cctvman

LCD Monitor Belt mounted with bracket I once saw a CCTV installer with a small LCD monitor that was mounted to his tool belt and that had a bracket so that he could adjust it to see properly when positioning the camera. I have seen lots of mini LCDs with belt clips that clip onto your belt and with neck straps but neither of these put the monitor in a position for you to view it such that you can have both hands free. The installers solution that I saw with the belt clip/bracket seems ideal. But Im not sure how to go about mounting it onto the belt. These LCDs can be expensive, i dont wanna chance breaking it by using double sided tape. Any suggestions, thoughts? CCTVMAN

Just wanted to get a few opinions on the following: A lot of the service vans I have seen in my neck of the woods have both a 12' A-Frame ladder and an extension ladder, approx 22'. Following are the advantages/disadvantages as I see them. A-Frame: Advantages: -Well balanced- Doesnt normally require another person to hold it steady unless windy or on uneven ground Disadvantages: -Don't typically go as high as extension ladders due to size constraints -Can be more difficult to get right against the wall due to the V-shape of the ladder or if you turn the ladder so it is parallell to the wall and you are able to get close to the wall, it is more difficult to apply pressure (as when drilling) because the ladders legs are no longer behind the force of the drill, but out to the sides now. Due to space limitations I find myself carrying around a set of general purpose ladders for service calls (if I don’t have enough info about the situation to know exactly what is needed) What do you guys take with you? CCTVMAN

Hello all, Is there such a device that will lock the dvrs power cord onto the ac outlet so it cannot be unplugged or a device that will acheieve a similar result? such as maybe a rack enclosure that will cover the ac outlet? I think to myself that it must be against electrical codes to do something like this. but Im not sure. Any Thoughts? CCTVMAN

Please HELP! lol I'm looking for a accurate yet economical way of estimating cabling installation. The cable it my primary concern, the installation of cameras,dvr, monitors I find are fairly predictable but cabling can completely throw off my estimates. I have heard some installation firms have generally flat rates based on the square footage of the site, and then grades the installation into Easy, Difficult and Very Difficult in order to assign a more accurate price. I like the idea of this because you can give a customer a pretty concrete idea of labour costs even over the phone before coming out to the site. In the past I have spent just far too much time figuring out the exact cable paths and lengths, technques etc. and the time is killing me, plus all of this is just for the estimate, no guarantee i'll get the job. Id be very appreciative to get some input on how you guys handle this? Also i constantly run into customers that try to get you to throw in extras like neatening up existing cables at the DVR, etc. This was obviously something that wasn't included in the estimate but how do you bring up that you're gonna have to charge them $30-75/hour to neaten up some cables? Sometimes it can take substantial time to do it cause they're so tangled. Mainly I work with small business so I'm working directly with the guy issuig the check, i guess this is part of the reason why I feel it is more difficult. Any thoughts appreciated. CCTVMAN

Hello All, I almost feel like a complete fake for asking this question but the grim fate of low profitability seems to be rearing its ugly head. I have been in the CCTV industry for approx 5 years, I have done installations, sales and technical support which is why it makes it that much difficult to ask this question. What is the real benefit to non-premade cables? I have always used them myself, but mainly due to convention, because that is what I think real CCTV pros would use. But many of my competitors are using these premade cables in varying lengths, and due to the low prices of these cables, and the less labour incurred for installation due to the fact that the connections are already on, I am being forced to consider its true value. I realize that these premade cables are RCA cables and most wouldnt even consider mentioning these in the same sentence as siamese cables or the other industry standards but I have to ask the question. I have taken the liberty of starting the argument, please feel free to add info as you see fit. Premade: Economical Non-weatherproof Non-repairable if broken? Less Flexibility in lengths Non-Premade: These can be weatherproof if option is selected Repairable if broken Flexibility in length I would appreciate any input, thanks. CCTVMAN

is that the metal-tech ladder offered by home depot? I use one of those, takes up such little space and so easy to carry around. Do you find when using a non a-frame ladder that you need somone to hold it when you are say above 8 feet high or higher? What do you do for situations that require ladders above 12 feet? you would use the little giant? CCTVMAN

Hey All, A few weeks ago I found a great little device and just wanted to share it with all of you. Its a mini digital video recorder, it has AV in/out, and records via sd card. Its got the same dimensions as a standard business card and it about 1 cm in depth. Battery life is like 7 hours in record mode, more than enough. I bought a little CCTV bracket that has a spring loaded clip with a 1/4 thread at the end. The recorder is super light so i just bought a strut with a female 1/4 threaded hole and epoxied it to the back and screwed in the bracket. It works out really well cause now i just clip the bracket onto the top of my suspeners that distributes the weight of my tool belt easily. When Im doing a walk through i just set it to record audio and video and i hook up a seperate bullet cam that uses the same type of bracket that is clipped onto the other side of my suspenders. This way i can always refer back and I find it makes things a lot easier in case i forget. Also its perfect for alligning camera positions because its just below shoulder height, and easy to adjust for a good view. The LCD is only 2.5" so Im sure all the pros here would say you cant begin to focus properly, which im willing to accept. Its been working really great for me so far though and Im extremely happy with it.

