scorpion

I am not familiar with the Toshiba IK6400k day night camera. I cannot be of much help with you on this one. I did not understand the following: "I have 1 48 led ir and it seem to do nothing at all. It on about 400' of heavy drop cord. 2 @ 100' 2 @ 50' 1@ 75'. Also the Ir is mounted on top of the cam about 15' off the ground. " Is this an illuminator? Do you have 5 illuminators? Two at 100 feet, two at 50 feet, and one at 75 feet? What brand of illuminator did you use? Is the drop cord a good copper wire, with a large guage of wire? 400 feet may be to long of a cable run for it to work! What voltage do the illuminators work off of? A 48 LED IR should illuminate a 20 foot X 20 foot area with no problem! I do not know why it does not work for you!

How far is the area that you want to illuminate from the place that the bulb, and socket are located. Are you more interested in a wide path of lit area, or are you more interested in a narrow, but deep area of lighting? This would determine the kind of bulbs you would use. Most motion detection lights with two bulbs will illuminate out to 40 feet, and will illuminate 40 feet wide. You will have to measure your set of lights to see what you get. Go to a rental store, and rent those halogen lights on a tripod. Illuminate the area when it is completely dark, and look at the recorded image, (not the live view), and see what the video looks like. The tripod will allow you to move the lights around your house, and you can find the best spot for mounting to achieve the best lighting. The "malibu light" sets out in the yard will help also. Up lighting trees will make a difference as well. You will have to experiment to achieve the perfect design. Excluding the motion lights you can control the other lights with X-10 or other "wireless" control systems. You can have your outdoor lights come on by a timer, or you can have them come on by darkness. If you are running 120 volt lights out in to the yard make sure you use the proper wiring, and have them hooked up to an electrical panel with the proper circuit breaker, and GFI for safety. Good luck Scorpion

http://www.swann.com.au/s/products/view/?product=349 This is what the camera looks like. I do not have any photos of the forklift with the camera on it. I thought you were going to use the camera to steer the forklift when you were loaded up, and could not see. Why would you want to record the view? You will have to put the receiver in a central area that will allow you to pull in the video as the fork lift travels. You will need to run a wire from the receiver to the DVR for recording purposes. The transmitter is the same wattage as a childs walkie talkie. You can get great distances when the receiver, and the camera/transmitter are both outside. They will work indoors as long as the two devices can see each other. If you have the devices seperated by a wall, then you will have to bring the receiver, and the camera closer together. Forget about trying to penetrate 3 walls or more. They would have to be 20 feet apart in order to maintain the energy level at the receiver in order for it to see the video. This is on 2.4Ghz. If you have a wireless laptops using wireless internet then you may have some interference issues, as the wireless internet is also on 2.4Ghz. Batteries: They will not last long. You can get about 8 hours out of a good battery such as the "hyper bunny" brand. Lithium 9 volts may cost about $10.00 U.S. each. These should last about 20 hours give or take a couple of hours. You will need to test this out for yourself to see what time you can get out of them. DVR: The DVR can go anywhere you want it to go. I assume this will be in a manager office, or something to this effect. The DVR will have to be near a power plug. If you are hooking the DVR up to the internet so that you can see the camera from any computer around the forklift area, or from home, then the DVR will have to be located near the internet modem. Or you will have to run a computer cable from the modem to the DVR. If you are cat 5 savvy then you can custom make your own cables. If you have an employee do this work for you make sure they follow common sense, and use saftey measures. If you are not sure of the install, stop and PM someone here on the board for help. I would rather waste your time, then to have someone do an install that they are not comfortable to do on their own. I would perhaps recommend that you hire a local CCTV company to come out, and help you out. They will know more about the ins, and outs of your particular location. I would be more than glad to help. What is the next step? Scorpion

I have! I used a Swann microcam III. This was set up using a 9 volt battery on the camera. The camera mount was epoxied to the side of the fork lift back. There was no wiring to get pinched, cut, or yanked out by rubbing it up against something else. The back of the fork lift had a frame to keep things from sliding back, and falling on the driver when the pallets were lifted in to the air. The camera is protected so that a drive by near miss does not smash it. You will have to decide how you are going to power the receiver if you use it on the fork lift itself. If the fork lift has a battery then you are good to go. Our set up was for a training class with orange cones in the parking lot. They would give classes for new employees, and then take them to the "road course". They video taped this on a VCR, and showed it back it in class. They have real footage of accidents. They have one where a guy takes a pallet rack to high, and smashes in to the ware house over head lighting sending shards of glass raining down! They have a guy who almost got ran over. The new driver did not look back before backing up! Some people do not know how to get a feel for rear wheel steering. This was the most fun on an install I have ever had! Scorpion

