Issues with baluns

[jayzy1 0]

is it possible and more importantly would there be interference from the power, if i connected up 2 cameras using 2 pairs of the cat5e cable for the video and use the other 2 pairs for power for each of the cameras?

Also is there any benefit in using cat6 as the price diff is not that huge?

thanks

[prinler 0]

I just happened to have a box of cat6, i see no difference at all. I have used the cheapest cat5 i could get and it all works good.

 

 

 

NO issues

[the toss 0]

There will be if you don't house those connections. A bit of rain with a bit of wind and they will get wet.

[prinler 0]

I just installed it and they go in a box. Thanks for pointing out the obvious tho.

[Numb-nuts 1]

Never used those particular baluns... are you sure your RJ-45 terminations are assembled properly and crimped solidly? Are you using proper T-568A or B layout in them?

 

I'm usually using this type:

 

 

This is why I use siamese cable, not cat5 with baluns.

Because you don't know how to crimp RJ-45s?

 

I think that's a good enough reason. However, if you persevere to teach yourself to crimp RJ45s, it will increase your options when using single line baluns and 4, 8, 16 way passive and active units.

 

I like to have typically an 8 way balun with two cat5's leaving the location where the balun receiver is located, connected with RJ45s for convenience and intergrity, together with a third cat5 cable split at either end into solid colours and white with stripe colour, to carry the power either 24VAC or 12VDC. These go to a distribution box where the signal cables are split into their twisted pairs and the power line is distributed with DC connectors eight ways.

 

The signal cable then splits

orange pair, channel 1 or 5

green pair channel 2 or 6

blue pair channel 3 or 7

brown pair channel 4 or 8

the striped conductor in all cases is +ve and the solid colour is -ve

 

Ensure to keep the join in the signal pairs as close to the twist as possible as this maintains the balance, and do not be tempted to wipe away the gel that coves from the splice, just leave it alone. These splices are perfect for Cat5 as they were developed by British telecom for use on telephone junction boxes where they are exposed to and resist horrendous conditions. They just work!

 

The cables coming from the cameras

In each cat5 distributed to a camera, I use the blue pair for video, then split the remaining 3 pairs into solid and striped and twist these together to carry the power to the camera, leaving the blue pair to the signal. so now all the blue pairs are connected to the signal cable, solid to solid stripe to stripe

blue pair to orange pair, = camera 1 or 5

blue pair to green pair = camera 2 or 6

blue pair to blue pair = camera 3 or 7

Blue pair to brown pair = camera 4 or 8

 

Of-course, you can connect to the 4 or 8 way balun receiver stripping and individually screwing down on the conductors but an RJ45 has far better integrity and rarely fails. RJ45s take a little time to master, I myself thought I'd never crack them but with practice you WILL master them. Choose your Cat5 stripping tool and RJ45 crimping tool carefully and you will never look back.

 

connecting the pairs is made with jelly splices which are designed for solid conductors, and give a "gas tight" connection and are virtually 100% reliable. I use a small pair of slip joint water-pump pliers to close these splices. The jaws have a parallel action. You wouldn't catch me paying a ridiculous price for a crimp tool to close these splices, my method works perfectly every time. I never lose a single splice.

 

[CCTV_Badger 0]

Wow, a good healthy debate!

 

Just to add another opinion into the mix...

 

Like others have said, I'd keep well away from screw terminal baluns, the cores of CAT5 were never designed to be stripped, never mind wrapped around a screw terminal - Unless the balun is wrapped up in cotton wool and not even looked at by human eyes, the cores will almost inevitable snap.

 

RG59 has its uses, great for short runs, if you NEVER want to upgrade the system to IP - And you don't mind signal loss or interference over longer distances.

 

CAT5 (With a semi-decent balun) can transmit your video, power and audio up to about 100m or so, or with some JB's you can squirt two video signals down a single CAT5.. OR if you power the camera locally and use a four channel balun, you can have four cameras down one CAT5! I've done enough installs to know that pulling a single CAT5 through a loft is a sure sight easier than 4 coaxes.

