out of all ports. -alternatively here's a passive LAN tap you could use to intercept data: https://greatscottgadgets.com/throwingstar/ -otherwise a managed switch which supports Port Mirroring function would accomplish what you are looking for

A bit pricey, but these work AWESOME: http://www.pvistore.com/compact-hd-rf-modulator/

OK looks like those cams are low power so you should be fine with either switch. I still recommend the zyxel out of personal experience, I've found them to be reliable yet reasonably priced, also the zyxel has an internal power supply as opposed to external power brick. 100mbps bandwidth is more than enough for [4] 2MP cams.

Well you didnt specify which cameras you are using so cant say for sure, but the TP-Link switch has 53W power budget, which would not support 4 cams if they required full 802.3af (15.4Wx4=61.6W) Personally I would recommend ZyXEL ES1100-8P for a good cheap switch