Do you have a small 13 inch color TV with a video in socket? It can be on the front, or the back. Most TVs are set by default to use the F connector on the back of the TV. This is the screw on connector where your cable attaches. Here is how you can get video activated on your small TV with a composite video input. On some TVs to activate the composite signal it is a simple as pressing the channel down button until you get to channel 2. When you press the down button one more time this will activate the AUX, or GAME input. This should bring in your video. If it does not, then you may have to find the remote control to the TV, and you will have to find a button that is marked as one of the following: SOURCE, or INPUT, Aux, or the button may be marked as GAME. Press this button, and it should reactivate your composite signal input. For those TVs with multiple inputs, you may have to press this button several times. You will see an On Screen Display (OSD), and it will show you input 1, input 2, input 3, input 4, and so forth. It may show High Definition 1 (HD), High Definition 2, S video, Composite 1, and Composite 2. Keep pressing your button until the composite is highlighted. On some TVs you may have to press a "select" button after you have highlighted composite. You can get one cheap in the U.S. at a pawn shop! Make sure it has a composite video input before you pay for it. Test it too before you leave with a DVR or something! I hope this helps! Scorpion

I am sorry. I will not be able to help you with this one. I do not carry the Samsung line of DVRs. I have no information on this. I do not provide software for the purposes that you have described, and therefore I leave you stranded with a problem. I like your idea of having an onsite recording device, and I like your idea of having remote video recording. I wonder if you can use a video web server? You can take the video of one camera, and you can have that as a live feed for recording. You could also use the multi screen output of your DVR, and hook this up to the video web server. There are many software choices to do as you have asked. Did you see any on the forum threads that caught your attention? If you give us a detailed "story" of what you are trying to accomplish, then we could give you a more detailed design to get you on the right track. Try some of the companies that advertise on the banner ads. There are very talented individuals who have done exactly what you have described. They would be of more help then I could ever try. If you cannot find a video web server through the forums advertiser then let me know, and I will set you up with one. I have my clients DVR set up using the software. If someone comes in to the nightclub, or bar after hours the DVR will send the video to the remote computer. The computer at their house will sound an alarm (if they have speakers hooked up), and there will be a film strip icon on the desk top. When you click this icon it will give you the video of the event. If more than one camera is activated then the owner will receive several icons with the video clips. This is a way to save my customers some money. If there are two owners, and they were both at home watching the video on the DVR then one owner can use the CHAT feature with the remote software, and they can talk to each other, and compare notes. A manager may have come back after hours triggering the alarm mode, but the first owner may have sent the manager back for a task, and the first owner did not pass on this info to the second owner. The second owner may falsely believe the manager has come back in to take something such as cash, or liquor from the locked store room. This approach seems to work for most of my clients. My DVR will allow me to hook up several more hard drives should they need expand the storage capacity of the DVR. There is a special plug on the back of the DVR, and I can plug in the storage array with three more hard drives! You can find these DVRs located with the companys located in the banner ads. If they cannot help you with the style of DVRs that I provide let me know, and I will help. I appreciate the email, and look forward to seeing you on the forum! Scorpion

Does this mean you do not have to pay for the power supply? That's great! Who pays for the camera?