Hello all, I recently saw a brief demonstration of a product that acted as device to control PTZ tracking. How it worked is that there was one fixed camera that was plugged into the device, from that fixed camera there were priority areas that could be defined, such that when there was motion in those areas it would trigger the PTZ to zoom in on that particular area for a better view. Unfortunately I was unable to get the name of the product because it was a small company that was looking at importing this device and they would not allow me to take a close look at the device (I assume it probably had the manufacturers name on it somewhere). I think this device would be very useful. What i think would be exponentially more useful though is if multiple PTZ cameras could be used, and multiple fixed cameras could be used to define priority areas. Does anyone here have experience or know anything about similar products? The company that gave the product does not currently sell the product but had just brought it in for feedback purposes and testing. I was told the PTZ required two way data transmission in order for it to work. Any info would be much appreciated. CCTVMAN

Hi All, Just hoping I could get a few thoughts on the following situation. I have a fast food restaurant franchise as a customer and upper management suspects that store managers and certain supervisors at various locations are powering off the equipment to prevent recording or rendering remote access inoperable. Sometimes it seems that the routers are being unplugged as well and the settings are being lost including those that allow for remote configuration (port forwarding, remote configuration) necessitating an on-site visit to reinstate remote access. The systems were never installed with this concern in mind. The systems are PC based units in conventional PC cases. The power buttons for these cases are not being protected in any way, there are no lockable panels protecting the power buttons, but even if there were, what would stop someone from just unplugging the plug from the back of the computer? In that case, even if there was a UPS it wouldnt matter. I have considered the use of an enclosed rack enclosure but the costs are relatively high, my cost alone is close to $1000. and it seems like even these are susceptible to being unplugged. I myself am not sure someone is intentionally unplugging the power supplies but regardless the settings for the router are being erased. I was wondering if there was a way of storing router setting internally to the network and having it copied back to the router in case of erasure. The stores have D-link router installed. Any thoughts or experience would be greatly appreciated. Thanks CCTVMAN

I've seen burial grade rg59 buried and it has worked without incident. I've also seen regular rg59 buried prior to the burial grade. lol thanked god that it wasn't me who installed it and that i had the opportunity to learn from their experience without expending all the resources of time, cable, equipment necessary to figure out what exactly went wrong. If your planning on burying the power as well make sure that it is burial grade as well. I find running local power however is a better bet if possible in instances like that. They ended up running burial grade siamese cable and i think they had to ensure that it was buried lower than the frost line, it gets pretty cold here in Canada. CCTVMAN

Hi All, Just wanted to get your thoughts on a situation I frequently encounter. Often I am running cable in large warehouses or industrial environments with exposed beams. From my experience the beams range in height from 12" to approx 20". Normally I take out the ladder, climb up to the height necessary and begin to fish the rods over the beams, but it occured to me the other day that there might be a faster way of doing it. I was thinking, instead of moving and climbing up the ladder each time I could simply take my connected fish sticks in hand which reach approx. 12' add that to my maximum reach of close to 8' and try to almost javelin throw the fishing rods over the beam. I think most of the time fishing cable using my original technique would be consumed by moving the ladder, and climbing up and down. By doing it this way it seems like I could, or atleast should be able to reduce that time drastically, obviously there may be some points where the ladder may be essential but using this technique when the ladder is not essential seems like it would be a very productive use of time. Even if a small ladder is still needed, I think it would be much quicker to setup and move a smaller ladder than the larger ones Im currently using. I have considered throwing a projectile over the I-beam but often I find that there are small triangles above the beams that I am fishing over and I find that if I fish the cable through these triangles the cable stays straight, and therefore neater without the need for tiewrapping and the labour that is incurred with tiewrapping at regular intervals. My concern with throwing a projectile is that I might get it through the wrong triangle and then I might have to spend a substantial amount of time throwing it back through in the reverse direction in order to start again. Any thoughts, experiences would be greatly appreciated. CCTVMAN

