Cat5e Underground - EMT Lightening Rod

[TJCCTV 0]

This has been likely discussed time and again, but I have been pouring through the postings for several days for the answer.

 

The majority of the cameras on the project are pole-mounted. Vandalism is a real concern, so proposal was for EMT above, and PVC underground. There are now some concerns about lightening actually being drawn to the system (it's located in the USA, Midwest, in an area known as "Tornado Alley").

 

Bahama Security has made reference to the Steel Conduit on a pole creating a lightening rod.....and it has my attention.

 

What is the best method for steel on poles, connecting to PVC underground? Maximum range is approximately 1,000 - 1,200 ft. Plans for Cat5e with baluns (passive/both) with Active receivers only if needed.

 

Main concern is the lightening issue. Any ideas? PVC above isn't an option due to vandalism. Any helpful tips are appreciated.

[shoreviewsecurity 0]

That's a great question

 

Lightning either direct or an ambient strike can be a real problem obviously. We have experienced near strikes to damage cams on a fully protected system. Short of installing a lightning rod on top of the pole, I am not sure there is really anything you can do. Is this a telephone or electric pole or privately owned with no utilities. I personally would not do such a thing on any pole.

 

We have had losses but the customers insurance company has covered them ( less the deductable ). In our proposals we disclaim that sort of damage and make it clear that any failure due to lightning is not covered under warranty. We have gone as far as to review footage ( when possible ), download and save for the insurance company if they question the loss. The only thing I can advise is to protect the system the best you can, surge protector on the network, cams and power. If the question is asked, you have at least made an effort to protect the system from damage.

 

I look forward to other comments as I am all ears when it comes to this subject.

 

Thanks

 

Mike

[TJCCTV 0]

The steel conduit above ground was to protect (somewhat) for vandalism. Would it be any significant improvement to switch to grey electrical PVC, and sacrifice the vandalism improvement, or would the cameras with the CAT5e still be at nearly as much risk anyway due to the camera being metal cased and the wiring?

 

They are to be on utility poles with existing large parking floodlights at the top. The cams at about 20 feet.

 

Being existing utility with lights, they should have a groundwire. Should the steel be grounded to that wire, or would that just draw a strike into a camera they might have been missed should a light get hit?

 

All I know about lightening could be on a thimble, and that it can strike where it wants, when it wants, regardless of actions taken. All you can hope for is to improve the odds..... (of course, I could be wrong).

 

Any tips / help is tremendously appreciated !

[thewireguys 3]

The steel conduit above ground was to protect (somewhat) for vandalism. Would it be any significant improvement to switch to grey electrical PVC, and sacrifice the vandalism improvement, or would the cameras with the CAT5e still be at nearly as much risk anyway due to the camera being metal cased and the wiring?

 

They are to be on utility poles with existing large parking floodlights at the top. The cams at about 20 feet.

 

Being existing utility with lights, they should have a groundwire. Should the steel be grounded to that wire, or would that just draw a strike into a camera they might have been missed should a light get hit?

 

All I know about lightening could be on a thimble, and that it can strike where it wants, when it wants, regardless of actions taken. All you can hope for is to improve the odds..... (of course, I could be wrong).

 

Any tips / help is tremendously appreciated !

 

Well if your worried about the just the camera on the pole there really isn't a guaranteed way to protect it from a direct hit. If your worried about the spike feeding back to the NVR/DVR and other equipment you could go with a wireless solution. If you run a metal pole into the ground lighting is gonna be attracted to it. With the wireless setup you will loss the camera and the wireless link but there is no way for the lighting to feed back to the rest of the equipment.

 

If we put cameras on poles and there is power and LOS I am selling wireless so we don't have to worry about lighting back feeding.

[rory 0]

What kind of vandalism? Can drill or saw through the Metal conduit also.

Not to mention a simple crack of the camera with a hammer (no matter if its vandal resistant) and its blind, paint gun it and its blind, shine a flash light at most cameras and they are blind enough .. etc. So basically anything one thinks of can pretty easily be defeated by a determined criminal.

 

Ive never seen lightning hit a DVR but then you live in tornado alley so .. you would think that high voltage would burn the cable up before it even reached the DVR. Ive seen cameras hit but it never went past that, just killed the camera. Anything is possible though.

 

ps. who is Bahama Security, is that me? LOL I Cant remember.