If you want to build your own power supply you will need a transformer, an AC to DC converter such as a bridge rectifier, you will need some kind of filter to remove any AC ripple, and you will need a regulator that will keep the voltage at the level you desire, and you may want a large capacitor to store electricity, so that you have a reserve when your system pulls more electricity, such as when your IR cameras all turn on after dusk. You will need to decide if you are going to use "wire wrap board" to put all of your parts on to it. Wire wrap board is a board with a whole bunch of holes in it. You place the parts of your circuit in to the holes, and then you can use a wire wrap method, or you can solder the parts together. If you are using ICs, you can use an IC holder on the board, and solder it in, and you do not have to worry about damaging the IC from too much heat from the soldering iron, and destroying the IC. You can make a custom PC board. This board has copper over the whole board. You will use a stick on product that will create the lands, or the roadmap for all of your connections. Once you have designed your layout you can transfer this design using those stick on products. You will then place the PC board in to a PLASTIC PAN, (NEVER AN ALUMINUM FOIL PAN), and then you put an etching solution in to the pan. This solution will eat away the exposed copper, leaving the stick on products that represent your circuit. When you have removed all of the excess copper you will pull the board out, and clean it off to stop the etching process. Here is a tip. Find an old record turntable. Place it on the speed that makes the turntable spin the slowest. Put your pan on the turntable, and this will help agitate the liquid giving you a uniform etching process on the board. If the pan sits static then some areas will not etch as fast as other spots. If you use the static method use a wooden spoon to stir it. Once you have cleaned your board, then you can remove the stick on products. Now you will need to drill small holes for your parts. Insert your parts in to the holes, and solder your parts together. Test your power supply before you use it on anything. I test my power supply with a device that allows me to control the AC voltage from the wall. I want to know how my power supply will react at 95 volts AC (brown out), and I want to know how my power supply will work at 130 volts AC (long term spike). If it cannot work in this environment then the power supply is no good to me. If parts blow at 130 volts AC then you will need to use parts rated at this voltage, and not just any part will do out of a bin. In your design you will want to use light bulbs, or LEDs to signal to you that everything is ok, or that something is wrong. You will want to have a green light to let you know that the incoming AC is working. You will want to have a green light on the output of the power supply to let you know that you have voltage out. You can design circuits to detect faults that will light up red bulbs, or LEDs to signal to you that something is wrong. Try this link here: http://www.electronics-tutorials.com/basics/power-supp-hi-regulated.htm Scroll down to the bottom, and you will see a schematic of a power supply. Do some research, and find a circuit on the internet that is close to the design that you want. About Fuses: http://www.fuseone.com/fuseology.aspx Fuse specifications: http://electronic-components.globalspec.com/Specifications/Electrical_Electronic_Components/Electrical_Distribution_Protection_Equipment/Fuses Fuse block: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062258&cp=2032058.2032234.2032302&parentPage=family Power supply capacitor selection info: http://home.insightbb.com/~stephenwmoore/Electronics/Power_Supply_Capacitors.htm Look up this for the output of your power supply. 50V Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors More info: http://home.eunet.cz/rysanek/sup_en.html You should be able to find most parts at an electronics store. Let me know how your project comes out! Good luck!

Are you going to build your own?

What is your budget?

I bought a 13 inch color TV from the store that uses a red bullseye in its logo for about $85.00. It has the composite input on the front of the TV. It takes some abuse, and keeps on ticking. I also use a 4" TFT hand held monitor that is rechargeable. It is difficult to use in some cases because of the bright sun. I love the portability of it. It is great for trouble shooting!!

Hello GunRunner1!

I hear you on the indoor cameras mounted outside, and caulked to seal them! I recently had a customer hire me to move her system from her two bedroom house to her other house that she just bought. It was about a cheap of a system that you can have. I asked her how long she had the system, and she had it for two years, and it was still going strong. She was 80 years old, and stood her ground that she was not going to buy replacement cameras. Two domes had plastic bases, and the other two were metal bases. The plastic based cameras were fine. Just needed a little dust taken out of the dome, and wipe the inside clean, and it was good to go. The other two were cleaned up, but the bases were starting to deteriorate. Two years old, and the cheap cameras with one inch by one inch B/W minis inside a clear plastic dome, and the back was exposed, and they are still working! I have to say I am impressed. I saw the bill. Look like the guy who put them in did not make any money off it. It looks like he did this out of the kindness of his heart for the lady. If he made $100 out of the whole deal if he was lucky. When I gave her a quote on a new PROPER system I thought I was going to have to perform CPR on her with the look on her face. She was a tough bird. She starts lecturing me how she is on a fixed income, how her husband died, and left her all alone, her husband's pension was good many years ago, but in today economy it does not go far, and social security doesn't go very far either, and she can't afford any money, and she is so scared of these teenagers, and she has no one to call on to help her. When I left I was impressed how she just finished painting the exterior, had new tile laid in the kitchen, new wall to wall carpet through out the house, and for such a very old house it was maintained very well. I mean not far from showroom condition!! Must be one heck of a Social Security Check she gets! Now lets talk about the house she is moving in to!

