Hello! I'm having a wee bit of trouble with PTZ

[Dee_Ann 0]

I'm just learning this stuff so I'm not really too sure what it is I'm missing here.

 

I bought a PTZ decoder and it came in today. I couldn't find a mate to the weird connector on the PTZ head so I cut it off and I soldered the wires from the controller to the PTZ head.

 

There is a button on the board and when I press it the LED blinks then the PTZ and lens goes through a little routine where it shows it's stuff. It will pan both directions, tilt up and down then the lens will zoom, focus and open/close the iris. So I am certain that I have the controller board connected to the PTZ head and lens properly.

 

I had to make due with things though because the connector for the PTZ on the back on the matrix was missing. So I took a connector from one of the alarm inputs and filed off two places on it so it went from a 10 place to 8 place connector to fit in the PTZ spot.

 

 

 

 

I ran wires from it to the decoder board.

 

I'm sure I have them correct. If I can wire the PZT motors and lens all up properly the first time around then I know I can get three color coded data wires in properly too.

 

But after that, I'm not sure what the heck to do.

 

I go into the setup and there are a boatload of questions to answer and I'm just not sure what to set things to.

 

I told the matrix that I'm using Pelco-D and I set the decoder board to that. I also set the baud rate on the board to 2400, per the decoder board manual. Baud rate isn't mentioned in the matrix setup.

 

I gave the decoder the address of 14 because that's the number of the camera I'm hoping to control soon. For now it's all on my desk inside while I figure it out.

 

 

 

(yes, that's a BIG knife there, my dad gave it to me for protection. I use it to cut plastic off of wires. )

 

 

 

 

This is the stuff mounted in a rack. I bought that surplus in Houston for a great deal because it's an oddball size, too short for most practical uses but good enough for what I needed. The thing with the handles is a pull out box on rails with the 24v power supplies. It's a pretty ugly mess in there. But it works and I did it all by myself..

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the stuff just stuck together for looks while I was trying to figure out a way to mount this heavy beast to the house. This isn't where it will end up being located btw. With some help from my dad we (more like he) made a thing out of old satellite dishes to attached it to the house. When I do really put the whole thing up I'm going to paint it to match the front of the house where it will reside so it won't be quite so ugly. I may even box it in with some light wood and paint it over so that only the camera and PTZ are visible. The ugly stuff would hide in the box.

 

 

Yes, it's a bit over the top. But I really have nothing better to do and it's kind of fun. Yes, I'm a geek and a nerd. I get it from my parents. I blame them.

 

Anyway, does anyone have any idea what it is I need to do to get my control equipment talking to the decoder so it will operate that camera?

Once I get ONE figured out I'm going to oder more decoders and get the other lenses fixed up. I have two other cameras I want to just do lens only control, no PTZ on them, just zoom, iris and focus but they will use the same type of controllers.

 

The keyboard is an Ultrak KEGS5000 and the control unit is an Ultrak KSX3208L.

I do have the manuals for everything (found them online) but I just don't know anything at all about this Pelco and PTZ stuff, it's totally new to me and a bit confusing. I can do wires. Programming? Not so much..

 

Thanks!

[Soundy 1]

First thing I'd say would be to confirm the connection from the matrix to the decoder. You should actually only need two wires: TX+ on the matrix to RX+ on the decoder, TX- on the matrix to RX- on the decoder.

 

If you have a computer with a serial port, try wiring the TX pins on the matrix to the RXD (pin 2) and GND (pin 5) pins on a DB9F connector (see http://pinouts.ru/SerialPorts/Serial9_pinout.shtml). Normally you'd wire TX+ to RXD and TX- to GND, but I've seen instances where you have to reverse them.

 

Once that's hooked up, fire up Hyperterm on the computer, configure it to use the serial port with the same parameters you've used on the matrix (2400 8N1, usually), and tell it to go online. Then when you move the controller on the matrix, you should see data coming in on Hyperterm. That will confirm the matrix is transmitting.

 

After that, you can try wiring the TXD (pin 3) and ground on the DB9 to the inputs of the camera (same polarity rules apply - try it both ways), then download and install PTZ Controller from www.serialporttool.com, and try using that to control the camera.

[Dee_Ann 0]

Well, I think that there is a high probability that I don't understand how to program this piece of equipment. Very high..

 

I think that what I will do for the time being is to connect it to the DVR which is just a cheapy Chinese device I bought on Amazon.com that's designed for home use, it's 100% for sure not a professional grade device. I do know the difference. I really just wanted it to have a simple DVR and a way to access my cameras when I'm away from home to check on my house & dog via my iPhone. It does a decent job of that. It also has a mouse and a pop up menu for camera control.

 

It does have PTZ capability built into it and I suspect will be much easier for me to program. It will be a good learning experience and for now, it will get me going. Plus it will let me PTZ the camera from my iPhone.

 

Once I figure out the Ultrak stuff I can tie it in as well so that I will then have an additional way to control things via the Ultrak keyboard AND my iPhone. Oh and the DVR mouse too.. Eventually I want to add two more Ultrak keyboards, I want to place them in other rooms of the house so I can just walk over and there it is. I already have displays all over the house, might as well put keyboards too.

 

I think for now the DVR will be the fastest, simplest way to get it going and as I figure things out I'll add in the more complicated stuff.

 

Oh, here's the back of the matrix. The reason I put three wires was that I had read somewhere that you need the data + and data - and a ground wire. There are several ground connections on the PTZ connector on the back of the matrix.

 

I always thought everything needs a ground.

 

[Soundy 1]

Nope, not everything needs a ground It really depends on how a specific device is designed.

 

RS-232 references its data signals to a common ground (hence the computer 9-pin serial port has only single TXD and RXD pins); RS-422 and RS-485 both use balanced signal lines that allocate two wires for signal (a + and a -) that don't reference to a common ground.

