Scruit

The GPS unit is a Garmin GPS18PC - a simple magmount 'puck' that is attached to the trunk lid and outputs NMEA 1083 sentences to a DE9 serial in 4800 8-N-1. I paid ~$75 The overlay unit is a OSD-GPS (ID) from Intuitive Circuits. This is simply a circuit board that I had to mount in my own enclosure and solder up the power/serial and video connections. Cost $119, plus about $15 at radio shack for connectors and enclosure. The big drawback with this is that the speed is displayed in KNOTS and the time is in UTC, direct from the GPS data. There are more expensive units on the market that convert to KPH or MPH. I am building a Zilog Z8-based circuit to convert time to ET, and speed to MPH. For know I'm just letting it display knots - it's still admissable, after conversion.

Got my multimeter inline with the power cable to the controller... Power Controller OFF: 0.00A Power Controller ON, 3 Cameras, GPS, Video Amp and Overlay board ON, DVR OFF: 0.61A Power Controller ON, 3 Cameras, GPS, Video Amp and Overlay board ON, DVR spinning up: 3.60A Power Controller ON, 3 Cameras, GPS, Video Amp and Overlay board ON, DVR steady state: 2.0A Tested it a couple times, no failures during this testing.

I don't use the pass-thru power for the cameras, but the cameras and DVR are on the same circuit. Ok, I ran the test on my workbench about 20-25 times - each time let it 'cool down' for 20 mins, then turned the power controller. Passed every time. Test bench: Battery: 12.7v (no load). Power Controller output to DVR: 12.2v with no load 10.7v while the the DVR spins up, 11.2 steady state. (there is a 0.5v loss due to a diode in the power controller) In the car, headlights off, engine off: Battery: 12.5v (no load) Power Controller output: 12v no load, 10.5 while the DVR spins up, and 11v steady state. In the car headlights ON, engine off: Battery: 11.3v Power controller output: 10.7v no load, 9.3v while the DVR spins up and 9.8v steady state. Yes, I know, 9.3 V is VERY low, BUT - the DVR still starts up!! And when the engine is running, as 2v to all those readings. The failure that I've been seeing happens when the engine is running also! It's not a pure voltage issue. I changed the 12 guage wires to 14 guage - for the short distance I'm going it should handle everything fine. I am going to leave my multimeter conencted to the power controller voltage test port so I can watch the voltages while it fails. I'm also gonna see if it can handle 5amps and give me a good current reading too - that will answer a lot of questions.

Ok, experts... Am I *totally* full of snot or what?

The project will work, it's just a question of being very precise and efficient with your requirements. You're definitely going about the the correct way - understanding your needs and designing to fit the need rather than buying stuff off ebay just becuase it's cheap. ( = me ) Does your state have front plates? Front plates are difficult anyway because of (1) headlights at night blinding the camera and (2) even if the state requires the front plate doesn't mean it will be there (think temp tags, 'german' plates, folks who think theire cars look better without them, out-of-state cars) It's easier to rear a rear tag, especially at night because of the license plate lights etc - but don't count on them being on. If it was me I'd just shoot the backs of the cars in each directon - 2 cameras. Start off with a camcorder (maybe in your truck) pointed at the back of the cars headed in north and try to get an idea of where the plates 'cross' the screen and pick a point on the road that will be the 'kill zone'. The figure out how far right/left the car will usually get from center-of-lane. Remember to account for vehicles with the plate on one side, like the older Pontiac Grand Prix. That will help you figure out what size lens you need to capture all* the cars as they drive away. (all = you won't get all, but as close as possible) The camcorder will allow you to easily adjust zoom etc to find the sweet spot. You can use an online lens calculator to figure out the focal length of the camcorder once you get it right. Once you find this sweet spot and you figure out the lens size etc that you need then you can install the camera in the mailbox. The repeat for the south-facing camera. Bear in mind where the truck will be parked on the street when you put that the camera in the mailbox. You should probably park south of the mailbox because the south-facing camera will be pointing to the other side of the street so the angle won't be as acute.

