Bigglesuk 0 Posted July 10, 2013 Hello, in my previous house build I set up a CCTV system with RG59+2 shotgun cables and 4 bullet style camera's with inbuilt IR. Now i had a major pain problem with spiders at my house, they would love the heat or something that the IR produced and be drawn to it. While the spider webs were not an issue during the day, pretty much all night the camera was useless because of spider webs twanging back and forth making the video record and the occational giant white monster crawling across the screen. I've moved house and i'm reinstalling a CCTV system. This time i've got for Solid Copper Cat5e cable, using baluns for now to convert from BNC to Cat5 power/video and back. When i can afford to ugrade to IP camera's it will be a simple process to just swap to the camera's without swapping any cables. My question really is, I'd like to use bullet cameras again, but this time mount an illuminator over the garden that will IR flood it that can be seen by the cameras. I'd like to disable the onboard IR or purchase camera's that dont have IR but have the ability to see it.. if that makes sense. I'd also like to not have the IR flood on all the time, but motion trigger (pretty much the same way as a alarm PIR works). Is what i'm trying to accomplish possible and what would you suggest is the best way for me to achieve my goals? many thanks. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MR2 0 Posted July 10, 2013 Actually Bullwinkle(another forum member) had an idea which might be spot on for what you need... he's just using IR globes in normal floodlight fittings, all you need to do is then have the floodlights motion triggered and you pretty much have your solution, must admit I quite like your solution Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bigglesuk 0 Posted July 12, 2013 Ive been looking around at cameras and you can get ones with a seperate IR array. I wonder if this type would solve spider issue as the IR wouldnt be in a ring around the lens... Any thoughts anyone? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MR2 0 Posted July 12, 2013 as long as separate means over a foot away (I'd go with over a metre) , ideally a few IR's placed in various distances would be good (think of how football fields or rooms are illuminated with the light spacing) that should be fine... the thing with inbuilt IR though is that generally it's only good for quite small spaces, so as soon as you start doing pretty long distances the inbuilt stuff does very little and your might as well just throw IR globes in existing sockets anyway Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shockwave199 0 Posted July 12, 2013 Ive been looking around at cameras and you can get ones with a seperate IR array. I wonder if this type would solve spider issue as the IR wouldnt be in a ring around the lens... Any thoughts anyone? They won't solve the problem I don't believe. They are still much too close to the lens itself. Other than ptz's where you can get into the menu and turn the IR on and off as needed, I haven't seen fixed cameras that you can do that. You can schedule them so they are in day mode all the time, so the IR remains off. At that point you're looking at a color picture and you need white light illuminating at least the immediate area that is most important to monitor. Anything else lit up, such as sections of street from street lights or other houses with lights will be a bonus in the shot. The problem as I see it could be that even white light near a camera could attract spiders close enough to be an issue too. My spiders are quite smart- they web up around lights because they know that's where the food is from the other flying insects that are attracted to white light too. I also haven't seen IR sensitive cameras, but without IR built in either. So unless there's cameras I don't know about- and would love to- it's a tough issue. And it's probably the single biggest issue I have with investing in mega pixel cameras with built in IR. I don't wish to spend hundreds on an even better image of webs and spiders. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bigglesuk 0 Posted July 12, 2013 Ive been looking around at cameras and you can get ones with a seperate IR array. I wonder if this type would solve spider issue as the IR wouldnt be in a ring around the lens... Any thoughts anyone? They won't solve the problem I don't believe. They are still much too close to the lens itself. Other than ptz's where you can get into the menu and turn the IR on and off as needed, I haven't seen fixed cameras that you can do that. You can schedule them so they are in day mode all the time, so the IR remains off. At that point you're looking at a color picture and you need white light illuminating at least the immediate area that is most important to monitor. Anything else lit up, such as sections of street from street lights or other houses with lights will be a bonus in the shot. The problem as I see it could be that even white light near a camera could attract spiders close enough to be an issue too. My spiders are quite smart- they web up around lights because they know that's where the food is from the other flying insects that are attracted to white light too. I also haven't seen IR sensitive cameras, but without IR built in either. So unless there's cameras I don't know about- and would love to- it's a tough issue. And it's probably the single biggest issue I have with investing in mega pixel cameras with built in IR. I don't wish to spend hundreds on an even better image of webs and spiders. yeah, i think your probably right they would still be too close with those type of array camera. My main idea was that I was thinking of buying a bullet style camera which came with inbuilt ring IR and the sensor. Opening the camera up and then actually just disabling the IR array on it and then hopefully when it gets dark the light sensor believes it has triggered the IR array into coming on, switches the camera to black and white and then hopefully with my IR flood illuminator working (at a good distance away). I was just hoping someone had done something different and knew a camera model this worked on. otherwise im going to have to start buying and ripping some cheap camera's appart to test my idea. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MR2 0 Posted July 16, 2013 Ive been looking around at cameras and you can get ones with a seperate IR array. I wonder if this type would solve spider issue as the IR wouldnt be in a ring around the lens... Any thoughts anyone? They won't solve the problem I don't believe. They are still much too close to the lens itself. Other than ptz's where you can get into the menu and turn the IR on and off as needed, I haven't seen fixed cameras that you can do that. You can schedule them so they are in day mode all the time, so the IR remains off. At that point you're looking at a color picture and you need white light illuminating at least the immediate area that is most important to monitor. Anything else lit up, such as sections of street from street lights or other houses with lights will be a bonus in the shot. The problem as I see it could be that even white light near a camera could attract spiders close enough to be an issue too. My spiders are quite smart- they web up around lights because they know that's where the food is from the other flying insects that are attracted to white light too. I also haven't seen IR sensitive cameras, but without IR built in either. So unless there's cameras I don't know about- and would love to- it's a tough issue. And it's probably the single biggest issue I have with investing in mega pixel cameras with built in IR. I don't wish to spend hundreds on an even better image of webs and spiders. yeah, i think your probably right they would still be too close with those type of array camera. My main idea was that I was thinking of buying a bullet style camera which came with inbuilt ring IR and the sensor. Opening the camera up and then actually just disabling the IR array on it and then hopefully when it gets dark the light sensor believes it has triggered the IR array into coming on, switches the camera to black and white and then hopefully with my IR flood illumination working (at a good distance away). I was just hoping someone had done something different and knew a camera model this worked on. otherwise im going to have to start buying and ripping some cheap camera's apart to test my idea. actually this will probably work, in my experience with ripping apart camera's most of them have a daylight sensor that's mounted on the front, this daylight sensor sends a signal that: 1, trips the IR to turn on 2, trips the camera to flip into IR light mode... so in theory all you need to do is disconnect the cables to the IR array and not the daylight sensor and what you suggest will work just fine given enough time I'm about to do the same on some ebay camera's we have Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