I believe this "electrician" really has no clue as to why there was a failure. I believe he is just scratching his head like the rest of us. It sounds like that one theory was more along the lines of how you would hook up speakers. An amplifier that is rated at 4 ohms per channel can have two 8 ohm speakers hooked up to it if they are hooked up in parallel. If you hook too many speakers in parallel to the amplifier you will exceed the rating of the amplifier. This is where home amplifiers get seperated from the big boys of the concert series. Most home amplifiers can not take very much abuse. Many people do not realize that the at different frequencys that the ohm rating can change for that speaker. This has to be taken in to account in designing systems for nightclubs, bars, and road shows. You would be surprised at how many on the road concerts run their amps down to 2 ohms!!!! Of course these amps are designed to take it. As a side story I was doing a very small bar, but they brought in very large groups, and they made money hand over fist. They repeatedly had problems with the PA system they were using. Typical system on a tight budget. The owner said this was the third time she has replaced it in as many years. She wanted a bullet proof system. Here comes the dog, and pony show!!! I came back later with an amp, and a set of speakers. The sound was so clear at over 100 decibels that I thought the owner was going to cry from joy. She had never heard an amp, and speaker set up that could pull this off! I wanted a check right then, and there. I told her the price, and she said "NO WAY"! If you want quality, you have to pay for quality! I made her a bet! I will lay this speaker, on it's face, and you can run the volume as loud as you want. If it does not blow in two hours you buy a system from me. If it blows you will never see me again. Two hours later I got my check. One amp, two speakers, and two subs at $25,000.00!! They have been so busy, and everyone is impressed with the quality of the sound that patrons have stopped going to the competition. One bar has closed, two others have called about getting new PAs installed! The one that closed was running Gemini amps, and speakers. Nothing wrong with the company. It was just the wrong design!

I can not tell you what the color code is. I am not familiar with your system. You may have a 4 wire system, or a 6 wire system. You will have to determine which wires are power, and which wires are video. Do they have built in microphones? If you are careful it is possible to pierce the wire to see if you can get a voltage reading. This would tell you what wires are for power. I can only assume about the wiring. It would be nice to see the power on the red, and black wires, and the video on the yellow, and green wires. Green may be a ground. If the power is dc then the black wire may be ground as well. If it is ac then the black wire may not be ground. In some cases you may have power on green, and red, and video on yellow, and black. You may have a different color combination. I would have to look at it to give you my true opinion. The wiring may be so fine that you may not be able to crimp on a bnc connector. Practice with one camera before you do all of them.

Hello this fine Thursday! I wanted to see how you were coming along?

If you do decide to use ethernet over powerline you will have to look at the wiring going from building one to the pole, and the wiring going from building two to the pole. This system will work as long as there is not a transformer between the power lines of the two buildings.

How good are you with a soldering iron? Do you have a basic understanding of electronics?

Do you use 120 volts AC 60 Hz in the Bahamas?

What you have described is feasible. Using the IR leds from remote controls is very effective to light up very short distance. Allthough you will need to group them together in a group. We will need to test the IR leds to see how far they will throw, or how wide they will throw. If you can find some that throw a wide pattern, and some that throw a long pattern, and combine them as a group, then you can illuminate an object wide, and far. Do not forget the resistors in the circuit. Keep the resistor to the original IR LED. You can push a little more voltage through them if you do not mind losing longevity of the LED lifespan. You can measure how far an LED will throw by using an IR sensitive camera at night. You can point them at a bush, and then move them back until you can no longer illuminate the bush. When you set up the IR illumination, you will not want them to close, as they will wash out the scene. You do not want them to far away, as the scene will not be illuminated. Do not forget the photocell to switch the IRs, on, and off. When you set up the illumination you will want to think like a director of a movie. Direct IR lighting is harsh. If you can reflect off an object, such as a ceiling, or a wall it will soften the scene. You may want to illuminate the scene from more than one angle. You can illuminate head on, and illuminate from the side. If someone breaks in to your apartment you will have their face no matter which way they are standing. Do not depend on this system as a full proof video surveillance system. This is for hobby purposes only! If you need video surveillance, then you need to hire a company, and have them design a system, and install it correctly. Your cameras need to match the DVR (stand alone, or PC based). Good luck!