 

You might use the ground with a shielded signal wire, if induced noise is a problem, but the balanced line itself tends to reject noise pretty well. If you're not using a shielded wire, the ground is pretty much moot, except maybe to address ground-loop issues. In both cases, though, it would generally be something to try IF there are problems.... the additional ground connection would actually be more likely to CREATE a ground loop.

[Dee_Ann 0]

Nope, not everything needs a ground It really depends on how a specific device is designed.

 

RS-232 references its data signals to a common ground (hence the computer 9-pin serial port has only single TXD and RXD pins); RS-422 and RS-485 both use balanced signal lines that allocate two wires for signal (a + and a -) that don't reference to a common ground.

 

You might use the ground with a shielded signal wire, if induced noise is a problem, but the balanced line itself tends to reject noise pretty well. If you're not using a shielded wire, the ground is pretty much moot, except maybe to address ground-loop issues. In both cases, though, it would generally be something to try IF there are problems.... the additional ground connection would actually be more likely to CREATE a ground loop.

 

 

Oh....

 

And today I learned something new..

[Dee_Ann 0]

Wheeee!!

 

I did it!

 

Well, mostly. Sorta.

 

I connected the decoder into the cheapie DVR thing and it DOES control the PTZ.

I have full pan, tilt, zoom, focus and iris control. What more could I ask for?

 

Now the big thing to do is figure out how to get it all wired up pretty and waterproof it all. Both the decoder and the PTZ head are made for indoors use. I have some ideas on how to waterproof it. I'll be experimenting with that over the next few days.

 

Also the wiring is going to be a bit of a problem. I cut off that big AMP connector because I had no clue where to find the mate to it. So I connect the wires straight into the decoder. Or, I may lengthen them so that I can place the decoder in a waterproof box and mount that box waaaaay up under the eaves of the house so that it's impossible for it to get wet unless we got 10' underwater.

 

I also do not like that the decoder wants to power the camera with 12vdc through it. I want the camera running on 24vac directly through the common supply so that it will line lock / sync with the rest of the system.

 

Also, the PTZ head has a wee-dinky little cable that goes through it for the video, it's only about as big around as a pencil lead. Um, no. I do not like that. I do not want to route video through the decoder and especially not through that tiny little wire.

 

So, what I will do is connect video directly from point A to point B with no funky detours through dinky wires or funky little Chinese made circuit boards. I will also supply the power directly to the camera in the same way. In other words, the camera will be connected into the system the same way all the other cameras are, directly through Siamese quad shield RG6 and cat 5e for power and data.

 

I have a picture in my mind of how to put the cables in a hanging loop straight into the camera case so that it can still pan and tilt normally and not tangle up. It's won't see much panning action anyway, mostly zoom/focus and tilt.

 

And of course I need to somehow make it blend into the house so it doesn't look so ugly and freaky. That shouldn't be too hard either. I'll have to borrow some power tools from Dad, not a problem, he's got plenty of tools and stuff.

 

Now that I have this unit pretty much working, at least sitting on my desk, I went ahead and just purchased two more decoder boards. I found them on the dealers site cheaper than the same dealer was selling the same board for on ebay. I think I paid like $26 on ebay for one, I went to their website and bought two for $20 each with free shipping. Much better!

 

In a few weeks I can connect up the zoom lenses on the other cameras and I'll be as happy as a clam at high tide! They won't be pan/tilt though. Not needed on them. Zoom/iris/focus is plenty enough for them. MAYBE, at some point in the future, if I can get really lucky and snipe another PTZ head really dirt cheap like I got this one, then sure, I would put those cameras on PTZ too.

 

My big problem though is going to be figuring out how to get the KEGS500 & KSX3208L units to also control the cameras. As it is now I can control them over the web, from my neighbors house and from my iPhone but the iPhone app sucks because it only allows pan, tilt and zoom. It has no provision in it to let you control the focus or iris. Really? Really? No focus? No iris?? What were they thinking??? Duh.........

 

So yeah, it's nice to be able to have the control that I do have but I want the big stuff, the Ultrak keyboard(s) to also work them.

 

I also need to learn how to adjust cameras. They talk about setting the output to 1vpp. I think that is something you can do with an oscilloscope, which I have. I have an OLD Tektronix 100mhz dual trace. I've hooked video devices to it and displayed colors bars. I can see the pattern on the scope that the color bars make and I can adjust the colors and see the pattern on the scope change. So I'm thinking that I can point the cameras at a test pattern, hook them to the scope and adjust the camera so that it's doing it's thing as good as can be expected of it.

 

Sometimes I'll connect a camera and the colors are all funky and nasty looking and I have to waste a lot of time messing with it to get it right. I usually find this out after I've put it 20 feet up in a darn tree! Not fun. So I want to start setting up and adjusting all my cameras on my desk before I put them anywhere. That should save me a lot of time and frustration.

 

I haven't used that scope in like 10 years, I don't know if it even powers up anymore. Maybe I'll check it out over the holidays as I've nothing better to do.

The big problem is it's up on a high shelf and it's HEAVY. I will have to get my neighbor to help me get it down from the shelf, it's too high and heavy for me to try by myself. I'll bet it weighs 40lbs if it weighs an ounce!

 

 

I also have a Fluke digital meter. It's really old too but it still works fine.

 

So, I managed to get a PTZ working. That's a big leap ahead for me but I'm still a long way off from actual implementation. Wiring and waterproofing remain large challenges I've yet to overcome. But, I think I can do it. I got this far.

 

[Soundy 1]

Wheeee!!

 

I did it!

Woot!

 

I also do not like that the decoder wants to power the camera with 12vdc through it. I want the camera running on 24vac directly through the common supply so that it will line lock / sync with the rest of the system.

