Sawbones

You did the same deal to him that he probably pulls on his customers ("Sir, the contract you signed clearly states 'X' payment for six months, after which the interest rate adjusts and your payment goes to 'Y'... and you approved the Dealer-Prep package and rebate-to-dealer") That must have felt good.

Would pretty much HAVE to be the latter... if you want area coverage AND any hope of pulling details out of it later.

IINM, the M12's lens modules are interchangeable, as well. I know they have some of the same lens options as the D12, but I thought they were not changeable in the field. Aren't they set from the factory?

^ this. BTW, for a turnkey (well, as turnkey as it gets) Asterisk installation, I highly recommend Trixbox. I've been using it for almost 3 years now, and I'll be adding the Mobotix doorbell cam to my system as soon as I can scrape up a spare $1000. I have six mobotix cameras of various sorts in my home, and they are attached to my Asterisk-based PBX as extensions. I can call them from my Siemens hard-phone, or computer-based softphone and listen to whatever is going on... Also, please allow me to make a PBX recommendation. Try "AsteriskNow." I don't know if the mods will have a problem with a non-sponsored link, but here it is: http://www.asterisk.org/asterisknow/

I know exactly where you are coming from. Last week I gave two hour presentation/Q&A for the homeowners association. I prepared a two-page outline that covered a range of security topics including home security vulnerabilities and suggestions on what to do about them. And, while I probably know more about security cameras than anyone who will come to their house, I'm not an alarm/camera installer. Many of them come to me for advice on what to ask their installer, and that is certainly a big help. As for my own security system, it's way too high tech for the typical installer. I know there are installers that know a great deal about alarms and cameras and all the glue that holds it together, and some are on this forum, but that is the exception rather than the rule. Plus, I do enjoy designing and building things myself. Best, Christopher Hell... I ended up actually doing the CCTV system for my HOA. I'd done my own home... so it's not like I was taking bread off of anybody's plate... but the neighborhood was having major vandalism problems in one of their common areas. With the decline in the economy, the HOA was paying to maintain multiple empty/abandoned houses in the neighborhood, including the association taking responsibility for maintaining the exteriors and yards. They were pretty strapped for cash. I stepped in and helped them out. I scrounged for used hardware from some guys I knew, and did all the labor myself. Some of it was pretty painful... took me six months to get the job done... but it's caught 3-4 groups of vandals just in the time it's been operational. I probably saved the association a couple of thousand dollars in equipment costs ALONE, to say nothing of the labor... but it's an upgrade that simply wouldn't have gotten done without that cost savings, and me stepping up to do it. I indirectly saved myself some money too, since the costs of a pricey system would have come out of homeowners association dues. It also earned me major good-will points from my neighbors. I don't do this for a living, and other people do. I recognize that, so I'm not trying to take food off of anybody's plate... but I had a personal and financial interest, and decided to step up and do it.

I'm a Type-D. I can't help myself... I'm a geek... I have to get in there and play with it. I want to understand how it works, and what I can make it do. I had a simple Axis 4-camera system in my house... but after a particularly heinous incident (where I discovered my neighbor was a violent felon), I plunged into the CCTV realm as part of an overall home-security upgrade. We replaced locks, reinforced doors, put mylar on the windows... and I started looking at my home with a much more sinister eye. Not for my own sake... but for my family. I realized that I had to do much more than four cameras would provide... and began to explore higher-end analog cams, and eventually got into IP cameras. I have a computer and networking background, so putting the architecture together was relatively simple. The hard part was the visual side of it. I'm not any kind of photographer, and didn't understand F-stops, Lux ratings, shutter speeds, lenses, FOV, or any of that stuff. That's where the learning curve was steepest for me. I have another career in an unrelated field... so when friends see my system (and it's usually pretty jaw-dropping when they see what it can do), they ask me if I can do the same for them. The answer is inevitably "no." I don't have the time... and my personal system was a two-year project for me. What I can do is advise them of what they might need, and who is giving them a fair deal for what they're buying. If somebody is stealing the fillings out of their teeth, while at the same time installing crappy hardware, I'll be the first to tell them that. I often send people to a professional... because even after all the experimentation I've done, there are still things I'm learning. Unfortunately, in the process of referring people to alarm/CCTV companies, I also sometimes find that I'm way ahead of the guy they send out to bid the job.

Go with the Mobotix solution, and set up an Asterisk server at the house.