 

But back to the guys problem, given that you're familiar with crimping RJ45 ends, and you're happy there no issue with your crimping tool (You can get dirt or gunk trapped between the teeth, or even rust... ) then the problem can only lie in a few places;

 

Dodgy balun - From my experience, you can get slightly dodgy batches of them, but I wouldn't expect that high of a failure rate, unless you are really unlucky.

 

Other place could be the CAT5 you are using, is it true CAT5? I.e solid copper? Or is it copper coated aluminium? The latter can be a little more brittle than solid copper, or you may just have a bad drum/box of cable? The way to prove it out would be to use a pre-made rj45 patch lead known to be working over a short run on the bench.

[shankarsha 0]

Being using baluns for sometime, I've learned that never use common power supply. which saves hours of time.

[ljarrald 0]

i use these (but not from ebay) and they work great!

 

best thing is no screw terminals to faff with!

[SectorSecurity 0]

Push terminal baluns do save time, but I have never had a problem with the screw down ones, what I usually do is put a twist on my wires before they enter the balun, never had a problem with this.

 

I have seen both crimp connections fall off and baluns fall off, I believe there is a time and a place to use both.

 

I believe both are the same, you get what you pay for, buy cheap compression connectors or baluns and you will have problem, buy good, quality connectors and install them properly and either the balun or compression will withstand the test of time.

[Numb-nuts 1]

Wow, a good healthy debate!

 

Just to add another opinion into the mix...

 

Like others have said, I'd keep well away from screw terminal baluns, the cores of CAT5 were never designed to be stripped, never mind wrapped around a screw terminal - Unless the balun is wrapped up in cotton wool and not even looked at by human eyes, the cores will almost inevitable snap.

 

Other place could be the CAT5 you are using, is it true CAT5? I.e solid copper? Or is it copper coated aluminium? The latter can be a little more brittle than solid copper, or you may just have a bad drum/box of cable? The way to prove it out would be to use a pre-made rj45 patch lead known to be working over a short run on the bench.

 

CCA or even worse CCS? Please refrain from using such profanities on this forum.

 

As you say and as I have said a million times, cat 5 was never designed to work with screw down terminals and even id you do double it up and get a good connection, there is always the RISK that the conductor will fracture if moved, therefor I strip the conductor VERY carefully and crimp an insulated wire end ferrule. This takes the strain from the single copper conductor and reduces significantly the chance of the cable fracturing. Using jelly splices is very suitable as these are what UTP was designed for a gas tight IDC connection. No stripping involved.

[johnnysivilian 0]

Have any of you guys used the new ethernet over coax or PoE over coax products?

 

An example at

http://www.nvt.com/content.php?type=template&key=productfamily&ckey=eoc

 

My boss mostly uses cat5 with baluns now so we can upgrade to ip if/when.

 

Sometimes the baluns are grainy. Sometimes when you wiggle bncs you get lines or distortion.

 

My only preference is with cat5 being lighter on long multiple wire pulls. We do jobs for another company sometimes and they only use siamese. Boy have my biceps gotten a work out on those jobs. Got two tickets to the gun show.

[Numb-nuts 1]

i use these (but not from ebay) and they work great!

 

best thing is no screw terminals to faff with!

the ferruls work even better with that type of push fit terminal and so quick

[SectorSecurity 0]

Wow, a good healthy debate!

 

Just to add another opinion into the mix...

 

Like others have said, I'd keep well away from screw terminal baluns, the cores of CAT5 were never designed to be stripped, never mind wrapped around a screw terminal - Unless the balun is wrapped up in cotton wool and not even looked at by human eyes, the cores will almost inevitable snap.

 

RG59 has its uses, great for short runs, if you NEVER want to upgrade the system to IP - And you don't mind signal loss or interference over longer distances.

 

CAT5 (With a semi-decent balun) can transmit your video, power and audio up to about 100m or so, or with some JB's you can squirt two video signals down a single CAT5.. OR if you power the camera locally and use a four channel balun, you can have four cameras down one CAT5! I've done enough installs to know that pulling a single CAT5 through a loft is a sure sight easier than 4 coaxes.

