My home system........Am I on the right track?

[rory 0]

Depends on the camera and the voltage draw.

 

What type of wire is the thermastat wire? If it is stranded then you can always double it up, if its only 1 pair only, make sure its at least 20AWG. Though shorter runs and lower draw cameras (eg. 12VDC BW Bullet cameras, even color bullets) then you could even get away with doubling up regular telco wire, at short distances.

 

Best to first get an idea of the type of camera you will use. If they are going to be Infrared cameras for example (not the cheap bullet type), then you would want at least 20AWG and safer to go with 18AWG.

 

You can actually power low draw cameras over cat5 or twisted pair, certain lenghts for different voltages, only certain distances, and dalways doubling up.

 

So really depends ..

 

Rory

[vic_salve 0]

Sorry about spelling. Thermostate wire for HVAC. It is 18 AWG, but solid copper. I already have rg-6 to use for the video or I would have tried to get some siamese. It's not very easy to get in my neck of the woods (special order).

 

When you speak of doubling up....you mean running two of the same to each location and using both at the same time? Sorry for the elementary questions. I plan on 12 volt cameras. Infared & hopefully with audio.

[rory 0]

Sorry about spelling. Thermostate wire for HVAC. It is 18 AWG, but solid copper. I already have rg-6 to use for the video or I would have tried to get some siamese. It's not very easy to get in my neck of the woods (special order).

 

When you speak of doubling up....you mean running two of the same to each location and using both at the same time? Sorry for the elementary questions. I plan on 12 volt cameras. Infared & hopefully with audio.

 

That sounds like High Voltage wire? If so, no cant use it.

 

As for the Siamese, same here, even worst it costs us over $500 time as we land it here, but its worth it.

 

If you have 2 pair (4 wires) of stranded wire, like telco stranded wire, normally its not stranded but some are, then you could use 1 pair for positive and 1 pair for negative, as normally by itself it is just 24 or 22AWG.

 

Audio will need its own pair, normally you can use the ground from the cameras 12VDC wire, so the other 2 wires would be positive and audio. If it is something like a Louroe mic you can just run 1 telco wire, or use 2 pairs off a UTP bundle or cat5 cable.

 

Infrared will draw more, so will need to look at what cameras you plan to use (eg. OEM Bullets with IR, or Extreme CCTV IR cameras) and go from there. Also check the distances, you may be able to do all of this on twisted pair.

 

Is the RG6 copper braided or standard Cable TV coax?

 

Once again, twisted pair gives you more options for upgrades and add ons. UTP Multi pair will have to have enough pairs for add ons. If you are really just concerned with video right now, then run a siamese cable for each camera location, even if you dont add the camera now, and also run a UTP multi pair to each one. If you have copper braided RG6 then use that for video, and something like speaker wire or lamp cord wire for power, like us in the 3rd world we sometimes have to improvise, and our local electrical store has alot of "precut" wire, but RG59 copper braided can be hard to find locally, so unless we order siamese, sometimes (not me) others will just use Cable TV RG6 and Lamp cord wire for power. If you can get RG59 Copper braided would be much better.

 

As for UTP, for example:

 

PTZ Data = 1 pair,

Video = 1 Pair,

Video Power(not PTZ, low draw cameras) = 2 pair (depends on power used also as to what distance you can get out of it),

PTZ Video = 1 Pair (or if it is an OEM PTZ it will more than likely need Coax, if it is a higher end PTZ like a GE, etc, then you can order them with UTP module),

 

You can also use it for other uses such as alarm system devices, eg Motion Detector will use 2 pairs (1 pair signal, 1 pair power, or you can power a couple with 1 pair), Expanders which allow 8 alarm devices would say use 1 pair for polling loop signal and 2 pairs for power depending on how long the run is, Keypads will use 2 pairs, etc.

 

Rory

[vic_salve 0]

Ok, one last post on this thread I hope.

 

Question about audio. I need to know how to get audio back to the DVR. Do I need to run 2 RG-59 from each camera that will also have audio or is it possible to run both audio and video on only one. I guess it's possible or a TV wouldn't work. But I've checked the posts here and looked for connectors on the internet that would do this, but didn't have any luck.

[rory 0]

most mics, at least the ones ive used such as louroe, require positive, negative, and audio, thats 3 wires, or 1 1/2 pairs, and can be 24AWG telco wire, or twisted pair. You could also use standard audio type wire.

[vic_salve 0]

Thanks for the quick reply rory. I have looked at these cameras with audio and some mics as well and they either have a BNC connector or RCA connector on them. I don't really know how to terminate the small guage wire properly. I know how to do it with coax rg-59 or rg-6. These connectors are easy to find. Is it the same with the small stuff as well as far as terminating to RCA or BNC connecors?

[rory 0]

check out :

http://www.louroe.com/

http://www.louroe.com/mics.asp

 

audio for cctv