More thoughts after seeing your pics again... As far as the hit/run - would it help if you found a way to park off-street (like the house that is 2 doors "south" of you with the blue minivan?) like widen your driveway? I did this at my old home after suffering a couple of hit/runs - I bought some sand/gravel and paving stones and built two 'wheel tracks' in the grass beside my driveway so we could park the 3rd car there - no more hit/run issues. Consider that this would not only basically eliminate hit/runs permanently (excepting folks who lose control and leave the roadway) but it would allow you to design your camera system more precisely towards protecting tha car in the driveway. (I'm not an CCTV professional, just a home user) As far as doing the license plate thing, it looks to me that you'd either need a very detailed camera such as megapixel, or you'd have to use 2 cameras for each direction. Here's my thinking... Assuming your street is north/south, you have 2 directions (car travelling north, cars travelling south) My LPR camers can only reliably get plates at the 95% rate when the car takes up the whole image with-wise. If you point MY camera north then you have to choose between hitting the rear of the northbound car or the front of the southbound car. If you want to capture both front of southbound cars and the back of northbound cameras then you'd need two cameras. If you want to capture both lanes both directions, that's 4 cameras. Now, there's experienced professionals here who may be able to advise you of better cameras and DVR combinations that would allow you to capture plates from an image that is wide enough to capture southbound an northbound cars at the same time... But I can tell you that the entry-level equipment is going give disappointing results if you try too wide. For what you are tying to achieve you HAVE to go for quality over cost. Kudos on providing the pics - makes it much easier to advise.

The mailman video, in all of it's tinkly glory... As far at catching license plates... Who drives past your house? Is it mostly the folks in your subdivision or are you on a road where anyone is likely to drive down? The reason I ask is that I always consider there to be two different types of "identifying" pictures. There's the "Hey, I know that guy!" (ie you recognize the car from down the street) and the "Hey, do YOU know this guy?" (aka the police could put the picture on wanted poster). I've found that it's very easy to get a good clear picture where you would recognise a car that you knew (and could direct the police to the owner so they can find the damaged vehicle) but getting license plates reliably is quite difficult. Lighting conditions, headlight glare etc all play a part. Although I suspect most folks driving down your street aren't gonna have their high beams on, so as long as the camera is above the low-beam pattern you shoudl be ok. You can capture about 50% of license plates with a regular camera and no special lighting. Or you can add IR lighting and lens filter and get 80% or you could get more and more specialized stuff (up to the Extreme line of license plate cameras) and still not get 100%. The reason I say this is because I have a camera dedicated to license plates which is all well and good, but if the plate is unreadable for any reason (many reasons out of my control, such as dirty plate) then that whoel camera image is useless - it's an IR camera so there's no way to tell color, and the image is so zoomed in that it's also difficult to tell what kind of car unless you can recognize a car from it's lower spolier. So, if you *need* to capture license plates then make that IN ADDITION to a camera that is slope enough to tell make and model and identify unique features (such as post hit/run damage pattern, or number and location (not content!) of bumper stickers.) Don't put all your eggs in the LPR basket - even the professionals can't get it 100% (I'm talking about speed/redlight/toll cameras, not the pros on this site!!) If you put cameras in your mailbox then be mindful of parking your truck near it in case you block the view of the fleeing car! Also be aware that if your neighbors figure out you are recording plate#s then you may take some heat over it. On the flip side, if someone passes your house and robs a house further down the street then you may be able to help THEM with your video.

I have the DVR on my workbench right now, hooked to a 12v 5Ah battery. I replaced all the power & ground wiring to/from the DVR itself with 14 gauge. I have run 14 tests so far, every time it starts up ok. I attached my multimeter to measure the voltage between the + and - wires to the DVR. When the power controller (external) starts up it sends 12.25 volts to the DVR (measured with the DVR power cable unplugged) If I plug the DVR in then the voltage startes at 11.75, drops to 11v while the fan and HD are spinning up, then back up to about 11.4 as a steady state. The current test involves me tapping the vibration sensor to make the power controller turn on the DVR for 30 seconds, then letting it time out. I am using a video camera to record the multimeter display so I can see record any differences if it fails a test cycle. So far it has passed 14 test cycles. I'm going to put the dvr in the garage overnight to get down to the same temp that it gets to in the car overnight. Last time I saw a DVR refuse to power up like this I replaced the HD and it worked great - but that was failing 100% of the time - this is failing randomly about 1 in 20 bootups. When it fails I have to cycle the power about 4 or 5 times and it will start up ok and thereafter it is fine. If I canot make it fail on the workbench then the next step is to test the car. Is the battery ok? Is the circuit & wiring that I'm tying into able to handle the current? Maybe I need to open up the car's fusebox and use an empty fuseholder / run a whole new 12 guage wire to the trunk to provide a dedicate wire able to handle 2amps.

It should work find for what I'm doing. If I was running a winch or hughe sound system then I'd want a serepate battery - but we're talking about a 2amp drain here - that's not even a taillight bulb. I'm going to replace the main power wiring with a 12 gauge cable. If that doesn't fix it then I'm just about to resort to a 12 gauge shotgun.

I'm using 16 guage which is good for 5 amps up to 15 feet. I'm tying into an existing 10amp circuit in the car so the 16 guage wire is only 3' long. The DVR itself needs 2 amps to fire up and less than 1 as a steady state. It look slike lack of current to me - but most times it works and on rare occasions it doesn't so I don't think it's quite as simple as wire guage. I'm going to carry a multimeter and compare the voltage on a 'good' startup to the voltage on a 'bad' startup - maybe there's something there. I'll also get my battery tested at an auto parts place. Strange this problem just started when the cold weather set in.

