PTZ with a mind of its own

[phoenixr1 0]

I've recently had two Pelco Spec 3's decide that their relative home position and all of their presets are either significantly higher or significantly lower than normal. The first one once covered a section about eye level, and it suddenly decided that Preset 1 is the floor, and presets 2-4 are different sections of the same floor, when they previously were on specific sections of the area.

 

The second one was set on a moderately low level of a room, and panned back and forth constantly. It recently began resetting itself to the ceiling level, and began it's panning pattern there. I have to tilt it down to the floor and then hit it's home preset to get it to normalize, only to have it repeat this error 5-10 minutes later. The PTZ is # 6 in a daisy chain of roughly 10-12 cameras. Could this be the issue?

[survtech 0]

How long have these been in service and what are the environmental conditions? It sounds like they may have either slip ring issues or their positioning optical sensors are dirty or they have a problem with their Receiver/Driver PCB's. We've also seen power supply and cooling fan problems in Spectra III's. We repair ours in-house.

 

Try doing a reset of the dome system by using <95> and going into the camera menu. Also try panning them several times both ways in turbo mode to see if the problem clears up. That may wipe any dirt off of the slip rings. If neither solution works, you can either repair them yourself or send them out for repair. I strongly suggest replacing the electronics cooling fan every two years. Time Lapse Supply sells them for $24.00.

 

Besides Pelco, there are a few places that can repair Pelco PTZ's:

 

Time Lapse Supply sells parts and services PTZ's and other CCTV products. This is where we buy our repair parts for Spectra domes (II, III and IV).

 

Moore's Electronics repairs CCTV products. We used them before we started repairing PTZ's ourselves. Since we have well over 100 Spectra domes, the cost savings we realized by repairing them ourselves has been significant. Moore's charges about 2/3 what Pelco charges for the same repair and by repairing the PTZ's in-house we save nearly 1/3 over Moore's - a net savings of approximately 50% over Pelco's prices!

 

I believe there are also other independent service companies.

[zmxtech 0]

make sure the power to it is correct and the data is clean -does sound like internal issues but not 2 cams at a time I would think

 

Run the cams without your controller, just a laptop -converter and a PTZ program to baseline the problem.

Might even be noise on the data lines.

 

grab my free one if you like http://www.zmx.com.au/software.htm

 

z

[phoenixr1 0]

Noise in the data lines sounds about correct. All of the PTZ installations were done using the same multi-strand Red & Black wire for PTZ control as are used to power the camera, which means no drain wire. In any case, one of the cameras appears to have gone back to normal...for now. The other one still stares at the floor in all its presets. I'm probably just gonna have to re-do all the presets.

 

Thanks for the input, guys.

 

 

Z, I appreciate the software download. My Specs run 4800 baud on P protocol, though. Does the software have settings for that?

[zmxtech 0]

hard coded for 2400, have to do a speed drop down box