There are plenty of reasons for preferring 24VAC over 12VDC, but this is not one. Sync is generally derived from the video signal itself. The only time I've seen a need for external sync, is when feeding a switcher of some sort, and non-sync'd signals show a pronounced "flicker" when switching inputs. The only time I've actually USED an external sync is between a MUX and a VCR to get the de-muxing process to work properly... and that's done via a dedicated connection between the machines.

 

Go ahead and use the 12VDC setup; you shouldn't have any problems with it (none caused by the difference between AC and DC supplies, anyway).

 

Also, the PTZ head has a wee-dinky little cable that goes through it for the video, it's only about as big around as a pencil lead. Um, no. I do not like that. I do not want to route video through the decoder and especially not through that tiny little wire.

Again, probably not worth worrying about. It's probably still designed to present the proper 75-ohm impedance, and likely has a stranded center conductor, which will withstand the constant flexing a lot better than replacing it with solid-core RG59.

 

Besides, unless some has replaced that after the fact, consider that the manufacturer has used that cable *intentionally*, for a reason.

 

My big problem though is going to be figuring out how to get the KEGS500 & KSX3208L units to also control the cameras. As it is now I can control them over the web, from my neighbors house and from my iPhone but the iPhone app sucks because it only allows pan, tilt and zoom. It has no provision in it to let you control the focus or iris. Really? Really? No focus? No iris?? What were they thinking??? Duh.........

They were probably thinking that almost all PTZs have auto-focus and auto-iris and 99.9% of the time, those functions aren't controlled manually.

 

If YOUR camera does auto-focus and has an auto-iris lens, you'll probably also find you don't NEED those functions... certainly not enough to make it worth worrying about controlling them from your phone.

 

I also need to learn how to adjust cameras. They talk about setting the output to 1vpp.

1Vp-p is the NTSC video standard. Most cameras should already do this, and should not need adjustment. In fact, the vast majority won't even have this adjustment available to the user; if it even IS adjustable, it will probably require disassembly of the camera.

 

Sometimes I'll connect a camera and the colors are all funky and nasty looking and I have to waste a lot of time messing with it to get it right.

That's most likely a white-balance setting. Again, 99.9% of the time, your cameras will be set to "AWB", or Auto White Balance, and will work just fine like that. The only time you should really need to change it would be under particularly strange lighting conditions. And if the color is that far off, it's more often an indication that the sensor is failing and the camera should just be tossed anyway.

 

 

I usually find this out after I've put it 20 feet up in a darn tree! Not fun. So I want to start setting up and adjusting all my cameras on my desk before I put them anywhere. That should save me a lot of time and frustration.

Maybe... maybe not. This works fine if your desk contains the exact lighting conditions as your final installation site...

[Dee_Ann 0]

Wow! I can't figure out how you did all those quotes without doing a whole lot of copy, past and editing! Whew!

 

Well, let's see.. I'm already lost but I'll try to reply to the replies.

 

Power for the camera and what-not...

 

Well, as I mentioned previously, I cut the plug off of the PTZ unit because I couldn't find a mate to it. I then connected the cut off wires directly into the PTZ decoder.

 

 

As of now, I only have the common, up, down, left and right wires out of the bundle of 14 control wires connected into the decoder.

 

The zoom, iris and focus wires are connected directly from the lens into the decoder and are not yet passing through the PTZ at all.

 

On the side of the PTZ there is a fonky looking little connection that sort of resembles an OLD IBM keyboard but the pins aren't compatible, I tried and they are arranged in a different pattern. Had the pins aligned, I would have cut the cord off an old keyboard and used it's connector.

 

But I don't know what sort of connector it is so I can't even search for one since I have no idea of the name of the thing to put into google.

 

So what's supposed to happen is that four wires (out of the 14) for the lens connect to the decoder. Those go to the connector on the side of the PTZ and then a cable comes from the lens to plug into that. Without a plug to plug into that socket connector thing, well, I kinda have a bit of a problem there.

 

I don't know what to do about that...

 

Oh, and here's the wiring diagram for the PTZ.

 

 

 

 

 

In the diagram you can see wires 2 & 4 for video and wires 9 & 14 for camera power (12vdc) and in one of the pictures above you can see the camera power and video cables coming out of the PTZ and draped over the top of it. The video cable is wee-dinky little and totally unshielded. And there's the problem of mating the end of it (one of the cut off 14 wires) to the end of my RG6 quad shield cable.

 

 

There's just no way. And I don't like the idea of the 12vdc for the camera. ALL my cameras run on 24vac and I want to keep them all uniform and standard on 24vac.

 

I'm going to run the power and video directly into the camera and totally bypass the decoder and the PTZ. There's no sense in making all sorts of Frankenstein connections between mismatched wires (the RG6 to the PTZ wires) or routing the power though the decoder then through the PTZ plus converting the ac to dc when the camera will run just fine on 24vac.

 

Such as this. Just a note here, some of the first cameras I put up inside I used cheap crimp on connectors and I had so much trouble with them that I bought a compression tool and learned how to do compression connectors on Youtube.

 

 

But you get the general idea. Direct connections for power and video, I'm skipping the patchwork Frankencables.. The camera above is a temporary camera looking out a window until I get it moved to outside and then it will have the old connector replaced.

 

 

I will have to break out two wires for the PTZ data from the CAT-5e wires that I normally run the camera power through. I use 4 wires for power, I tried it with two wires but the voltage would drop too much over the long runs so I doubled them up and problem solved. I think in the early days of this, my first cameras were 12vdc and I think I burned them out because I only used two wires instead of four. Oh well. Those cameras are trashed now. Good riddance, they were junk to begin with.