I have a 4ch DVR with a 160GB hd recording 30 frames per second total - I get about 2 days history. My main DVR has 9 channels, 25fps total and the 500GB hard drive lasts about 10 days, maybe 2 weeks depending on the amount of motion. How much motion is seen by this one camera? If you are filming a road with passing cars then it will take much more stoage space than filming an empty room with no motion.

He hit the SUV in front of him - I had to choose between hitting him or going into the ditch. I chose to hit him - but he found reverse and backed out of my way with inches to spare.

Can't you identify the source of the light instead? If the light is coming for an area of the screen that is not needed for you direct purpose (ie window of a nearby building then maybe you could shield the light from that area. Can you post a screenshot? Dunno what you can do about smoke other than to ID the source and get it to stop.

I have a home-built LPR setup using a BW camera, 55mm lens with 850nm filter and a seperate 850nm IR emitter. My car has smoked license plate covers, and the camera finds it very difficult to read my plate. My wife's plates are not covered, and they are easy to read. I've also noticed that today's covering of snow really makes the camera struggle becuase it has a manual iris lens. I have an auto-iris lens that should be arriving today so we'll see if that helps. Reflectivity is a big issue at night for me - a light coat of dirt can reduce the reflected light enough so the plate disappears compared to the bright taillights or headlights. Reading plates forma car facing towards me with hi-breams on was a struggle in and of itself and I coudl only solve it using the reflectivity of the plate so but reducing the reflectivity with any kind of covering kills my LP camera.

I have a CPCam CPD576W 9channel standalone DVR. It's an entry-level system that is only capable of 25fps total. It records 24x7 by splitting the 25fps across all 9 cameras, resulting in something like 3fps per camera and a 10-day history from a 500GB HD. I've tried exclusively motion detect in the past but found it to be unreliable because of trees and bushes blowing in the wind, most of them in an area of the screen I can't exclude from motion detect - plus I've missed a couple of interesting events because of motion detect, and one time had a guy in my driveweay and lost footage of most of the event because he stood still! I *do* use motion detect to adjust the allocation of framerate. When there is motion the logic is that non-motion cameras get 1fps, and the rest of the fps is shared between the cameras that DO see motion. So if someone walks past one camera then I get that event is about 17fps (25fps - 8fps for non-motion cameras = 17fps), which is fine. 2 cameras seeing motion will get 25-7=18, shared equally = 9fps each. This works fine for me - I'm not trying to catch someone shoplifting or cheating at cards - just want evidence in case of a burglary etc. The problem I noted is that when there is motion one one or more cameras, therefore the non-motion cameras drop to 1fps, a car driving fast enough could pass under the license plate camera and not be seen - ie the license plate could pass into shot and out again within one second. It's happened a couple of times now where I've missed the plate completely. To solve this issue I took an older 4ch 30fps DVR and installed it alonside the 9ch DVR. I took the loop output from the primary 9ch DVR ("Argus") of the 4 most important cameras and setup the secondary 4ch DVR ("Argito") to record 24x7 also. Argito has a 160GB hard drive, so I expect 3 days of history from it. I can extend that if I go on vacation. Argito gives me two benefits: 1) Faster framerate (7.5fps) that is unaffected by motion on the other cameras, making it impossible to drive fast enough to beat the license plate camera through speed alone. Previously a car doing 10 mph would likely be missed - now the car would have to be going freeway speeds to run the risk of being missed. It's a 150' loose gravel driveway so although 10mph feels pretty fast I've seen people go faster, but nobody is gonna get up to 75! 2) It's a completely seperate DVR that provides a backup of the most important channels - the onse that can help me identify the perptrator. (3 cams detailed enough to recognize faces over each door, and the license plate camera). I've had a hard drive failure on Argus and went at least a day with no CCTV without knowing it. Now I'd have to lose both DVRs before I lost video. I have tested and both DVRs will record independently even if the other ia turned off - ie the primary DVR doesn't need to be powered up or recording for the loop out to work. We'll see if the better framerate allows me to improve my license plate capture rate...

Didn't hear back from Aver on the auto-restart question, but I did observe that my DVR started off at -1C after work, and it warmed up to 1C and started recording automatically after about one minute - no interaction was required from me. Although I'd perfer that I can set the DVR to a lower cold temp, I do think their cold protect implementation is well executed.

