Gator

I did some searching for dual technology motion detectors yesterday. Many seem set up for a unique vendor's digital communication protocal over the alarm system wires. If I can find some dual mode detectors that provide relay closure and have good false alarm rate, good distance, I can build a wireless system to outline my perimeter. I'm a retired engineer, so I know the electronics end of things. But since I was never in the security end of things, I'm not familiar with the available products. Specifications of "up to" have always meant to me "never more than". On cameras, there are contradictions of 0.003 lux in one spot on the advert vs 0.0003 somewhere else. Lux means nothing when the picture fills with flare from poor dynamic range. I worked on the signals intelligence end of things and that's a quite different end of security. So if anyone can recommend dual technology motion detectors that aren't proprietary, I am open to suggestions. I would have to run these on battery power with solar charging. Burried wiring is pretty much out of the question. Wiring cost puts it out of reach, and fresh trenches leading to sensors ruins their utility anyway. For the South facing camera, I am considering the Panasonic WV-CP484 with an enclosure. If I can do better detection with a black and white camera, I'm open to suggestions for B&W cameras as well. I need advice on lenses and filtering. I know a polarizing lens can make a huge difference recognizing things. This direction will be lighted with one or two 300 watt flood lights ant that boundry is 400 foot away. I don't care if cameras are obvious. That might even be of benefit. I found mike's example photo of the Cp-484 in low ambient here with it in color mode. I would like to see some low light examples. I have two PC33C color camers. They are 0.5 lux cameras, now discontinued. If a b&w camera would work better in low light along side of these, I can enclose the color cameras for daytime and another B&W camera for night. Does the Panasonic camera automatically switch modes when ambient light drops? That wasn't clear to me from the data sheet. The biggest problem I am having with camera choice is that specifications don't match up to real applications. The Supercircuits PC-1xx I bought several years ago was really disappointing and the Genwac blew it away. The Genwac camera has serious flaws too. And I didn't need it's tiny size, but that's all I could find at the time. It can see in low light but produces a lot of noise that computers have trouble processing. And then I read here of an OEM failing to deliver the promised HAD sensor that was previously designed in. That is where folks here can be a great help. The Genwac was one of the better low light cameras when I bought it. It wasn't really a security camera though. It was more geared to being tiny. It suffers from severe dynamic range issues. Headlights look like road flares. I will post a photo when I am permitted on the forum. That flare and dynamic range problem obliterates even the make/model of cars passing by. The last phase of my project will be to capture license plates. That will all need to be solar powered because of where plates are straight ahead. With a budget of $75-$200 for bullet cameras at my lighted entry doors, what would be a favorite choice? Since these would be lighted, these seem to be points where facial recognition would be important rather than lowest light.

My priority is to obtain an early warning of intrusion onto the property when we are home. I already have a wired alarm with every door and window wired. That has passive IR in the front and glass break detectors in the back. The wired alarm is not much use because at best police response time would be twenty minutes after the fact. The more recent threat is in the form of home invasions. In other communities, they enter when they believe people will be home, because the motive is a robbery inside the home rather than burglary when people are at work. Because it is gang activity, there are often violent consequences. Some of these are in broad daylight. They typically involve multiple perpetrators. My goal is to harden my home security to make it an unattractive target compared with other less protected homes. I think a system that turns on more exterior lighting in response to intrustion on the property while alerting us of the threat would help quite a bit. Of course daytime lighting wouldn't be of any help. Obvious video cameras may be some deterent. Sounding alarms once the home is entered is way too late. That won't stop a crime in progress. An alarm wouldn't stop a home invasion once it's started, regardless of how loud it is. An alarm sounded when the property line is crossed might deter somewhat. That would need to be a panic button arrangement because false alarms would otherwise be daily from wildlife. Sounding alarms based on any sort of motion detection would be fraught with false alarms because so much wildlife here. Deer make their rounds through the yard every night. They walk right up to the living room window. I'm not too interested in documenting things after the fact. That would require off-site retention of the video, because that gear would likely be stolen long before police could respond. In this rural location, I don't have the internet bandwidth to send much video elsewhere. The homes on this street are on five acres each. The land behind me is more than a hundred acres. Lighting is poor on the street with one lamp every 300 yards or so. In the last couple of years the county contructed a jail three miles away. A new community of homes was constructed near the jail in that vicinity. Those visiting friends in jail ride out here afterwards to see what they can get into. On the plus side, I have 150 to 400 foot of clear open space on all sides to my property lines. Warning of those lines being crossed would provide some time to prepare, lock family into a safe room, etc.

Wolf, you are right about a permiter alarm. I really need intrusion alert when someone sets foot on the property, not once they have arrived at the doors or windows. The problem is the cost and the cable installation. I looked at this approach first for several days last week. I didn't find any wireless photoelectric gear. I would have to install a lot of buried wiring and run many of the very best photoelectric beams. The boundries to be monitored are 350' for the shortest one and 750' for the longest. The ground isn't flat, so it would require more than four beams to be sure an intruder didn't pass beneath the beam. We're looking at over half a mile of trenched cable to do that. When you say it would be asking a lot from bullets for that range, are you talking about the 400 foot distance? I am really only contemplating the bullets for the front and rear doors. Is the KPC-S190SWX bullet adequate for those two locations? Those locations would be lighted at night. The more worrysome direction is the major roadway on the South property line along the side roadway. My concern is that an accomplice could drop people off at that roadside where they would walk onto the property in seclusion. There's traffic along that street, so a camera used to monitor that South boundry needs to be reasonably free from headlight glare issues, but it needs to be able to produce usable detection video with floodlighting. The Genwac isn't really good in that regard. Headlights appear like highway flares and somewhat fog the frames. This application is the camera I need advice selecting. I planned on mounting it outdoors in an enclosure, so a box camera would be just fine. I don't want to overspend on this. But spending too little and not solving the problem is worse.