 

 

I think I have an idea in mind on how to do all this so it's weather resistant by putting the decoder into the camera case with the camera and just drop four wires out the bottom of the camera case into the PTZ strictly for controlling pan and tilt. Yes, I think that will do it! Then I can wire the lens directly into the decoder and skip the funny connector that is missing and I don't know what it is. And with the decoder in the camera case it will be very much water proof. Yay! I have a plan now!

 

 

 

 

Sort of like above. But I'll clean it all up and make it pretty, waterproof and have plenty of wire so that the mechanism can move all around without binding up the wires.

 

 

 

Oh yes. Also, I've got another KSX3208L matrix now. But I only have one KEGS5000 keyboard.

 

So I was trying to figure out how to control both units with one keyboard. I thought maybe I could run a wire from the spare keyboard connectors one to the other and give each unit a unique address. Nope. They rebooted when I put the cable in so I assume the cable was wrong. I used and old phone cord.

 

 

And besides, I can't really figure out exactly how to program addresses into them, there's no information in the manuals about using two matrix units on one keyboard but there is plenty of examples of multiple keyboards on a single matrix.

 

So that was a no go. Plan B. I found an OLD A/B printer switch box.

 

I opened it up and cut up some old phone cables, cut some connections inside the switch box and soldered the phone wires to the switch inside. Then I ran one wire each to the two matrix units and to the keyboard. NOW, when I want to use the top unit I switch the box to A and to B to use the bottom unit. It works GREAT!

It's crude and ugly and inelegant but it very much works! I got the idea because a long time ago I had a phone switch A/B thing so you could use two different phones on one line OR use one phone on two lines. I thought that would do the trick so I went online and looked but the things are like $25 now! WOA! So I remembered I had an old printer switch and I went and dug it up and got to work no it and saved myself $25 !!

 

However, I still haven't figured out how to use the keyboard to control the two multiplexers. The manuals say that the KEGS5000 keyboard will control the KX1630CU (I have two). It would be awesome if I could have ALL of everything, including the PTZ(s) controlled by the one keyboard without fonky switch boxes.

 

That brings up another thing. I *think* that I might be able to get the matrix to control the PTZ because I found that the KSX3208L defaults to it's own brand of PTZ domes called KD5 and KD6. However I *think* that I can change the protocol on those ports from KD5/6 to Pelco D and set the baud rate to match the decoders I have. If not, there is another connector on the back that looks like a phone connector but is a dual purpose with RS232 on two wires and RS485 on the other two. It's number 12 on the diagram above. It too can be programmed for Pelco D/P.

 

It would be awesome to have not only the DVR control the PTZ's but the matrix/keyboard system as well.

 

Oh, and my lenses are NOT auto focus or auto iris. So that means that the stupid little iPhone app assumes everyone uses cheap webcam grade cameras and has no provision in it for professional grade systems. No surprise there as the app and the DVR/server is targeted for the home market. It is definitely NOT a professional piece of equipment. I bought it for the DVR capability and the server function so I can see my cameras when I'm away from home. I ~can~ control zoom, focus and iris through it via remote on my laptop, the pc app does have the ability to do that but not the iPhone. Oh well, at least I can pan and tilt from my iPhone and do some minor zoom. If I zoom too much then I have to adjust the focus and iris but if I only zoom in/out a little bit I can get by without focus/iris.

 

When I travel I carry my laptop so there's no big problem. Often times when I travel I will stop and check my cameras from my iPhone but at those times I don't have enough time to play with the cameras anyway, I just want to see the dog is OK or that UPS left a package on my porch so I can call a neighbor to pick it up for me till I get home. If I go away over night I can use my laptop and then I can have full control over ALL the cameras and camera functions. So in the end, I guess I will just deal with it.

 

 

Adjusting the cameras... Well, I guess I still need to try them out on my desk to be sure they don't have a major problem going on before I put them up in a hard to get to place. As for adjusting them, I saw a little bitty TV that you can carry up the ladder with you that connects directly to the camera so you can adjust the focus and stuff. Then you take it off, put the camera cable back on and lock it all up and there you go! I have to save up for one of those though. Won't be happening this month or next. Maybe in March.

 

I wish I understood this stuff better. I have no idea what Pelco is or RS485 and have no concept of the inner workings of any of this stuff.

 

I am pretty good at connecting wires up but that's about the limit of my skill levels. I don't know how to program computers or much of anything else for that matter. And the manuals I have for all this stuff is just PDF's I found online but the problem is, they all assume you are going to do ~X~ with the equipment and they show you only how to do ~X~ and there is no information in there that would give you any clues on how to do ~Z~ with it. They don't educate you in any way, they tell you "hook it up this way and use it this way. That is all you need to know. Period."

 

My problem is, I want to do a lot more with it than what their examples show and I want to use equipment other than their approved brand. Like a different brand of camera other than Ultrak KD5/6 domes. I'm sure their domes use a proprietary way of talking to each other and that's fine, for people that have a pure Ultrak system.

 

Well, it's 4am and I need to get some sleep. I'm tired. I'll resume later today. I almost said tomorrow. HAHAHA!! Yeah right... A little rest, some coffee and a fresh perspective and I think I can get really close to wrapping up that PTZ. I should be able to get it put out front this weekend and in full operation.

 

The last quandary is to decide which of many cameras to use on the PTZ. Do I go for higher resolution (470) but higher lux (.7) or lower lux (.5) but lower resolution (330)? Arrrrrrrgh! Color or B&W? Then there's the dual mode that does 540 lines with .7 lux color in the day time but at night it switches to 540 lines and .5 lux black and white. I give up.. My brain hurts.

 

Nite nite!

[jeromephone 6]

You have to love this post! Loads of info the lady is trying everything and gives tons of info both in print and pics. Wish everyone had this attitude.