The EB1304MOB Mobile DVR has a configurable temperatur range that it will work withng - too hot or too cold and it will shut down to protect the hard drive. Well, it can get down to -10C around here and I was looking at getting a Hitachi Endurastar hard drive (good down to -30C). THEN I discover that I cannot configure the EB1304's low temp below 0C. Nor can I apparently turn off the temp sensing feature. I have a ticket open with Aver for advice on the low temp operation... What are my options here? 1) Disable the low temp sensing, if that option is available and approved by Aver. 2) Heat the DVR while the car is off (I've heard of camera heaters in enclosures? 3) Leave the DVR running 24x7 by using a second battery - the heat generated by operation would keep it warm. I'm looking at swapping my small 'tank' battery (keeps the input voltage at 12v while the engien is cranking) for a 12v lawn tractor battery. The setup would be the same - the car charges the tank battery, and the battery powers the DVR. The DVR can run constantly (motion sensing instead of 24x7 recording) and in the event I don't drive the car for a few days the DVR will eventually flatten the tank battery, but the car's main battery is still fine. If I know I won't drive for days I can turn off the DVR manually. With the DVR running 24x7 it will keep itself warm, hence no problems with temp settings. I will also record non-driving events like parking lot dings or break-ins.

Aver support said the DVR cannot be configured to run below freezing. This is a huge handicap for a mobile application in a counmtry like the US! It's only december and the temp this morning was -10C. This means the DVR cannot be relied upon for 4 months of the year. I did notice that the DVR warmed up very quickly when it was powered up (has a temp readout on the front) and it went from -4C to 1C in about 2 minutes. I have a followup questin to Aver asking if the recording will automatically restart when the DVR warms up.

The only moving parts are the hard drive and cooling fan(s). If the Hard drive is rated in kelvin I'm not worried about solid state devices running at -5C. Having said that, I wouldn't want to void the warranty.

This is a mobile DVR application. 1) I have just obtained a new device that connects inline with the video signal and overlays vehicle location/heading and speed using GPS. 2) I would like to export the video from the front camera (ch1) either WITH or WITHOUT the speed reading (depending on if it's in my best interests to let people know how fast I was going) 3) I am currently using 3 of the 4 channels 4) My plan was to use the loop out of channel 1, run it through the GPS overlay device and then into channel 4 - this would give me a 'copy' of the front camera on ch1 with GPS data. Therefore I could choose to export ch1 (no GPS data) or ch4 (with GPS data). 5) Whoops!! There's no loop outs! Given all the above, what is the cheapest and easiest way to do what I'm trying to do without losing quality? I have a cheap RCA-branded F-type coax splitter from back when we had basic cable - you know the type, it lets you run your cable tv signal to two TVs. Would this work for my problem above? Would it lose quality?

I found a 1-in 2-out powered distribution amplifier from an online CCTV store for about $25. It arrives today, will check it out.

Agreed. My DIY home system was originally built with budget as the deciding factor on all component purchase. This resulted in "ok" results but often when I needed the video the framerate/resolution/lighting or angle/zoom was just not good enough. OP: If you have something you NEED to protect the contract out to a company as suggested. Professionally installed entyr-level features are gonna be betetr and more reliable than DIY-installed anything. After 5 years of tweaking my system and upgrading cameras etc I finally have a pretty effective and reliable system but I'm STILL tweaking some stuff. If you count up all the hours I've spent on it, plus the money wasted on a series of incrementally better cameras (rather than going right for the good stuff), I'm sure I could have have a professional system a couple times over. Mind you, I'm a tinkerer and I like learning about it - something you wouldn't have if you got a professional solution dropped in your lap. So it's just a question of what's important to you. If someone breaks into my house and my video is useless then all I'm out is the cost of the camera system - about $2000 all told - and a hundred or so hours of tweaking. If I had a business that was a higher theft risk then I would hand off that to a professional. My biggest lesson learned is that a homebrew *might* do what a professional system can do, but it takes much more monitoring, intervention and adjustment than just buying the professional system. That, and you'll think the picture quality on an ebay camera is great - right up until you see the picture quality on a brand-name camera. Especially in varied light conditions where the brand-names will do a MUCH better job that the feature-sparse no-name ebay cameras. The cameras are your eyes. If you cut corners here then the whole rest of your system is doomed.

Everything I do can be done, and has been done, by the industry... But it's not cheap.

When I want to test if an IR device is working (remote control, IR emitter etc) I point my camera phone at it and I can see the IR light... I can stand at the end of my drive with an IR filter and my cellphone and all my cameras jump right out at me. Seems like this could be a risk in terms of someone identifying the location of cameras/emitters. Any suggestions as far as getting around this? I was thinking maybe installing a shield/visor that would hide the IR Emitter from areas that are not covered by it (so you can't just drive past the house and use a camera phone to identify the locations of the cameras).

I'm talking about 850. To the naked eye it's a faint glow that is not visible from the street - whereas the camera phone sees it as a bright white light.