walking into a weird bar setup--wires in 2 offices

[DKtucson 0]

Hey Folks,

So here's the story.. A guy needs his installed system looked at.Owns a bar and the tenants went belly up and took the DVR's/monitoring stations out. Transformers on the wall pumping out 24VAC to box cameras at various points. LED on cam is a go..but no signal. There are 16 coax wires in one office and 16 in another

There has to be a multiplexer or at the very least an area where there are Coax splitters to send the images to both offices from the cameras.

The cams are samsung SDC-311NA . Got the manual--tried various dipswitch settings and cabled right to the DVR bypassing the house wiring and we get what I would call "blue oatmeal" --so we do get signal but no real video output..maker's date on the cams is 2003 and I fiddled with manual iris open/close. The cams are NTSC as is the capture card in the PC used

 

If I hook up my camera to the same cable we made then it works fine

If I use his house cabling and a known good power supply my camera does NOT work

 

My best guess is that there has to be a juncture/splitter somewhere and it's just a matter of finding where... And his cameras seem to be toast...Am I right or am I high...?

[AndyA 0]

Hey Folks,

So here's the story.. A guy needs his installed system looked at.Owns a bar and the tenants went belly up and took the DVR's/monitoring stations out. Transformers on the wall pumping out 24VAC to box cameras at various points. LED on cam is a go..but no signal. There are 16 coax wires in one office and 16 in another

There has to be a multiplexer or at the very least an area where there are Coax splitters to send the images to both offices from the cameras.

The cams are samsung SDC-311NA . Got the manual--tried various dipswitch settings and cabled right to the DVR bypassing the house wiring and we get what I would call "blue oatmeal" --so we do get signal but no real video output..maker's date on the cams is 2003 and I fiddled with manual iris open/close. The cams are NTSC as is the capture card in the PC used

 

If I hook up my camera to the same cable we made then it works fine

If I use his house cabling and a known good power supply my camera does NOT work

 

My best guess is that there has to be a juncture/splitter somewhere and it's just a matter of finding where... And his cameras seem to be toast...Am I right or am I high...?

 

 

I would start by go to camera trace the bnc off camera back to wear they meet or problay where old dvr was

 

 

what is on back camera they cound be baulns bnc to cat 5

 

that of course would need cat 5 back to bnc at other end

[DKtucson 0]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the response. The cameras are all supplied with RG59 Siamese wire--coax with a tandem run of 18/2 for power. There were a lot of big screen displays (sports bar/dance videos) and those have cat5 to supply them , which are also kinda fubar'd (they cut the ends to be maliscious is my guess).

The layout , if you can picture it , is a large single story rectangular building and the 2 offices are kitty-corner from each other. Following the gang of wires from the one office they go out the wall, up a large pipe to the roofline. Then along the roofline they re-enter the building and run along the back of the bandstand and are visible bundled together. They pass through a wall above a drop-ceiling in a small storage room and then route down to the other termination point in the other office next to the small storage room. It would make sense that the T-connection/splitter would be in the vicinity of the drop-ceiling in the small storage room--this is where we see a cluster of cams ( Stotrage room, office, lobby , bar 1 bar2 , front steps, dj booth) So it would be a relatively short run for the majority of cams.

The client is out $$ due to the vacancy and is fighting the apparent fact that the cameras tested so far are toast. We verified the 24VAC coming from the power dist box. We ran a short length of 18/2 to the nearby desk and also have a short length of test coax with BNC at both ends and 2 cams tested the same--dark blue muddy grain blobs is all we see. He's looking at it as "How can they all be bad at once?" and not accounting for the fact that they may have been failing one by one over the years--plus we had not taken ALL of them down yet and tested as such.. some may very well still work on the short cable. I'm feeling that this is a 2-pronged problem--a cabling issue and a cam issue as well and BOTH need to be addressed.

[AndyA 0]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the response. The cameras are all supplied with RG59 Siamese wire--coax with a tandem run of 18/2 for power. There were a lot of big screen displays (sports bar/dance videos) and those have cat5 to supply them , which are also kinda fubar'd (they cut the ends to be maliscious is my guess).

The layout , if you can picture it , is a large single story rectangular building and the 2 offices are kitty-corner from each other. Following the gang of wires from the one office they go out the wall, up a large pipe to the roofline. Then along the roofline they re-enter the building and run along the back of the bandstand and are visible bundled together. They pass through a wall above a drop-ceiling in a small storage room and then route down to the other termination point in the other office next to the small storage room. It would make sense that the T-connection/splitter would be in the vicinity of the drop-ceiling in the small storage room--this is where we see a cluster of cams ( Stotrage room, office, lobby , bar 1 bar2 , front steps, dj booth) So it would be a relatively short run for the majority of cams.

The client is out $$ due to the vacancy and is fighting the apparent fact that the cameras tested so far are toast. We verified the 24VAC coming from the power dist box. We ran a short length of 18/2 to the nearby desk and also have a short length of test coax with BNC at both ends and 2 cams tested the same--dark blue muddy grain blobs is all we see. He's looking at it as "How can they all be bad at once?" and not accounting for the fact that they may have been failing one by one over the years--plus we had not taken ALL of them down yet and tested as such.. some may very well still work on the short cable. I'm feeling that this is a 2-pronged problem--a cabling issue and a cam issue as well and BOTH need to be addressed.

 

 

all you need is chunk of bnc to test the camera and bnc to rca adapter

 

and tv with video input i suggested start they