[Soundy 1]

Wow! I can't figure out how you did all those quotes without doing a whole lot of copy, past and editing! Whew!

Tis easy! Just quote the entire thing and then insert (quote)(/quote) tags where necessary - (/quote) to end your text, add my reply, (quote) to start quoting your text again. You can also highlight a block of text and then click the "Quote" button above, and it will place the quote tags around that text for you.

 

On the side of the PTZ there is a fonky looking little connection that sort of resembles an OLD IBM keyboard but the pins aren't compatible, I tried and they are arranged in a different pattern. Had the pins aligned, I would have cut the cord off an old keyboard and used it's connector.

 

But I don't know what sort of connector it is so I can't even search for one since I have no idea of the name of the thing to put into google.

The old round XT keyboard connectors are called DIN connectors. The old keyboards typically used a 5-pin DIN. Newer PS/2 keyboards and mice use 6-pin mini-DIN. http://pinouts.ru/InputCables/DinToMiniDinKeyboard_pinout.shtml

(BTW, you might want to bookmark that site - very handy for the kind of stuff you're doing!)

 

So what's supposed to happen is that four wires (out of the 14) for the lens connect to the decoder. Those go to the connector on the side of the PTZ and then a cable comes from the lens to plug into that. Without a plug to plug into that socket connector thing, well, I kinda have a bit of a problem there.

 

I don't know what to do about that...

You could try taking a photo of the connector and take that in to your electronic supplier to see if they have the right plug. If you need to source it online, you could try these guys: http://www.rpelectronics.com/electronic-components-parts/connectors/audio-video/din - they're a local retailer here, but they will do mail-order. There are lots of other parts houses online, as well.

 

I will have to break out two wires for the PTZ data from the CAT-5e wires that I normally run the camera power through. I use 4 wires for power, I tried it with two wires but the voltage would drop too much over the long runs so I doubled them up and problem solved. I think in the early days of this, my first cameras were 12vdc and I think I burned them out because I only used two wires instead of four. Oh well. Those cameras are trashed now. Good riddance, they were junk to begin with.

It's not possible to "burn out" a camera because of voltage loss. More likely, they just died because they were junk Keep in mind that current draw at 24V will be half that of 12V, so losses will be half as much as well. This calculator is handy for figuring out the losses to expect over different Cat5 configurations: http://www.netkrom.com/voltage_loss_over_cat5_calculator.html

 

BTW, my standard for using Cat5 to cameras has always been blue pair for video, orange and green for power, and brown left for spare, data, or additional power if required (so far, it hasn't ever been required). No particular reason other than they being colors that made sense to my male logic. We use mainly dual-voltage cameras and 24VAC power supplies as well.

 

I think I have an idea in mind on how to do all this so it's weather resistant by putting the decoder into the camera case with the camera and just drop four wires out the bottom of the camera case into the PTZ strictly for controlling pan and tilt. Yes, I think that will do it! Then I can wire the lens directly into the decoder and skip the funny connector that is missing and I don't know what it is. And with the decoder in the camera case it will be very much water proof. Yay! I have a plan now!

Funny how just "talking" about a problem will sometimes lead you to a solution!

 

It would be awesome to have not only the DVR control the PTZ's but the matrix/keyboard system as well.

Some DVRs will accept joystick input and pass that on to the camera... but yours probably isn't one. You need something like a signal combiner... I've looked them up before and found them stupidly expensive... then found a schematic for one and discovered it consists of little more than a diode matrix to isolate the two sources.

 

Oh, and my lenses are NOT auto focus or auto iris. So that means that the stupid little iPhone app assumes everyone uses cheap webcam grade cameras and has no provision in it for professional grade systems.

Actually, "professional grade" ready-built PTZs almost universally DO have autofocus and auto-iris - I've never seen one that didn't. This may come as a surprise to you, but what you have there is a Frankencamera that is not representative of professional systems

 

Adjusting the cameras... Well, I guess I still need to try them out on my desk to be sure they don't have a major problem going on before I put them up in a hard to get to place.

Always a good idea.

 

As for adjusting them, I saw a little bitty TV that you can carry up the ladder with you that connects directly to the camera so you can adjust the focus and stuff.

Three words: portable DVD player. Got mine for $30 on Craigslist. Works like a hotdamn. Just make sure you find one with A/V input (most have A/V out, but not all also accept input). Check this thread for more discussion: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=23767

 

I wish I understood this stuff better. I have no idea what Pelco is or RS485 and have no concept of the inner workings of any of this stuff.

Pelco is a major CCTV manufacturer. Pelco D and P are two control protocols that they designed; there are many others and most manufacturers have their own proprietary designs, but the Pelco ones are almost universally supported as "generic" protocols.

 

As for RS485 - Wikipedia is your friend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rs485

[Dee_Ann 0]

You have to love this post! Loads of info the lady is trying everything and gives tons of info both in print and pics. Wish everyone had this attitude.

 

 

I'm a red head. Red head = hard head. (among other things.. )

 

I try... I may not be the smartest gal in town but I have a lot of hardheadedness going for me, that can be helpful sometimes..

 

I do have to give props to my dad, he was a radio and TV repairman when I was little, both my parents are pretty smart so I guess I got a little benefit there from them. I was always a geeky girl. I wasn't popular in school so I found other ways to occupy my time and drove my dad insane watching him do stuff and asking questions. I worked for IBM for a few years at the dawn of the IBM PC days then went into a refinery and worked on computers there. I didn't program them or anything, I would replace parts when they would break which was often. It was easy. The PC would get you a code telling you the problem and you would swap the part out. Like 1701 was a hard disk adapter failure, 201 memory (hard to figure out which chip though), 301 keyboard fail, etc.... I had them all memorized and could fix any problem in a few minutes if I had the parts. The worst was memory problems, figuring out which chip to replace. I would replace a whole bank and take them back to my bench and test them in a bench machine.

