Need help piecing my entire surveillance system

[ulterior_motive 0]

Ok, so,

what i am purchasing is a

 

1 X DVR

APOLLO HD PRO

16 CHANNEL

30FPS PER CHANNEL @ D1

http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26585

 

http://www.qvissecurity.com/Catalogue/DVR/Apollo-HD-Pro/16-Channel/HD-Pro-16-Channel-4TB-HD-PRO16-4TB-N

 

16 X CAMERAS

CNB VCM-24VF

http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=26690

 

http://www.cnbusa.com/en/html/product/product.php?seqx_prod=1073

 

 

The longest run is going to be 105 to 120 feet,

Will running Siamese copper cable be ok for this run? do i need any baluns? i was debating if i wanted a PTZ camera, but i think cost is going to be an issue, it will most likely be a CNB PTZ camera.

 

Is it just direct plug and play with this DVR? do i need a seperate PTZ controller?

 

AND i will be buying a seperate fuse box power supply to power all these cameras.

 

I'm guessing a UPC backup will be key also.

I'm just looking to finalize everything so i don't run into any surprises.

[SecurityGeeks 0]

Ok, so,

what i am purchasing is a

 

1 X DVR

APOLLO HD PRO

16 CHANNEL

30FPS PER CHANNEL @ D1

http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26585

 

http://www.qvissecurity.com/Catalogue/DVR/Apollo-HD-Pro/16-Channel/HD-Pro-16-Channel-4TB-HD-PRO16-4TB-N

 

16 X CAMERAS

CNB VCM-24VF

http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=26690

 

http://www.cnbusa.com/en/html/product/product.php?seqx_prod=1073

 

 

The longest run is going to be 105 to 120 feet,

Will running Siamese copper cable be ok for this run? do i need any baluns? i was debating if i wanted a PTZ camera, but i think cost is going to be an issue, it will most likely be a CNB PTZ camera.

 

Is it just direct plug and play with this DVR? do i need a seperate PTZ controller?

 

AND i will be buying a seperate fuse box power supply to power all these cameras.

 

I'm guessing a UPC backup will be key also.

I'm just looking to finalize everything so i don't run into any surprises.

 

if the dvr supports ptz, then its likely to have a built in controller, you can use the mouse to navigate with. if your going ptz i recommend using cat5, and yes you will need baluns for this application as cat 5 does not have power on its own. if you plan on upgrading use cat5 all the way. if no ptz is intended use siamese rg. at 120ft you should be okay with power to the cams.... but you are pushing it.

 

STRICTLY MY OPINION

[ulterior_motive 0]

if the dvr supports ptz, then its likely to have a built in controller, you can use the mouse to navigate with. if your going ptz i recommend using cat5, and yes you will need baluns for this application as cat 5 does not have power on its own. if you plan on upgrading use cat5 all the way. if no ptz is intended use siamese rg. at 120ft you should be okay with power to the cams.... but you are pushing it.

 

STRICTLY MY OPINION

 

Thanks for the input...

Wondering if you are an installer? or is this a hobby of yours?

[tomcctv 190]

The longest run is going to be 105 to 120 feet,

Will running Siamese copper cable be ok for this run? do i need any baluns? i was debating if i wanted a PTZ camera, but i think cost is going to be an issue, it will most likely be a CNB PTZ camera.

 

Is it just direct plug and play with this DVR? do i need a seperate PTZ controller?

 

AND i will be buying a seperate fuse box power supply to power all these cameras.

 

I'm guessing a UPC backup will be key also.

I'm just looking to finalize everything so i don't run into any surprises.

 

 

 

nice to see you are putting alot of work into your system.

 

the apollo has full PTZ control built in (move via mouse) and the dvr also has sensor control if needed. Siamese is fine for the PTZ (video and power) . to install a PTZ is just like anyother camera except you need to also install a data cable (cat 5) to control the camera movement (just 1 pair needed)

 

Siamese with power is also fine for the rest of your cameras and as the CNB is 12 or 24v i would look at buying 24v with the size of your cable runs no baluns need for any of your cameras if using Siamese. just BNC connectors on every coax end.

 

cameras power supply all in one are good like the Altronix ALTV2416600UL3

 

 

 

[ulterior_motive 0]

nice to see you are putting alot of work into your system.

I love electronics, so i thought i could handle this. I build and repair computers on the side for family and friends. This is my first ever attempt at anything CCTV related. So i thought how hard could it be. It was a little complicating at first, but everybody on these forums is so helpful, i got through it and the grass is starting to look green on the other side.

 

Siamese with power is also fine for the rest of your cameras and as the CNB is 12 or 24v i would look at buying 24v

Ive been reading about that on the forums, people mention it but they dont explain as to why 24 volt PSU would be better for longer runs. I know there is video loss over distance, but i never new there was power loss over distance. What would happen to the shorter runs if I'm running 24 volt into a 12 volt camera? wouldn't it overheat? My shortest run is going to be 15 - 20 feet.

Do i need to put a voltage regulator on the camera end to bring the voltage back down to 12 volt?

 

with the size of your cable runs no baluns need for any of your cameras if using Siamese. just BNC connectors on every coax end.