Looks like a wavelet DVR

Here is a thread about my showroom. http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=9202

Congradulations! You want to start your own business! Here are some articles, and some threads from the forum. http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=31 Marketing 101 http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=8981 Spaghetti Marketing http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=32 Labor Price Calculations http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=2 Video CAD http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=16 Free advertising http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=9184 Press releases http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=9165 Networking, and association groups http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=9149 ____________________________________________________________ Site survey equipment You can buy a device to put your camera on it, and give you the hands free option. Go to a music store, and buy what is called a "light" stand, or a "speaker" stand. This is compact, and the legs slide out to form a triangle base, and the stand can be raised up to about 10 feet. When you have the desired height, you just turn a knob to tighten down to that position. You can get the cheap "DJ" version for about $75.00. You can attach an LCD monitor to it as well. Even better buy a 220X zoom camera, and use this to show wide angle verses, regular view, verses a zoom view. This makes for a great Dog, and Pony Show!!!!! I actually bought the lightstand system. It is 10 feet wide, and goes up 10 feet high. It comes with two tripods, and two 5 foot pieces that link together to create a 10 foot span. I bought the crank up system. I just take the tripod out, but I use the rest of the system when I do HOME and GARDEN shows, and etc. I hang a 2 foot by 8 foot banner on the bottom of it. I take intelligent lighting, and I have them swing colored lighting all over the place to draw attention. At first I thought my "neighbors" would get pissed, but they seem to benefit from the "attention" that draws people! They have suction cup camera mounts (for dash cams) that you can lick, and stick on plateglass windows. I use this on commercial plaza jobs so I do not have to take a ladder with me, or I end up doing a D + P off the cuff. Wear shirts with big logos on the front, and the back. You would be surprised at how many gas station/convenience store owners will want to have a talk with you! This is how I get a lot of free lunches! I use magnetic signs on my van. It actually has home theater in vinyl, so that the customers feel comfortable when I show up for an install. A lot of people are really glad that I do not show up with signage blaring VIDEO SURVEILLANCE!!!! I can slap them on, and take off the video surveillance signs as I need them. If I am just driving around I have it on the sides, and on the back. Get the biggest that you can afford. I recommend a 13" color TV for outdoor daytime use. I do use a small LCD screen monitor, but it does not give the video any justice, in the Florida Sun. The LCD is great for the quick in and out situations though! The only time I use a light meter is to show the home/business owner that they have no lighting at all. I only run in to this in the nightclub/bars, and the fake casinos, you know the kind that gives out gift cards instead of cash. I never use it to make actual lux computations. I have bought a $250.00 lens selector. Total waste of $250.00 in my opion. It is great to hand to the customer, and let them slide the adjustment back, and forth, and then I can look at "their" view. It is more a prop, then a tool in all honesty. It justifies the $100 site survey fee, (they get the value back when they buy a system). LCD screen was the best investment out of all of my tools. I used to take a measureing tape, but I do in my head pretty much nowadays. If you do x-10 stuff they have testors that you can use to verify that it will work before you do an install. http://www.x10pro.com/pro/pdf/xptt_xptr.pdf ___________________________________________________________ Is this information over load yet?

I would assume you would use an analog to digital converter, and at the other end use a digital to analog converter. composite video goes in to a device that gives you an IP output, then you go through the device that gives you the ethernet over power. At the other end you would use your ethernet from the power, and connect it to an IP to analog converter. Analog signal to your tv.

Altronix (I plagiarized these from their site). How to calculate voltage drops http://www.altronix.com/index.php?pid=4&note=1&PHPSESSID=48675dfed232023ea74d1817ca6da2e2 How to choose the correct battery http://www.altronix.com/index.php?pid=4&note=2&PHPSESSID=7bd2fbc4b3391e3da3121e0f9a6a10de PTCs vs Fuses http://www.altronix.com/index.php?pid=4&note=3&PHPSESSID=9c2cd5ceefa05c9d1ba88fb62a754aae Power demands on a circuit http://www.altronix.com/index.php?pid=4&note=4&PHPSESSID=e6e52fe7d89fe88c9d41c947ecaf08d9 ___________________________________________________________ http://www.fuseone.com/fuseology.aspx http://electronic-components.globalspec.com/Specifications/Electrical_Electronic_Components/Electrical_Distribution_Protection_Equipment/Fuses This should be a start to put a system together.