If you like the Mobotix M12, look into the D12... it's a dome, and the lens modules inside are easily changeable. As for DVR software, Luxriot is probably a good option for you. I'd get at least the 9-channel license, because I guarantee your system will grow, particularly if you're any sort of geek (and it sounds like you are). If you click over to bluecherry, you'll find the 9-channel Luxriot for about $450 or so, and another $90 will get you the 16-channel. Milestone Essential would be another low-cost option, but you get FAR less flexibility with that one, particularly when it comes to changing cameras. Milestone generates a DLK (device license key) for each network camera (based on the device's MAC address). You only get two screw-ups before it locks you out from making any more changes... so if you're thinking you might swap out cameras in the future for something better, you should go with Luxriot.

I was going to mention that fan... it's a tiny little 20mm or so in size. I have one of those that exhibits a slightly audible whine almost all of the time.

Ummm... If coffee enemas are involved, I'd like to withdraw my request

Can I be added to either the Pro-DIYer or Installer groups? (preferably the former).

I tried Zoneminder... and perhaps my *nix-fu is weak, but I found it to be a royal PITA. The memory tweak that was mentioned up-thread for resolutions >320x240? I've never seen that documented anywhere. Disclaimer: I've been a linux user since the early 2.0 kernel days... and even I found Zoneminder to be a little painful to set up. Don't get me wrong... I got it work... but getting everything to work right was neither simple, nor easy. If you don't have strong *nix skills, you should probably forget it. If you must run your VMS system on a unix platform (and there are plenty of good reasons why you might want to), I'd go with Exacq... it was FAR easier to set up under Ubuntu than Zoneminder.

Yeah... I never really saw the point of those. A standard floodlight at Home Depot is $20.

The RayMax LED models will outlast their power supply units. I bought a dead one off Ebay for a song, swapped out the PSU for an adjustable-voltage IP66 LCD sign power supply ($80), and had a fully functional illuminator for cheap. A little technical know-how goes a long way.

It depends on what you want to look better. Six illuminators on a home where one will do doesn't have much curb appeal. Best, Christopher Very true. Sometimes less is more.

This has definitely inspired me to push on and improve things here. Really helps seeing what is possible. Thanks! My pleasure.

Same scene, but 1/30 second shutter speed:

Very nice. Do you happen to know what shutter speed that is at? Hang on... let me check the settings. *********** Edit *********** Max exposure is 1/5 second. Want to see it with a faster shutter speed?

Some of the big panels are great... I have one mounted on the front of the house... throws a pretty long pool of IR: This one is a Senstar panel:

BTW, I found the round 48-LED Ebay unit only pulled about 160mA: The Dome illuminator pulls even less current... 150mA: Compare that to a big panel illuminator... this one is made by American Dynamics: It pulls almost 3A... gets pretty warm too.

Here is what one of those dome illuminators can do when mounted up on a wall. There's a wall that runs right along the right edge of this frame, and the illuminator is mounted about 7ft up the wall, facing horizontally. Camera is a Mobotix D12, with a night imager (N43 IIRC)

One illuminator I'd avoid is this long, cylindrical one: Because they overdrive that LED array, and they burn out... like the two on the right: I'd also avoid that big, black, square, flood-light looking one I linked in my first set of pictures above. It quit working after about an hour... dead PSU.

The Ebay Illuminator I've found most useful is this model: It throws out a nice, even pool of IR light, at a pretty wide-angle. A single illuminator mounted on this porch ceiling (about halfway between that light fixture and the edge of the roof) nicely illuminates that porch at night: I have a number of those deployed, and have had only one malfunction. Same scene as above... I took video through the DVR, and through some night-vision goggles: Taking that illuminator apart revealed a very simple circuit board behind the LED array: Here's a close-up: The problem ended up being that capacitor (good ole' Capacitor Plague). After changing it out with a soldering iron, the illuminator functioned flawlessly once again.

OK. I've posted these pictures before, but here they are again... and I have a few more too. I initially tested three Ebay illuminators alongside a RayMax 50, and a supercircuits puck illuminator. I mounted them on a long 2x4, and took screenshots from a Panasonic 484S dome, connected to an Axis 241Q. Here is the long cylindrical Ebay one: Here is the very same 48-LED Ebay mentioned above: Here's the big square black Ebay model: Here's the super-circuits puck (the smaller of the two puck illuminators): And the Raymax: More to come...

I've done a bunch of testing on the Ebay IR illuminators... I'll post some of the pictures later, when I get a chance (busy here at work). Some of them are actually pretty decent for the money... others are total garbage.