Hello Everyone, Just wanted to get some opinions on the use of J-Hooks. I haven't used these myself as yet, but I hear they are often used for Cat 5 cable. To me this product seems functionally very similar to using a tie wrap yet it still allows for the flexibility of future pulling, because it is not tight on the cable. However it doesnt seem to me like it would have the same force as a tie wrap and therefore more of these J-hooks would be necessary to keep the cable from sagging on visible cable runs. I was thinking of using these for my coax and cctv power runs, would this be acceptable? Does anyone else use these in a similar manner? Thoughts/Experience is greatly appreciated. CCTVMAN

Rory, Remember this. The amazing stuff only happens in Hollywood and in advertising. The only time I ever saw a ceiling like that was in a new school over the Large Group Instruction LGI rooms. Only challenge there was the back of the room the ceiling there was at about 9 feet and at the front was about 21 feet. The LGI was on an incline the ceiling was level. Otherwise most drop ceilings are as you describe. And if the installer was not careful the whole this was racked to one side which make it impossible to get the tiles out with out breaking. But give me a basement with drop ceiling over drywall any day. Later, LOL .. yeah if we start poking those poles around these ceilings we'd have all kinds of ripped up AC duct . .. unfortunately it is mostly hands on here .. Well I'm from Canada and the vast majority of the drop ceiling I have seen has been straight runs, its rear that I'll see AC ducts completely blocking me off in any direction. I cant even really imagine what you mean when you say its mostly hands on. If your blocked, your blocked, no? I get angry if I cant see the end of the run from where Im starting. Really puts things into perspective. lol CCTVMAN

I use this telescopic pole, its has a maximum distance of approx 18' althought the advertisement says 20' I was wondering if anyone used the same product or has had any experience with it, good or bad. Also has anyone tried using this green lee cable caster? I think if it was accurate enough it could be very useful for threading beween the triangles above an I-beam. Id be a little more cautious about using it in more confined areas though because I would be concerned I might lose the dart. CCTVMAN

man we use the telepole and z tip combo all the time. You get two people 40 feet apart and the can easily just extend and then other one hook very fast. Well worth the money for the poles Thats brillant, I dont know why I didnt think of that. I used to find the problem with the telescopic poles is that because they are telescopic they are not smooth like fish sticks, therefore you cannot pull them along surfaces easily. But by using two back to back you completely elliminate this problem because they only have to extend out and it is not necessary for the base to be pulled along the cable path. Brilliant! CCTVMAN

tie wraps are a no no? Is this just true for cat5 or coax as well?

What is the largest ceiling height you have done using the telepole? How long is your telepole? I imagine it must bend easily when your working at full extension, no? CCTVMAN

Hello all, I am interested in the following dvr. Can anyone tell me anything about it? Anyone used it? Knows a company that uses it? Where its manufactured, etc? http://www.securitystores.com/cgi-bin/specs.cgi?1501 CCTVMAN

I use a set of saw horses that has an indentation that allows me to put the conduit on. It holds the conduit relatively securely and the spools spin on the conduit. The saw horses I use are plastic, they fold up so they take up very little space and are light and convenient to setup. I really like the product that I saw another user post. Seems like the same kinda idea but has actual holes to insert the conduit through, seemingly to hold it more securely. Personally though because I don't use siamese cable that comes on the spool much, I try to stick to cables that come in the relex boxes that unreel inside the boxes. I find it saves me a bit of setup time, less equipment to take to the site, less equipment to take home, and their more condusive to a distributued cable pulling approach. With the saw horse technque you either have to pull everything from a central location, or you have to have seperate saw horses from each point you begin a cable pull, which if you are pulling from the individual camera ends to the dvr can require a lot of saw horses or similar mechanisms. CCTVMAN

Oh, the shopping cart is just being used for its depth so the spool can rotate freely. I thought you meant you would put the spools in the shopping cart, and thread the cable ends through the pulleys and then back to the dvr and tie it off so it wouldnt move. Then you would roll the shopping cart out along the path but then the cable would have been under the drop ceiling (if there was drop ceiling there) I think i understand what your saying now. Because the pulley is mounted hopefully to a structural beam almost directly above the DVR the wire that runs through it won't go overtop the beam and the tails will be hanging through a ceiling tile. Thats not cool excpet for in certain instances. Once you disconnect the pulley the coax will be on the top of the tiles which isn't up to code, just throw them over the beam the pulley was mounted to and then drill into the wall header behind the DVR. Tape a powerful magnet to a length of pull cord and drop it down the header. Use another magnet to guide it to your hole if you have to. Tape your coax to the other end of the pull cord and thread it through the wall for a nice clean appearence. If you have your power supply above the DVR you might need to do this twice seperating the siamese after pulling it through the power supply hole. EDIT: Here is a reasonable example of the style pully I am talking about. http://www.etrailer.com/pc-PB~SW7750A.htm?utm_source=yshop&utm_medium=ppc&Affiliate=yshop Mine appears lighter and a whole lot cheaper ~$25. You can use this style at the DVR but you have to thread the coax back through it so it can only be used at the ends of a run. This example is also too small as it might allow for 4 runs at a time if you are lucky. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=92308 http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=92308