 

Putting up with the guys in the refinery was pretty rough, they saw me as invading their space plus the pay was a bummer. Eventually I ended up working with cash registers with my ex. I didn't work on them but I did a little phone support and cleaned up a few when he was short on time.

 

So I've been around electronics for most of my life to some degree. I blame my dad. Yes, that's it, it's his fault...

 

 

[Dee_Ann 0]

Ok... Now I have a new problem.

 

The decoder it trippin out. The PTZ will sometimes, at random, work correctly then without warning or cause, start going goofy. I click to pan left and it will pan AND tilt at the same time. And no matter what I click, it just pans and tilts away on it's own little private mission into LA-LA-Land.

 

I pull the power thinking that would reset it. Nope.

 

So I thought maybe the wire I used to connect the decoder to the PTZ might have some shorts or crossed wires. So I used my Fluke to check the wires and they are all good.

 

Then I thought maybe errant data was being sent by the controller in the little cheap DVR so I pulled the data wires and it was then stand alone with only power going to it. As soon as I applied power it would start stuttering and jittering as if it's trying to go left and right at the same time and tilt too.

 

So to verify the PTZ as fully correct in itself, I removed the decoder and put power to it's control wires and tested each motor for up/down & left/right. No problems, works 100% fine. Put the decoder back on and it's off to LA-LA-Land again with the stuttering and secret mission to view spots on the ceiling all on it's own.

 

Grrrrrr!!!

 

The funny thing is, the lens operates flawlessly. It never misbehaved, it was strictly the pan and tilt functions that were goofy.

 

So after I verified the motors are good and all my wiring is correct, I reconnected everything and bingo, now it works.

 

But, it's done this a few times, it will work fine then it goes nutty then work fine again later. I have no idea why but I've isolated the problem to the decoder.

 

I thought maybe it could be stuck relays so I tapped on them but to no avail. I think it's just cheap, imported junk. So far my observation is is that it's very unreliable and I can't see anyone using one of these things in a serious setup.

I think the technical term for this decoder is "Mickey Mouse".. And that's putting it nicely..

 

I hate to think I would have to buy a more expensive one, this one wasn't inexpensive and a search of google products and ebay and what not just brings up dozens of the same thing imported from the same place that's famous for making cheap junk.

 

In this picture you can see the decoder hanging outside the case while I'm trying to figure out what the heck it going on with it. Everything is a grand mess the past few days while I've been working on this thing. Wires everywhere!

 

 

Also, here is a video of the thing while I'm testing it. In this video the thing is working fine, no malfunctions. I didn't think to record it when it was messing up but I'm sure it will again and when it does I'll record it then.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJvs8bisTv4

 

I'm going to call it a night now, I'm not feeling well, I am pretty sure I got food poisoning so it's time for me to get some rest.

 

Happy New Year all!

[Soundy 1]

I worked for IBM for a few years at the dawn of the IBM PC days then went into a refinery and worked on computers there. I didn't program them or anything, I would replace parts when they would break which was often. It was easy. The PC would get you a code telling you the problem and you would swap the part out. Like 1701 was a hard disk adapter failure, 201 memory (hard to figure out which chip though), 301 keyboard fail, etc.... I had them all memorized and could fix any problem in a few minutes if I had the parts.

Damn, that musta been the old Microchannel machines. Did full plug'n'play long before anyone thought of PCI. Some brilliant stuff for its time, MCA. Probably had advantages they still haven't managed to duplicate with PCIe.

 

IBM always makes me shake my head... come up with some great new technology, then find ways to slowly kill it. Was the same with OS/2 when we were promoting and supporting that back in the day. I still have an OS/2 server running my mail here (old Dell PowerEdge dual-PII/233 box with a bunch of SCSI-UW drives), there are concepts in there that Microsoft STILL hasn't figured out in Windows, 15 years later.

 

Big Blue eventually pawned OS/2 maintenance and support off to a third party; it's still floating around out there (as "eComm Station" or something like that - they were aligning it as a server/thin-client system at that point)... IBM has all but orphaned it, but of course, they won't let go of the leash, so nobody else can actually take the technology and RUN with it. Bastards.

 

Anyway...

 

I hate to think I would have to buy a more expensive one, this one wasn't inexpensive and a search of google products and ebay and what not just brings up dozens of the same thing imported from the same place that's famous for making cheap junk.

What you might want to do, is look for another PTZ head (on eBay or whatever) that has dead motors but a working controller. Might be able to find something cheap that way.

 

BTW, I'm sending you a PM... don't forget to check it

[Dee_Ann 0]

Damn, that musta been the old Microchannel machines. Did full plug'n'play long before anyone thought of PCI. Some brilliant stuff for its time, MCA. Probably had advantages they still haven't managed to duplicate with PCIe.

 

 

No no no.... Waaaaay before micro channel. I mean the very, very very first IBM PC's. 5150, 5160 and 5170. The PC, XT and AT. 8088 and 80286 systems.

 

Like this for instance, the very first PC.

 

 

I was working for them in 1982 onward when it was still a hot item. I joined Team IBM right after the introduction of the PC.

 

Oh and back in the day, I got my feet wet with Unix, I worked at a place that had an Altos with an 80186 processor and ran AT&T Unix System V.

 

Good thing because it stuck with me. Through the late 90's I began to experiment with Linux and in 2000 I abandoned M$ window$ and became a Linux Zealot.

I've also built machines to run Open BSD, Solaris and have tried pretty much all the Linux flavors but am currently running Ubuntu. I abandoned SuSE when they became a pawn of M$ and M$ began to poison the Linux well with code contributions.

