jeromephone

I was on a job and we were trying to get a string through about 500 ft of 4 inch. we had the fancy "mice" and were not able to get the string to go HINT: make sure you get all the water out of the line. Anyway my partner came on the job took a plastic bag cut it down tied the chaulk line to it and put the shop vac on the other end and the line flew through the conduit a whole lot eaiser than tying fish tapes together or getting a very long one.

look on the ETS website and see if they have what you are looking for.

Bury the biggest conduit you can afford leave a pull string in it you MAY be able to pull additional wires later but not always. If you can, pull in spares at the time you do the install, saves money in the long run. In most areas of the country you will get moisture in the buried conduit so I would use outdoor rated/direct burial wire. depending on your application you can run low voltage power in the same pipe but not high voltage. Hand holds are usually used when you have very long runs and you insert a box in the line so you can pull wire shorter distances for instance a 1000 ft run may have 2 0r three pull boxes to allow pulling around corners etc.

you should probably get a small carlon box and put your junctions in it. It is also best to run some sort of outdoor rated cable

Can you mix and match cameras from different mfgs with sdi? I was under the impression that you had to stick with one mfg of cameras and dvr for the system to work. That is fine if your DVR or cameras don't go out but could be a problem down the road. Cat5/6 seems more universal for other devices etc.

Non standard install will come back to bite you. You are always going to have someone beat you on total price. You have to establish a reputation for quality work and product. We lost a job where we were 1/2 to a 1/3 of the cost of the successfull "bidder" why well they had a nationally known product and the customer was not as familar with us. We also get work because people know what kind of service and product we supply. There is only one lowest cost operator but there can be several quality contractors.

What does 30 feet of 18/2 cost? 3.00? Just run a power cable and then you don't have a cobbled up cat5 that someone has to figure out later.

you could up grade the cameras to something with a chip for recording and then add the NVR later.

It is probably going to be easier to find a 1.3 meg camera than a 720 it seems they bottem resloution has moved up and fewer 720s are being made. Smart IR is system that adjusts the IR output if something gets closer to the camera and the reflected light will wash out the image if a sensor doesn't dim it. It will cost extra. a varifocal lens will allow you to get the best view as you can adjust field of view and focus. These things will cost more than a bottem end camera but if you can't see what you want to see why spend any money.

Maybe something from the ham radio group there used to be some crank up antenna masts on the market. I looked into this a while back and found that the commerical stuff is expensive, but I am sure insurance costs enter into the price.

I have a potential customer who wants a 8 channel nvr with 8 channels POE I have looked at some of the packages and they seem cheap enough I am concerned about getting the right system even if it costs more as they will probably add systems and I would want the cameras etc to be interchangable. I have looked at speco as they seem to have a quite a few different types of cameras and I do want to stay away from everfocus

cat 6 if you can afford it as who knows what else is going to be on the network also new speks for cat 6 may allow for higher power devices than currently. Think about where you might add additonal equipment and run a spare. I have been cabling for several years and have yet to have a customer say we ran too many drops. Also buy or borrow a cheap wire mapper and test all the lines usually the problem is in the termination but testing is a big time saver when trouble shooting

kind of what the other posters said about the connections if part of a connector is bad you might still get 10mps on good pairs. I would look into weatherproof /industrial Jacks as they are sealed up and will extend the life of connections is dirty or weather related conditions you can find them in many places and they are pretty cheap if you don't have to replace them every few months or so. If you do have to rewire look at outdoor rated cat5 as the jell will help with salt problems

check on viking electronics website they have all kinds of intercom and phone connection equipment

are these IP cameras? also you should probably upgrade to 8.5.9

Make sure you take into consideration how the cameras will be setup are they going to be motion activated ?is the camera always putting out packets? how is the switch programmed? On some switches you can use port aggreation which allows you to tie ports together to allow for more bandwidth on a particular port. What is your setup on the NVR do you have full duplex 1000 or something else?

I agree look at running cat5/6 as you could use it for analog as well as power if you are running coax what about power running the cat cable allowes for POE and you don't need a pair or additional wire for power. if the area is going to be closed in when contruction is done consider running an additonal cat cable for data or whateven new device will be on the network in the future I would run a min of cat 5e cat 6 if the customer will pay for it

download some mfgs manuals Geovision has an 800 page manual that will give you a pretty good overall view of how they do things once you learn one or tow systems you will start to see the common features and requirements

Anyone have any ideas for a police interview room and a city council meeting room? I need 2 cameras and audio. i have tried geovision and an ets microphone and cannot get things to work. I am looking at some prepackaged systems but they seem a little high priced for what the equipment is.

you can get a one in 4 out splitter for around 40.00 then you have a powered signal to each monitor. several cctv suppliers have them

Other stuff to check power setting Harddrive always on. No screen saver, BIOS resume on power restored due to power falilure, auto boot with no password required,

you can buy pre made bnc patch cables from 6 inches to ten feet In the past we have used a bnc patch panel and short patch cables it makes for a neater install but you do have added connections

Have you checked with any major suppliers in the US? I have found that if you have big enough projects or potential projects they will give you good prices. If you want to go alone and handle your own warranty your own shipping and try and get returns/support from an off shore company go for it. If something is worth the time and effort to put up a ptz camera why would you use something that is not reliable and may be difficult or impossible to repair/replace. Is the item you are protecting worth and extra 100-200 for a solid camera?

I would run the cat5/6 cable and go to IP as the other poster stated. It seems everyday IP Hd cameras are getting cheaper and in many cases cheaper than analog.

you can get a good poe 4 port switch for around 80.00 so that would take care of the power to those cameras as well.