2 camera outdoor cat5 (crimps)

[jjandura 0]

Hi, I have 6 outdoor camera's and want to switch the cabling over to external cat5 , and want to use 1 cat5 run for 2 camera's. Question is do I run the cat5 to the 1st camera in line, then crimp the cabling going to the 2nd camera? The camera's are (1 set about 10 feet apart) and 2nd set is about 50 feet apart. These are all outdoor camera's and I need to know how and what to make the crimps for the wires going to the 2nd camera in line. I seen the telephone type outdoor crimps are these what most people use if so how is the cable secures at the crimp point, I have been looking for pictures but have not found anything that I would think to be long lasting. thanks John

[camera-newbie 0]

Can you even daisy chain cameras like this unless you're talking about PTZ control signals? I'm assuming they're analog cameras? If they're analog and you're feeding power through the CAT5 as well, I'm not sure you're going to have enough current to run a pair of cameras unless they're really low power or ??

 

I'm not sure what you're talking about regarding the crimping.. I think in general most camera's are wired point-to-point with each camera having it's own dedicated wiring..

 

Here's a link on CCTV daisy chaining -- perhaps it's helpful :

http://www.cctv-information.co.uk/i/Control_Systems_and_Cabling

[jjandura 0]

Hi thanks for the reply. What I did since 10 of my camera's are outside , originally had siamese cable but constantly had problems with loosing power or video (cheap cables) then would run another. Decided from reading that Quality burial cat5 cable would be better. So now running the cat5 to 1st camera in line then need to run the "other" cat5 cables to the next camera in line. example run blue & orange pair to first camera then need to attach next camera using orange / brown pair, so I need to crimp cables that I am extending ( think I found the b-wire as solution) camera runs are only about 40-50 feet so figured I can run 2 camera's per cable? Now running into the ground loop problems/ I think: when I installed had nice picture on each line indivisually but when attached to dvr all went to hell. Been battling this : tried a few things and cleared some camera's but will probably need to buy some ground loop isolators for others, not ready to buy new camera's at this time. Most of the camera's I have are mixed ebay deals some really good camera's some good/cheap camear's. Any good place to get decent loop isolators , triing like all to keep cost down with this cable changover ? thanks John

[camera-newbie 0]

I'm going to assume you're using Analog cameras -- are you daisy chaining all aspects of the video signals or just PTZ signals? If you're daisy chaining everything, I'm not sure you can do that from what I've read -- keep in mind (as my name implies) that I'm a newbie here and may not know everything but I'd guess you need home-runs for each camera -- a single CAT5 (or two if you like) for each camera going back to the DVR.. I suspect that the more cameras you daisy chain the worse the signals are going to degrade.. However, I'll let others chime in here as they likely know way better than I do.

[Soundy 1]

It was a little hard to follow your post, but it sounds like you're using blue and orange for video on one camera, and brown and orange for signal on the other, with orange being a common ground between the two?

 

If so, I'm not surprised you're having problems.

 

For starters, you should only use one pair per camera for video over baluns, period. Second, you don't want to have a common video ground run between two cameras. You're already asking for ground loops by using common-ground cameras on baluns; doubling up the video grounds that way will only make that worse.

 

Here's what I've done for two cameras on one Cat5:

 

At the first camera, use the blue pair for video, orange and green for power. For the second run, splice in the orange, green, and brown pairs... then at the second camera, use brown for video, orange and green for power. Orange and green pairs can splice together (ie. orange and orange/white can go together at the splice point), but you need to make sure to splice the brown and brown/white separately.

 

Now here's the thing: if you're seeing excessive voltage drop using 18/2 in the Siamese cable, then you'll see even worse drop with Cat5, since you're not only using thinner wire (three Cat5 pairs together is about equivalent to an 18/2 pair), but you're doubling the current load by connecting two cameras, so you're effectively only using a single 24 AWG pair for each camera's power. The cameras I did this with were CNBs with a maximum 2.2W power draw (about 180mA at 12V, so under 360mA total for both).

 

All in all, unless I'm missing something, I don't think this will work well for you with the cameras you have. Ground-loop isolators are a workaround at best, and it sounds like these are cameras with built-in IR, which will be a LOT higher current draw. Switching to good low-power, low-light-capable, dual-voltage cameras like the CNBs would simply eliminate all these issues.

[Soundy 1]

I'm going to assume you're using Analog cameras -- are you daisy chaining all aspects of the video signals or just PTZ signals? If you're daisy chaining everything, I'm not sure you can do that from what I've read -- keep in mind (as my name implies) that I'm a newbie here and may not know everything but I'd guess you need home-runs for each camera -- a single CAT5 (or two if you like) for each camera going back to the DVR.. I suspect that the more cameras you daisy chain the worse the signals are going to degrade.. However, I'll let others chime in here as they likely know way better than I do.

You can't "daisy chain" video signals. Each camera needs its own pair all the way to the DVR.

[jjandura 0]

sorry I did miswrite last post , I am running example blue pair to 1st camera video orange pair 1st camera power / BROWN pair 2nd camera power and greem pair 2nd camera video, using b-wire crimps to extent to 2nd camera. When I installed indivisually it worked fine problem comes in when hooked to DVR. So doubling up on the power you are using 1 power supply for both camera's? that I have not tried. I do not believe my problem is with not enough power (drop) on the line yes they are IR camera's (most of them) I guess I can run a 2nd set of wires (1 cat5 per camera) just hate to do this and have same problem when hooked to DVR. thanks for the quick responses , also the DVR I am using is a PROVISUAL since my older WooJu which I liked a lot now continually reboots, after I moved it on this reinstall relocation due to new cabling. Will probably be getting a new DVR from Nelly's shortly. thanks again

[Soundy 1]

sorry I did miswrite last post , I am running example blue pair to 1st camera video orange pair 1st camera power / BROWN pair 2nd camera power and greem pair 2nd camera video, using b-wire crimps to extent to 2nd camera. When I installed indivisually it worked fine problem comes in when hooked to DVR.

Classic symptoms of a ground loop caused by a combination of common power supply, common-ground cameras, and baluns. You can fix it by using separate power supplies for each camera, or by using cameras with built-in regulators, so they don't share power and video grounds.

 

I guess I can run a 2nd set of wires (1 cat5 per camera) just hate to do this and have same problem when hooked to DVR.

That will help avoid power-loss issues (as you can then use three pairs for power instead of one), but not the ground-loop issue.

[hardwired 0]

The OP never mentioned using baluns in his post: I think he may be connecting directly from the coax to the CAT5 cable, and if so, that's likely the source of a lot of his problems with interference/ground loop problems.

 

If he is using baluns, he may want to check and see if they are real baluns, not just the E-bay type items that have no actual components inside.

[jjandura 0]

Hi, I did start off with cheap ebay baluns which from reading here they are NOT real baluns so I did buy some real Baluns (off ebay) not passthru's like original ones I started with. Which did help on some camera's.

Think tomorrow will run some 22/4 cabling for power only to the camera's and use the cat5 for video only, know this will not help for the ground loop, but till I can afford to update all my camera's it will have to do , so will also order some of the loop isolaters. question do they plug at the dvr end or outside at camera's or does it matter? Just need to get the picture quality up till I have the money to replace all the camera's , at least I will have the cabling installed for them , thanks John

[hardwired 0]

I'd start with using individual power adapters for each camera, as Soundy mentioned earlier. This could reduce the ground loop problem at a lower cost than using ground loop isolators.