 

I've built a few Hackntoshes too (I purchased the OS btw..)..

 

Oh yeah, and extra geek points for me, I also put up a satellite tv system. Not Dish or Direct but free to air satellite. I get a whopping 20 something channels and half the time they aren't on the air. But hey, it's free and legal!

 

I don't work on computers anymore except for myself, it's too stressful to have a customer breathing down my neck and the pay is not good. They would rather hire a teen age boy part time with no benefits than a middle age woman that wants full time & benefits and higher pay. I can do better working part time at Walmart than as a tech person. At least at Walmart the stress levels are much lower and I don't have to use my brain much. Thinking gives me migraines. I lost my power of concentration..

 

This camera stuff though, is fairly easy. It's just new to me. The big problem I'm having is that I'm using stuff that is antiquated and finding information on the stuff is not easy. I can find some manuals here and there on how to use Item A. Or Item B. But I can't find manuals that tell you how to get all the items to play nice together as one big happy family.

 

I'm assuming that in the day, techs went to class for this stuff and picked up tips from their seniors. Being that I was never in that loop, I'm afraid that all that knowledge has fallen into the black hole.

 

I need to take a break for a bit, I'm recovering from the worst 24 hours of my life thanks to a very bad case of food poisoning. I'm exhausted. I'll drop by later.

 

Thanks guys...

[Dee_Ann 0]

I was unhappy with the zoom, focus and iris function. It was too fast and doesn't allow fine tuning. The voltage is a bit high so I put some resistors inline between the decoder and the lens to lower the voltage thus slowing the motors and giving me a much smoother and finer grained control over the lens functions. The P&T motors I'm leaving alone, they are AC anyway. I wish they were a little faster to be honest. Maybe I can get my dad to make new gears as it's a chain & gear drive. He has a machine shop in his garage..

 

Still haven't put the unit outdoors just yet, I'm still not satisfied that it's bug free enough to put into real life use. I guess that's what I get for buying the cheapest decoder I could find from China.

[navaidguy 0]

Hi Dee,

I've just stumbled upon your lengthy post and I must say, I'm impressed with your ingenuity and stamina with your project. I have a few thoughts and ideas as to maybe pointing you further in the right direction to getting everything working as you would eventually like it too.

 

The controllers you have (I assume that to be two KX138's and a single HSX3208L, with a single keyboard) should indeed operate together, albeit in a non-standard fashion. Could you please post a schematic of what you are presently trying to achieve, together with a close up of the tilt head receiver board (the unit with the orange relays on it) to show at least the manufacturer or the FCC number, unless you know the manufacturer & model number. This will help with the config of the matrix unit... By far the simplest way to get things going would be to have ONLY one device (preferably the HSX unit) controlling the PTZ and the multiplexer, with the keyboard sending commands only to the HSX. I would also strongly suggest that the PT receiver-HSX baud rates are different to the HSX-multiplexer in order to minimise "pass-through" data exchange. In other words, ensure that the PT receiver (orange relays) is set to 4,800 baud (pelco P&D) and the HSX- multiplexers are set to 9,600. Connect the Aux from the HSX (port 12 on your diagram) to the data in on the mux, and connect the keyboard only to port 10 or 11 on the HSX and the keyboard to port 9 on the HSX. Personally I would loop the video through the mux first then into the HSX unit, and the monitor output from the mux feed into any camera input of the HSX in order to give you a multiple quad or split screen from any output you want (even over your I-Phone).

 

Regarding the PT head doing strange things, is there a "brake" input on the PT head? Generally a PT head has a brake as well as a motor, although this is more prevalent in a DC drive, you might want to check as sometimes if the brake is not connected then the head will "shudder" when you try to move it. Also when the drive "went all over by itself" was this is any particular direction or was it random?

 

One further thing, I noticed that the receiver card has eight relays on it, is there a dedicated relay for AUX1 & AUX2? If there is you may want to wire your resistors through one of them to give you a remote speed choice.....just a thought.

 

Post a schematic and a detailed photo of the RX board and I'll put it together in our workshop to find the correct config for you.

 

Kindest Regards

Pete

[Dee_Ann 0]

Hi Dee,

I've just stumbled upon your lengthy post and I must say, I'm impressed with your ingenuity and stamina with your project. I have a few thoughts and ideas as to maybe pointing you further in the right direction to getting everything working as you would eventually like it too.

 

The controllers you have (I assume that to be two KX138's and a single HSX3208L, with a single keyboard) should indeed operate together, albeit in a non-standard fashion. Could you please post a schematic of what you are presently trying to achieve, together with a close up of the tilt head receiver board (the unit with the orange relays on it) to show at least the manufacturer or the FCC number, unless you know the manufacturer & model number. This will help with the config of the matrix unit... By far the simplest way to get things going would be to have ONLY one device (preferably the HSX unit) controlling the PTZ and the multiplexer, with the keyboard sending commands only to the HSX. I would also strongly suggest that the PT receiver-HSX baud rates are different to the HSX-multiplexer in order to minimise "pass-through" data exchange. In other words, ensure that the PT receiver (orange relays) is set to 4,800 baud (pelco P&D) and the HSX- multiplexers are set to 9,600. Connect the Aux from the HSX (port 12 on your diagram) to the data in on the mux, and connect the keyboard only to port 10 or 11 on the HSX and the keyboard to port 9 on the HSX. Personally I would loop the video through the mux first then into the HSX unit, and the monitor output from the mux feed into any camera input of the HSX in order to give you a multiple quad or split screen from any output you want (even over your I-Phone).

 

Regarding the PT head doing strange things, is there a "brake" input on the PT head? Generally a PT head has a brake as well as a motor, although this is more prevalent in a DC drive, you might want to check as sometimes if the brake is not connected then the head will "shudder" when you try to move it. Also when the drive "went all over by itself" was this is any particular direction or was it random?