 

And i had a question regarding BNC connectors, Our oldest VHS surveillance unit which has long since retired had used twist on BNC connectors. My latest surveillance unit had crimp on BNC, and the installer sucked (i guess that's why they're out of business). I started experiencing signal loss at my key cameras and i diagnosed it at the crimp on BNC connectors, so i put on twist on F type connectors and F type to BNC adapter. I know its pretty hack that way, but at such short notice with whatever tools i could find,you gotta do what you gotta do.

What do you guys suggest i use?

[tomcctv 190]

What would happen to the shorter runs if I'm running 24 volt into a 12 volt camera? wouldn't it overheat? My shortest run is going to be 15 - 20 feet

 

 

the CMBs will just pull what power they need so it does not matter how far the run.

And i had a question regarding BNC connectors

 

 

 

installers use what they are used to. both crimp and screw type can be put on bad. and its also the quality of the BNC.

 

if you are use to the F type. then just use the BNC screw without any adaptors.

 

[Birdman Adam 0]

Twist on BNCs work fined, of course I prefer cat5e with baluns...

 

Your run lengths will be fine. Be sure to invest in a proper UPS with AVR built-in.

 

CNBs can do 12VDC or 24VAC - actually, they can go outside those specs some too... They only draw what they need (which is not much!)

[SEANHAWG 1]

If you do decide on a PTZ, be sure to check its power rating. Most full size PTZ's require 24VAC only so I would just be sure to go ahead and order a 24VAC PSU to be safe. The advantages to using 24VAC is you can run longer power runs than 12V. You will have no problem at all with power loss using 24VAC either with Siamese or Cat5 running 120'.

 

The VCM-24VF will take either 24VAC or 12V DC power so you are good there, but please note that not all CNB cameras will take either/or. Some only take 12V DC. Also, most of their full size PTZ's take 24 VAC like I said above. I think some of their mini PTZ's take 12V DC only. But if you were going PTZ, you'll be much more satisfied going with full size. You will love the PTZ controls on the Apollo. You can make it where the camera follows your mouse cursor around. Easier than any joystick in my opinion.

 

Also, if you were to plug a camera that take 12V DC only into a 24VAC power source, it would not work.

[fa chris 0]

Ive been reading about that on the forums, people mention it but they don't explain as to why 24 volt PSU would be better for longer runs. I know there is video loss over distance, but i never new there was power loss over distance. What would happen to the shorter runs if I'm running 24 volt into a 12 volt camera? wouldn't it overheat? My shortest run is going to be 15 - 20 feet.

Do i need to put a voltage regulator on the camera end to bring the voltage back down to 12 volt?[/color]

 

The short of it, wire has resistance to it which makes the voltage drop from what's being supplied, to what's being seen by the device at the end of the wire. In other words, a power supply might be supplying 12 volts, but some of that voltage is being lost over the wire so the device on the other end might only be seeing 10 volts. For the simplicity of things, we'll go ahead and say AC works the same as DC but the reality is wire resistance (known as impedance in the AC world) has a lot less of an effect on AC so the voltage drop is less compared to that of DC. I only point this out because we're usually looking at 12VDC or 24VAC for cameras (analog cameras always used 24VAC, hence the reason most modern cameras can accept it)

 

The long of it, according to the NEC an 18 gauge wire on average has a resistance of 7.77 Ohms (measure of resistance) per thousand feet of wire. Voltage is current (amps) multiplied by resistance (Ohms). So if a device draws 1 amp on a 1000 foot run of 18 gauge wire, we can calculate our voltage drop by using 7.77 Ohms * 1 amp = 7.77 volts lost over the cable, so the device at the end of a 12 volt run is only receiving 12-7.77 volts or 4.23 volts. In other words, it won't work. Same device at the end of a 24 volt run is seeing 24-7.77 volts, or 16.23 volts. Depending on the devices rating, this may or may not work. PoE devices operate at 48 volts to compensate for the voltage loss over the smaller gauge wire.

 

 

Now for the heat... a camera should produce roughly the same amount of heat regardless of if you supply it with 12 volts or 24 volts. Heat is directly connected to how much power is used by a device, power is measured in watts. Watts are calculated by multiplying voltage by current. A device doesn't consume a fixed amount of current or voltage, but it consumes a fixed amount of watts instead... this means there's a balancing act, we supply a set voltage to a device and it'll use the current it needs to get to the watts it needs. So watts and voltage are fixed, current is variable. The more voltage we supply to a camera, the less current it draws, for example if a camera has a power consumption of 5 watts, and we supply 24 volts to it (we'll leave out the voltage drop discussed above for simplicity, but this also explains why shorter or longer runs have no effect on heat), we know the current is watts / voltage, or 5/24 = .208 amps. If the power consumption is 5 watts and we supply 12 volts then our current is watts / voltage, or 5/12 = .416 amps. So at less voltage, we're using more amps, and you'll notice your power supply can only provide so many amps! Regardless, our fixed number is 5 watts. Heat measured in BTU's can be calculated directly from watts using the formula BTU's = watts * 3.41. So if a camera is 5 watts, regardless of the voltage we supply to it, or the current it draws, it'll be producing 17.05BTU's which is our measurement of heat.