[Sawbones 0]

The steel conduit above ground was to protect (somewhat) for vandalism. Would it be any significant improvement to switch to grey electrical PVC, and sacrifice the vandalism improvement, or would the cameras with the CAT5e still be at nearly as much risk anyway due to the camera being metal cased and the wiring?

 

They are to be on utility poles with existing large parking floodlights at the top. The cams at about 20 feet.

 

Being existing utility with lights, they should have a groundwire. Should the steel be grounded to that wire, or would that just draw a strike into a camera they might have been missed should a light get hit?

 

All I know about lightening could be on a thimble, and that it can strike where it wants, when it wants, regardless of actions taken. All you can hope for is to improve the odds..... (of course, I could be wrong).

 

Any tips / help is tremendously appreciated !

 

Well if your worried about the just the camera on the pole there really isn't a guaranteed way to protect it from a direct hit. If your worried about the spike feeding back to the NVR/DVR and other equipment you could go with a wireless solution. If you run a metal pole into the ground lighting is gonna be attracted to it. With the wireless setup you will loss the camera and the wireless link but there is no way for the lighting to feed back to the rest of the equipment.

 

If we put cameras on poles and there is power and LOS I am selling wireless so we don't have to worry about lighting back feeding.

 

You know, that brings up a question I've been researching (I don't mean to hijack the thread).

 

I've been asked by a local neighborhood to see if I can put three cameras at a couple of remote locations (a couple of gazebos that have line-of-sight to the community center building that contains the DVR), including one almost a half-mile away (that one will be pole-mounted, and an antenna could be placed on top of that pole). They've been experiencing some vandalism.

 

What's a decent economical way to get analog video from those locations to the central building? There's no way to hard-wire them (distance, and they'd have to trench under a large parking/pool area). Does anyone know of a multi-channel analog receiver that could be fed into a standard DVR?

 

All locations have power, so that's not a problem.

 

Thoughts?

 

I've looked at the 900mhz transmitter/receiver combos that supercircuits sells, but I don't know that they do multi-channel. It also looks like you might need a HAM radio license to use them (!).

[thewireguys 3]

The steel conduit above ground was to protect (somewhat) for vandalism. Would it be any significant improvement to switch to grey electrical PVC, and sacrifice the vandalism improvement, or would the cameras with the CAT5e still be at nearly as much risk anyway due to the camera being metal cased and the wiring?

 

They are to be on utility poles with existing large parking floodlights at the top. The cams at about 20 feet.

 

Being existing utility with lights, they should have a groundwire. Should the steel be grounded to that wire, or would that just draw a strike into a camera they might have been missed should a light get hit?

 

All I know about lightening could be on a thimble, and that it can strike where it wants, when it wants, regardless of actions taken. All you can hope for is to improve the odds..... (of course, I could be wrong).

 

Any tips / help is tremendously appreciated !

 

Well if your worried about the just the camera on the pole there really isn't a guaranteed way to protect it from a direct hit. If your worried about the spike feeding back to the NVR/DVR and other equipment you could go with a wireless solution. If you run a metal pole into the ground lighting is gonna be attracted to it. With the wireless setup you will loss the camera and the wireless link but there is no way for the lighting to feed back to the rest of the equipment.

 

If we put cameras on poles and there is power and LOS I am selling wireless so we don't have to worry about lighting back feeding.

 

You know, that brings up a question I've been researching (I don't mean to hijack the thread).

 

I've been asked by a local neighborhood to see if I can put three cameras at a couple of remote locations (a couple of gazebos that have line-of-sight to the community center building that contains the DVR), including one almost a half-mile away (that one will be pole-mounted, and an antenna could be placed on top of that pole). They've been experiencing some vandalism.

 

What's a decent economical way to get analog video from those locations to the central building? There's no way to hard-wire them (distance, and they'd have to trench under a large parking/pool area). Does anyone know of a multi-channel analog receiver that could be fed into a standard DVR?

 

All locations have power, so that's not a problem.

 

Thoughts?

 

I've looked at the 900mhz transmitter/receiver combos that supercircuits sells, but I don't know that they do multi-channel. It also looks like you might need a HAM radio license to use them (!).

 

I would really recommend WIFI for this. Gonna be a lot easier and more reliable.

[Sawbones 0]

 

I would really recommend WIFI for this. Gonna be a lot easier and more reliable.