 

But back to the guys problem, given that you're familiar with crimping RJ45 ends, and you're happy there no issue with your crimping tool (You can get dirt or gunk trapped between the teeth, or even rust... ) then the problem can only lie in a few places;

 

Dodgy balun - From my experience, you can get slightly dodgy batches of them, but I wouldn't expect that high of a failure rate, unless you are really unlucky.

 

Other place could be the CAT5 you are using, is it true CAT5? I.e solid copper? Or is it copper coated aluminium? The latter can be a little more brittle than solid copper, or you may just have a bad drum/box of cable? The way to prove it out would be to use a pre-made rj45 patch lead known to be working over a short run on the bench.

 

 

Never say never, there are a whole line of products designed to let you run multiple IP cameras over a single coax cable, just think of how many TV channels come into your house on a single coax cable.

 

Numb-Nuts - Going to take your advise and bite the bullet and get the wire Ferrules you speak of, was thinking of a starter kit, but thinking I use mostly 22 24 and 26 AWG, so I may just get the crimp tool and the matching ferrules for the gauges I use.

 

I use baluns all the time so I am anxious to see if they help, tire of the wire not seating right in the balun.

[OmniEye 0]

i usually used the RG6 coaxial cable and i never been used yet the cat5/cat6 UTP as they said. now my question is, what is the difference between this two wiring cables. where is the effective one. lately i'd used the RG6 coaxial cable for almost 180 meters away from the DVR and i saw the result is not stable what i mean i saw the lines and a slow motion moving i don't know how can i address it. but anyway what do you think guys the right cable that i am going to use with this kind of cases. the camera i'd use like a CCD is useless coz even at night the viewing are not that clear. can you give me any recommendation or suggestion for this. thanks a lot.

[the toss 0]

i usually used the RG6 coaxial cable and i never been used yet the cat5/cat6 UTP as they said. now my question is, what is the difference between this two wiring cables. where is the effective one. lately i'd used the RG6 coaxial cable for almost 180 meters away from the DVR and i saw the result is not stable what i mean i saw the lines and a slow motion moving i don't know how can i address it. but anyway what do you think guys the right cable that i am going to use with this kind of cases. the camera i'd use like a CCD is useless coz even at night the viewing are not that clear. can you give me any recommendation or suggestion for this. thanks a lot.

 

 

I wish people would have an understanding of what they are doing. RG6 is designed for RF frequencies and as such it's shielding is not particularly effective below about 50Mhz. What you are experiencing is LF noise. The only advantage of RG6 in CCTV is lts lower DC resistance which can result in longer runs IF it is a low noise environment.

[Kawboy12R 0]

Axis P1214. 720P pinhole cam with edge storage. One piece solution because it can store the footage on a card in the camera. If you desire off-camera storage, hook up the cable and record to a local computer or NVR.

[OmniEye 0]

hi to everyone. almost 6 years we discussed this issues about the right cables that can be used in the cctv camera. i had a bad experienced lately that one of our set-up using the RG6 cable cant see the by passers in our area. and at night the infrared are good and the power connection is individual but the viewing are too messy what i mean its a blurt. the camera is a CCD and not a CMOS type with a 420TVL. is this a problem with the cable that i used RG6 or what. what is the best so far cables that i am going to use. how about using UTP Cat5?please help me. thanks

[SectorSecurity 0]

hi to everyone. almost 6 years we discussed this issues about the right cables that can be used in the cctv camera. i had a bad experienced lately that one of our set-up using the RG6 cable cant see the by passers in our area. and at night the infrared are good and the power connection is individual but the viewing are too messy what i mean its a blurt. the camera is a CCD and not a CMOS type with a 420TVL. is this a problem with the cable that i used RG6 or what. what is the best so far cables that i am going to use. how about using UTP Cat5?please help me. thanks

 

 

This sounds like just a cheap camera, and probably some interference and possibly some bad connections, switching to CAT5 will not make a difference if the camera is no good.

 

Next time please start your own topic as we are discussing Balun issues, not issues with your setup.