 

That's kind of basic electronics 101 in a nutshell...

 

Also, the camera will have a built in regulator so you can plug in 12 or 24 directly to it (if it's rated for it!) I'm looking at a camera right now that will take 12-48VDC or 24VAC, so I connect 32VDC directly to it if I want and it should work.

 

So now that I've thouroughly confused anyone still reading this... 24 volts works better, especially over longer runs, just take our word for it, heat won't be an issue, again, just take our word for it, and the camera will say what voltages it can directly accept, supply a voltage anywhere in that range.

[rory 0]

The longest run is going to be 105 to 120 feet,

Will running Siamese copper cable be ok for this run? do i need any baluns? i was debating if i wanted a PTZ camera, but i think cost is going to be an issue, it will most likely be a CNB PTZ camera.

Thats a very short distance for RG59 siamese so you would be more than okay.

[rory 0]

at 120ft you should be okay with power to the cams.... but you are pushing it.

How so? Is this with RG59 Siamese? (18awg)

On one job I deal with there are 12VDC cameras powered at 400' and they work fine.

24VAC will go even much further. I have 24VAC High Powered IR cameras at 300' that draw 1.5A and they work fine also.

[HTElectrical 0]

The long of it, according to the NEC an 18 gauge wire on average has a resistance of 7.77 Ohms (measure of resistance) per thousand feet of wire. Voltage is current (amps) multiplied by resistance (Ohms). So if a device draws 1 amp on a 1000 foot run of 18 gauge wire, we can calculate our voltage drop by using 7.77 Ohms * 1 amp = 7.77 volts lost over the cable, so the device at the end of a 12 volt run is only receiving 12-7.77 volts or 4.23 volts. In other words, it won't work. Same device at the end of a 24 volt run is seeing 24-7.77 volts, or 16.23 volts. Depending on the devices rating, this may or may not work. PoE devices operate at 48 volts to compensate for the voltage loss over the smaller gauge wire.

 

I don't think your calcs are correct. Voltage drop at 1000 feet using 18 AWG copper for 24V AC at 1A is 12.77 = 11.23V. Since the OP longest run is 130' his voltage using 24VAC would be Voltage drop: 1.66, Voltage drop percentage: 6.92%, Voltage at the end: 22.3. You want to keep it under 5% usually. For 12v DC Voltage drop: 1.66, Voltage drop percentage: 13.83%, Voltage at the end: 10.34. Those numbers get worse if the ambient temps are higher. Most power supplies run at a higher voltage initially so that helps compensate for the drop.

[fa chris 0]

The long of it, according to the NEC an 18 gauge wire on average has a resistance of 7.77 Ohms (measure of resistance) per thousand feet of wire. Voltage is current (amps) multiplied by resistance (Ohms). So if a device draws 1 amp on a 1000 foot run of 18 gauge wire, we can calculate our voltage drop by using 7.77 Ohms * 1 amp = 7.77 volts lost over the cable, so the device at the end of a 12 volt run is only receiving 12-7.77 volts or 4.23 volts. In other words, it won't work. Same device at the end of a 24 volt run is seeing 24-7.77 volts, or 16.23 volts. Depending on the devices rating, this may or may not work. PoE devices operate at 48 volts to compensate for the voltage loss over the smaller gauge wire.

 

I don't think your calcs are correct. Voltage drop at 1000 feet using 18 AWG copper for 24V AC at 1A is 12.77 = 11.23V. Since the OP longest run is 130' his voltage using 24VAC would be Voltage drop: 1.66, Voltage drop percentage: 6.92%, Voltage at the end: 22.3. You want to keep it under 5% usually. For 12v DC Voltage drop: 1.66, Voltage drop percentage: 13.83%, Voltage at the end: 10.34. Those numbers get worse if the ambient temps are higher. Most power supplies run at a higher voltage initially so that helps compensate for the drop.

 

Cable specs tell the resistance per 1000 feet, so your mileage may very. Pretty sure NEC states 7.77 ohms, however you're right, I did make an error. The distance would actual be double because on a 1000 foot wire run the entire circuit would actually be 2000 foot (1000 feet of conductor going out, 1000 feet coming back...), effectively making our resistance 15.54 ohms (if we use 7.77 as our resistance).

 

I do see a lot of calculators say the voltage drop is 12.8 volts for 1 amp at a 1000 feet on 18awg for 24vac. I know the cable I actually use is spec'd for 6.2 ohms per 1000 feet, making it a 12.4volt drop.

 

I only used 1000 feet and 1 amp as a reference because they are simple round numbers. At 130' he'll have zero issues with 24vac, as I doubt his cameras are drawing 1amp and they should be good within a 10% tolerance.

[ulterior_motive 0]

The long of it, according to the.....

Whats scary is that i understood everything you guys said, thank you for clarifying and pretty much teaching me electronics 101,

 

The cameras i will be using are 12/24 volt, and the psu is 24volt so we shouldn't have ANY problems based on your calculations.

 

Thank you for your help