 

 

So you'd put an analog camera into a camera server and a wireless bridge of some sort?

 

How do you get it back into analog form at the DVR end?

 

 

************ Edit **************

 

The DVR is a Dedicated Micros unit, and it only supports a very small range of network cameras, and only at 2CIF resolution, max of 18K per frame. No motion detection is supported on IP cameras, and there is a maximum of 25fps split over ALL IP sources... DM is actually pretty miserable in the networkability department.

 

http://dedicatedmicros.icentera.com/exLink.asp?6302542OT32U57I28598570

 

You can read it there you're interested...

[thewireguys 3]

 

I would really recommend WIFI for this. Gonna be a lot easier and more reliable.

 

 

So you'd put an analog camera into a camera server and a wireless bridge of some sort?

 

How do you get it back into analog form at the DVR end?

 

 

************ Edit **************

 

The DVR is a Dedicated Micros unit, and it only supports a very small range of network cameras, and only at 2CIF resolution, max of 18K per frame. No motion detection is supported on IP cameras, and there is a maximum of 25fps split over ALL IP sources... DM is actually pretty miserable in the networkability department.

 

http://dedicatedmicros.icentera.com/exLink.asp?6302542OT32U57I28598570

 

You can read it there you're interested...

 

You could go encoder. decoder route but if you do that for three cameras you could buy a new hybrid DVR and go with IP cameras.

 

If you go IP I would use the ACTI-1231 and Ubiquiti WIFI products and have a very cost effectivee setup.

[hardwired 0]

 

I would really recommend WIFI for this. Gonna be a lot easier and more reliable.

 

 

So you'd put an analog camera into a camera server and a wireless bridge of some sort?

 

How do you get it back into analog form at the DVR end?

 

 

************ Edit **************

 

The DVR is a Dedicated Micros unit, and it only supports a very small range of network cameras, and only at 2CIF resolution, max of 18K per frame. No motion detection is supported on IP cameras, and there is a maximum of 25fps split over ALL IP sources... DM is actually pretty miserable in the networkability department.

 

http://dedicatedmicros.icentera.com/exLink.asp?6302542OT32U57I28598570

 

You can read it there you're interested...

 

Acti makes both encoders and decoders, if you have to go that route.. but by the time you add in that hardware at both ends, times four, you could be close to buying a new hybrid DVR that has decent IP camera support. thewireguys and I have both been happy with Exacq in that regard.

 

On the wireless stuff, analog links are pretty much garbage, and trying multiple channels is going to be even worse.

 

Take a look at Ubiquiti products, I have a install with ten IP cameras on four different links using their stuff (one over two miles, through trees, at 900Mhz), and gave the customer network connections for three different buildings at the same time. Surprisingly cheap, too, they provide equipment to wireless ISP's who are both cost and performance sensitive.

 

To the OP, I do not think metal conduit will attract lightning any more than the copper conductors in the cabling. If it were my install, I would connect a ground rod to the bottom of the metal conduit, and add lightning arrestors on the lines at that point, too.

[thewireguys 3]

Sorry just had the laugh..... Your name is Hardwired and mine is The Wire Guys and we both are recommending wireless solutios

[rory 0]

 

I would really recommend WIFI for this. Gonna be a lot easier and more reliable.

 

 

So you'd put an analog camera into a camera server and a wireless bridge of some sort?

 

How do you get it back into analog form at the DVR end?

 

 

************ Edit **************

 

The DVR is a Dedicated Micros unit, and it only supports a very small range of network cameras, and only at 2CIF resolution, max of 18K per frame. No motion detection is supported on IP cameras, and there is a maximum of 25fps split over ALL IP sources... DM is actually pretty miserable in the networkability department.

 

http://dedicatedmicros.icentera.com/exLink.asp?6302542OT32U57I28598570

 

You can read it there you're interested...

 

check out VideoComm for Wireless CCTV. I have used their products before and it worked great. You are limited over a certain number of channels though, such as 12 for example, at least in one particular frequency - the pro of it is that it is real time video, no networking needed, just raw video. Apart from limited channels is that it is not cheap.

[VIP 0]

I looked at the Ubiquiti website...not exactly sure what I'm looking at. I assume these are transmitters/receivers for IP. What component would you recommend for a simple building to building camera connection (less than 100')?