kensplace

If they are the same as the ones I got of ebay, which they sound like they are, I had the same problem - nice illuminators but no psu supplied. Your best bet is to get in touch with derwent to see if they can supply a psu, failing that (if its too expensive, or they wont sell one) then you could try making your own diy psu. Bear in mind, I am only offering this advice based on my experience with trying to get mine to work, its not known if they will work for as long with my solution as they would with the real psu. Its also at your own risk both to yourself, others, property, etc if you decide to go ahead - you must ensure you know what you are doing with regards to electrical safety etc before considering going ahead. However, if you are competant, and can safely do it, here is what I did. I took a 5amp battery backed up power supply box, which output 13.8v (it was a elmedene psu, normally used for cctv/access control etc) and put in a very large (at least 50 watts) metal clad current limiting resistor (bolted to the metal box for heat dissapation) If I recall the value was around 4.7 ohms, basically you want to limit the current to under 3 amps as otherwise you will over power the leds and blow them. I dont know how much more it could take, as I dont want to blow a perfectly good illuminator, but that amount works fine for me. I passed the current limited power through a outside box with a light dependant resistor controlling a circuit to switch a relay on / off at dawn/dusk so they IR only comes on when needed, meaning the illuminator lasts longer, and does not waste power. A lot will depend on the cable you use, basically try to keep the power going to the illuminator limited to around 3 amps, around 12ish volts. Volt drop is a major issue at these amperages, so good cable, and not to long a length is required, you need to take into consideration the voltage drop over the cable when deciding what current limiting resistor to use. Its not a particularily easy task if you dont have all the bits handy and enjoy tinkering/measuring current/voltages etc, so it may be easier to just buy a psu. Mine have been running for months now with no sign of any problems or degredation/overheating etc so far.

You could look into using an outdoor PIR sensor to trigger the recording. Optex Redwalls are common in the UK, they are pretty much just a waterproof passive infra red sensor, they use them in our local park, on building sites etc to trigger the ptzs to certain locations when someone enters the sensors field of view.

Personally I use regulated DC supplies, with battery backup, the AC supplies are basically just a transformer in a box with fuse though, not easy to get a regulated AC supply unless your powering from a UPS (which I do, so thats the AC side taken care of). A lot of cams I use in the house have their own regulation build in, usually in the form of 7812 type regulators (or similar) so they can take a fairly wide swing in voltage as they do their own regulation, so a unregulated supply would not bother those type. Not all cams do have their own regulation inside them though as you say, and those could suffer from over voltages etc. 3 Years is a very long time, I would have expected a camera to fail a lot sooner than that if it was getting to much voltage for it to handle, usually either straight away or as soon as it was a hot day, and that pushed its temperature over the edge (heat from the day + heat from the overvoltage). PS - Where are you measuring the voltages, if its at the PSU end then it could be higher than the cams rating to cover voltage loss in the cable so by the time it gets to the cam its at the right voltage.

Looks like condensation to me also, it looks very cold out there with that snow, the IR comes on, the leds get warm, condensation forms... What happens if you watch the footage back, does the effect form slowly?

I dont get this, Would love to see the video in question, if it clearly shows there is nothing visible on the floor (when the woman claimed she slipped on a thick pink liquid, then if its not present - its not present. Why would you need footage before the fall or after the fall, if it clearly shows that the liquid is not there at the time of the fall? Unless the footage was unclear, and the other footage would have shed more light. But the court seemed more interested in before / after footage even though, according to the article the footage they did have clearly showed the fact that the offending liquid was not present. Perhaps if the liquid had been present and the store had claimed the woman had put it there herself, then the before footage would have been relavent to the case, but the liquid was not present at the time of the fall, so obviously it would not have been present before or after the fall either surely? There has to be more to this, the video footage must be unclear or something, I just cant see why any sane judge would require any extra footage if the footage they have clearly showed that the woman lied about falling on a pink liquid....

Derwent also does a good range of IR products, again not cheap (unless you can pick one up second hand) but you get what you pay for with their IR..

On the cam in my back yard I use kopex, which is a flexible, waterproof, conduit, metal inside, rubber/plastic outside. With the fittings etc its not cheap though, I was lucky and managed to get a handful cheap on ebay once. It wont stop a determined attack though, then again I cant think of much that will.... If possible two cameras that cover each other, so any attack on one is recorded by the other...