Its not upto code to have cables going through a ceiling tile? Its low voltage wiring isnt it? and where does the shopping cart come in? I still dont understand that part. CCTVMAN Because the pulley is mounted hopefully to a structural beam almost directly above the DVR the wire that runs through it won't go overtop the beam and the tails will be hanging through a ceiling tile. Thats not cool excpet for in certain instances. Once you disconnect the pulley the coax will be on the top of the tiles which isn't up to code, just throw them over the beam the pulley was mounted to and then drill into the wall header behind the DVR. Tape a powerful magnet to a length of pull cord and drop it down the header. Use another magnet to guide it to your hole if you have to. Tape your coax to the other end of the pull cord and thread it through the wall for a nice clean appearence. If you have your power supply above the DVR you might need to do this twice seperating the siamese after pulling it through the power supply hole. EDIT: Here is a reasonable example of the style pully I am talking about. http://www.etrailer.com/pc-PB~SW7750A.htm?utm_source=yshop&utm_medium=ppc&Affiliate=yshop Mine appears lighter and a whole lot cheaper ~$25. You can use this style at the DVR but you have to thread the coax back through it so it can only be used at the ends of a run. This example is also too small as it might allow for 4 runs at a time if you are lucky. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=92308 http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=92308

I was actually asking myself the same thing when he wrote that, I thought i was the only one who did that. It may sounds strange at first but I think it can be an effective technique. It obviously has the disadvantage of potentially having a whole heap of cable on the ground that can become tangled but this can be ameliorated by draping it over a set of rafters if the ceiling height is high enough to facilitate it, or if there is enough room on the ground that it can be stretched out over without it being stepped on, interfered with etc. The advantage however I find is particularly useful if you are pulling a cable run by yourself. I find this technique lowers the amount of friction on the cable, making it easier to pull.I suppose at this point you are less "pulling the cable" and more like "threading the cable" over obstacles. It might be useful to use the analogy of knitting or needle point. When the obstacles one is threading through or over are all alligned in the same direction then pulling the thread through is relatively easy. However as soon you have a significant point of friction such as a sudden change of direction it can introduce a significant amount of friction that will make pulling difficult. This can easily be overcome if you have multiple people fishing the cable, one pulling toward the destination and the other person alleviating the friction by manually passing the cable over the change of direction, but this takes two people making it necessary to double the speed of the cable pull to maintain productivity. Pulling cable in this manner however is beneficial in that one only pulls the amount of cable that is necessary for the cable run, whereas the method of unreeling the cable to begin with is more of a commitment to the length of the cable run. In normal applications though it is more likely that any cable run will be a combination of the 2 above mentioned techniques. Instead of using a second person to overcome the points of friction one could also use a pulley mechanism which can be helpful, this too has advantages and disadvantages. It may help to avoid having to rely heavily on another person but the pulley requires both installation and removal when complete, so like anything else assess the situation and choose the technique or combination of techniques that will facilitate your objectives most optimally. CCTVMAN

1 hour difference between a bullet and box? 4-6 for PTZ? The only difference I can think of between mounting a box and a bullet would be the possible varifocal lense and focus. Is that what your attributing the 1 hour difference to? I would think the mounting would be the exact same otherwise and 4-6 hours for a PTZ? 3-5 hours more than a bullet? The only difference I can see with the PTZ is perhaps the weight may make it more difficult and the rs-485 connection on the camera and dvr side. But in the case of a PTZ there is no camera allignment necessary. Perhaps I'm missing something, i dont understand how you can justify these time estimations though. When I said that I thought 1 hour for an indoor camera was an unreasonable time estimate I was working under the premise that the cable run was included. CCTVMAN

I agree, I see people quoting 1 hr for an indoor camera, and i think to myself that it's an inevitable downward spiral with pricing like that. Really messes up cometing bids as well. What does 1.5hrs per camera fit off focus mean? What steps does this encompass? CCTVMAN