 

One further thing, I noticed that the receiver card has eight relays on it, is there a dedicated relay for AUX1 & AUX2? If there is you may want to wire your resistors through one of them to give you a remote speed choice.....just a thought.

 

Post a schematic and a detailed photo of the RX board and I'll put it together in our workshop to find the correct config for you.

 

Kindest Regards

Pete

 

 

Hi!

 

And thank you!

 

Ok, I'm going to give this a try, I sometimes have trouble relating exactly what I'm trying to accomplish but here goes..

 

I made up a crude little diagram in a pain program to roughly illustrate my basic goal. I'm mostly there except for the PTZ control.

 

All the non PTZ cameras are up in place but are of no real consequence since they are "dumb cameras" that only feed video to the matrix's. Everything is interconnected and video is shared between all devices so that I can route video to any place I want and mix video into any combination I want. The multiplexers will only allow for input and display of 16 cameras at once so I played tricks with the matrix units to feed the multiplexers with spot output sequences, if that makes any sense at all. In other words, I can have a screen that contains a mixture of static and dynamic video feeds from multiple sources. Gaaaaaah!! Confusing!

But it works!

 

So here's my crude and confusing diagram. (You can click it to zoom to a larger, easier to read version.)

 

 

 

I hope that makes sense.

 

 

Also, I have a page of all the PDF manuals and spec sheets for most of the devices I'm using here except for the cameras, I'm using numerous types and models of cameras and they are of no real consequence other than they are all 24vac 1/3" CS types. The three lenses are Computar brand and they are zoom/focus/iris controllable. There are six wires per lens and the negatives are tied to a common negative (by me) so essentially there are four DC control wires per lens.

 

Here's the site with the manuals in pdf format for the relevant devices.

 

REMOVED LINK....

 

The manual for the decoder board came to me on a mini-cd in microsoft word format from a Chinese company in China. I do NOT trust any thing like that so I converted it to PDF on my Linux machine so as to strip any potential bad stuff out of it however, it did alter the appearance of the document from what it's original author intended. But I'm sure you will still be more than able to read and understand it. I did this for the general safety of all. (Yes, I am overly cautious. )

 

 

And here is a photograph of the decoder board. (Click the thumbnail to see a huge image.)

 

 

I've looked very closely and there is no FCC ID number on the board. I am familiar with what that is but there is no such thing on this board. No surprise there considering the country of origin.

 

Here is the only thing printed on the board that identifies it. (Click the thumbnail to see a huge image.)

 

 

This is the website where I purchased the decoders from.

hxxp : // www DOT securitycamera2000 DOT com/products/Universal-Indoor-RS485-Decoder-for-CCTV-PTZ-Camera-Control.html

 

Beware, it is a Chinese website so make sure you have ad & pop-up blockers and anti-virus active! Trust no one! You'll have to edit the link to get there..

 

 

OMG........ I just typed like 6 paragraphs and it just vanished.

 

starting over, again...

 

Ok, I'm so frustrated right now, I forgot all that stuff I typed and now I'm drawing a blank.. I don't even know where to try and pick that up, I lost my flow of thought and now all I see is red...

 

 

Um.. I can't think now. I'm going to stop, step away and take a break for awhile.

I was fully immersed in thought and had everything going really well, I typed in a LOT of stuff describing and detailing all this and where I want to go with it and just all of a sudden POOF! it was gone! I'm angry and upset by that and drawing a blank so I'm going to stop awhile.

 

I'll try to calm down and finish this up later. Right now I'm having a red head moment..

Edited May 6, 2011 by Guest

[Dee_Ann 0]

No help..

 

That's ok. I quit. I can't figure it out by myself so I just quit and it is all sitting here not working right.

 

Fine..

 

Thanks anyways..

[SEANHAWG 1]

Hi Deeann, I purchased that same decoder and it worked great for me. What problems are you having with that decoder or what specific questions did you have?

[Horizon 0]

Hi Dee.

 

Just stumbled across your posts. That's a nice set up you've been putting together there. About the erratic PTZ behaviour; I noticed in one of your photos that you have miss-wired the RS422 connection between the DVR(?) and the decoder board. I'm not sure whether you have already corrected it, but D- and D+ must only use one twisted pair. Otherwise the signal will be susceptible to noise, which could cause the erratic motion.

So for example, D- uses the blue wire, D+ goes to the blue+white wire.

[Dee_Ann 0]

Hi again,

 

I'm still having grief with this setup.

 

I gave up on the Ultrak stuff controlling the ptz. For now.

 

The icatch dvr SOMETIMES can almost control it but it's erratic and does as it pleases. Sometimes it just goes crazy and the motor will turn on and grind the camera into the wall or all the way down and I can't stop it but to kill the power to everything and pull the data wires then restart it all.

 

I just can not use ptz. Could it be the decoder is cheap garbage?

 

Or the dvr?

 

I have a single twisted pair for the data wire over cat5, I set both units for Pelco-D, 2400, address 1.

 

I don't know what to do, I tried three decoders (all identical) and they all behave the same, badly..

I have no other controller to test with.

 

Should I buy a new, different decoder or a stand alone controller to test with?

 

I need the dvr to control the ptz so I can do it over my iphone. I can now but there is a 90% chance it will freak out and the camera start grinding so I can't risk remote operation.

 

Please help suggest a course of action ?! I'm really stuck.

 

Thanks.

[shockwave199 0]

After three years, it might be a good idea to get a new ptz, one that's more plug and play user friendly. And it will generally look a heck of a lot better outside than the contraption you have pictured. But after skimming this very deep thread, I'd say the ptz just plain sucks and it's time, and was time for a new one. Good luck to you!