IR is best as a seperate light source, so you can aim it where you need it. Plus - the IR will attract insects etc, so if the IR is next to the cam, that cam will probably be showing insects crawling over the screen.... Seperate IR will have less of a problem that way. There may be other issues with IR in domes (such as reflection of the IR) but I dont use IR domes, perhaps those that do can comment on that...

If the footage is missing completely for the camera viewing the room at the time he/she entered, then it could be that the dvr was turned off before any buffer was written to disk, or whoever turned it off could have deleted the footage that identified them before switching off. Or it could be a data loss (ie corruption). Does your DVR keeps logs / audit trail of what has been done (ie what has been deleted, who logged in, when it was turned off etc)

Life can also depend on the location, any drive subjected to any vibration wont last as long, so keep it on something that wont wobble Also, temperature, if its in a hot room, or the cooling in the DVR is insufficient then life will be reduced. Quality of power (and the power supply/regulators in the DVR) is another thing that can affect the life, surges/spikes etc can reduce life or kill it completely. So clean, well regulated power helps.

Im not familiar with that model, but a google search for its name brings up a spec sheet that says the camera uses 4 watts max. 16 cameras at 4 watts each would be 64 watts. A 24v power supply will have less issues with voltage drop over longer distance than a 12v one. Its best to try to use a power supply that is capable of supplying more than you need, its always handy to have a bit spare capacity power wise in case you upgrade a camera. Also the power supply will not be running at its limits all the time if you are not using it fully.

Yup, looks like its one for the big mains voltage pan/tilt heads, like the dennard 2000 type. They are big, heavy beasts that run of the mains. You send mains to whichever motor you wish to activate causing it to either pan or tilt. A normal camera would be bolted onto the movable head usually inside a encloser, optional with lights etc bolted on (they can take a lot of weight, as they really are heavy duty) Do not attempt to connect this to a normal camera/dome..

Not familiar with which dvr you have, but often dvrs use active X which is meant for internet explorer not firefox I believe.

Welcome to the forum.

Welcome to the forum.

Thats a good idea that... Would be great to be able to take a tour around a city then pop inside its touristy buildings to look around... all on google...

In the UK at least, its probably not the camera that is the problem. Its the people that charge to much to install a camera (we are talking around at least 20 to 60 plus thousand per city center camera from what I could see). Its also the people in charge that decide to pay that much, instead of shopping around for better deals. They get only a few cameras for silly amounts of money, when for that money they could have installed a lot more. Its also the people in charge that decide to put them in silly places, places that dont really need them, instead of placing them somewhere else near by that would benefit a lot more. Its also the people who maintain them, or rather they often dont. Its also the operators, in some places in the uk they have even resorted to using volunteers from the public to man the control rooms, instead of trained pro's. Its also the UK press who focus more on the failures than the sucess stories, enforcing the idea in the criminals heads that the cameras are nothing to worry about. Its also the police, who are understaffed and overworked and dont have the time to investigate all footage properly (if at all) - and even some who dont bother to check for footage, or investigate it if they are told about it. The cams themselves are often decent equipment, they just need to be in the right places, well maintained, well operated and used...

Never heard of black friday before.. Must be a USA thing I guess, Im from the UK.

You can get some cameras, that record a fisheye view (180 or 360 degree lens) that then use software to allow you to view different areas of the footage on playback. Its like being able to pan/tilt after the event has happened. IPIX commandview is the only one I have tried, there are quite a few (more modern probably) on the market. Not cheap though.

Yes, you can use the DSP (the tv out on the 1480) as a 'spot monitor' so it can display the camera of your choice, whilst you can view what you want on the pc screen. Its in the geo manual under 'DSP spot monitor controller' where it explains how to enable it, and what it does.

Try a google for 'shared serial port' there are several apps out there that let you set up multiple 'virtual serial' ports that can go to the same real port. Each application can use one of the virtuals, but they end up at the same real port. Not tried it to see if they are compatible with geovision though, have used one in the past a while ago to use a two satnav apps on one port though.

Welcome to the forum.

Welcome to the forum.

Welcome to the forum.

Do these have inbuilt IR? If they do maybe the extra cable is causing to much voltage drop so when the IR kicks in, the extra current pulls the voltage down below the minimum the camera needs?