Newbe here in need of advice.

I have a shop and house in the woods, and therefore everything is spread out. I have motion detectors that do a great job, but can't distinguish between deer, coyote, dogs, people or cars. The dog goes off with the alarm, but that still doesn't let me know if I need to bolo for a thief and I really am getting tired of walking the 250 yards or so to not find anything. I am going to install a video system, but it needs to be solar powered and wireless as the distance and terrain dictate it. I just need something I can recall on the monitor to see if I should be alarmed or not. It doesn't have to be great, just day/night capable and good enough to read license tags at 30-50 feet. I should be in line of sight as I am now with the motion detector at 300 yards. Thanks in advance for your ideas for this solution.

hehe!good!

hehe!good!

Hehe! good!!!! WTF???? Are you a moron or what? I just asked for some advice from someone with more knowledge than me. If you have it, please share it. If not allow someone that has it to do so.

hehe!good!

That's a retarded reply...

Sorry dude, I don't have any info but I just wanted to chime in

hehe!good!

 

That's a retarded reply...

" title="Applause" /> I second that.

As for your question. You should seriously try to run a wire or two because though solar powered wireless camera kits are available they are seriously expensive and hardly a DIY Project. I would suggest trying to find a wire route, even if you have to dangle them through the trees. It sucks and looks like crap but if it's your property and you're willing to do the work yourself you'll save thousands of dollars.

If you really can't get wires out there, call a professional CCTV company that can quote a custom solution for you... Oh and the license plate thing will require a significant amount of work to achieve reliably. Again something you'll need a pro to come on-site and calculate.

hehe!good!

 

That's a retarded reply...

 

" title="Applause" /> I second that.

 

As for your question. You should seriously try to run a wire or two because though solar powered wireless camera kits are available they are seriously expensive and hardly a DIY Project. I would suggest trying to find a wire route, even if you have to dangle them through the trees. It sucks and looks like crap but if it's your property and you're willing to do the work yourself you'll save thousands of dollars.

 

If you really can't get wires out there, call a professional CCTV company that can quote a custom solution for you... Oh and the license plate thing will require a significant amount of work to achieve reliably. Again something you'll need a pro to come on-site and calculate.

Thank you for the reply. To run wires through trees wouldn't be a problem. The problem is about 3 acres of open field with a high iron/mineral content which draws lightning and would be very difficult to dig a trench as the phone co found out. To go around the edge would require over 1500 feet, probably closer to 2500 feet of wire, and would still be a lightning rod as the phone wire is now. The camera may be a target no matter what, but I'll have to start with a fiberglass pole and see what happens. I'll have to build this system over time as I know the expense is going to be more than I can stand at once. I would like to start with a 4 camera system and 1 camera.

If you or anyone else has any suggestions as to equipment it would be appreciated.

I know that a camera can send image or video alert to your phone if detects. Maybe it is helpful

You're probably talking at least $2000 for a solar panel/battery/charger system that will continuously and reliably power a basic 4-camera DVR system. I looked up the specs on one of the forum sponsor's Economy DVRs. It runs off 12V and uses 3.3A. Add .75A for each camera plus some fudge and you're at 8A for a 4-camera system. That's roughly 100Watts. Times 24hours a day equals 2400Watt-Hours. Solar panels will maybe give you 8 hours a day of output so you need to get 2400Watts in 8 hours. That requires a 300W panel which is about $450. But, you never get 100% of the rated output so double it for $900. Add 24 hours (200Ah) worth of deep-discharge gel batteries for $500, charge controller $150, cables, mounting hardware, etc. and you're at about $2000 + labor.

This may look like overkill, but if you have a couple cloudy days you want enough reserve power to keep the system running and then quickly recharge to 100% once the sun returns. A couple hundred $$ system built from a low-wattage solar panel, marine battery, and trickle charger will be dead in a day.

Someone else can chime in on wirelessly broadcasting 4-channels of video 1000'...

You might be able to cut the power needs and power system cost in half if you can find stand-alone cameras that can broadcast 1000' to a DVR in your house.

You're probably talking at least $2000 for a solar panel/battery/charger system that will continuously and reliably power a basic 4-camera DVR system. I looked up the specs on one of the forum sponsor's Economy DVRs. It runs off 12V and uses 3.3A. Add .75A for each camera plus some fudge and you're at 8A for a 4-camera system. That's roughly 100Watts. Times 24hours a day equals 2400Watt-Hours. Solar panels will maybe give you 8 hours a day of output so you need to get 2400Watts in 8 hours. That requires a 300W panel which is about $450. But, you never get 100% of the rated output so double it for $900. Add 24 hours (200Ah) worth of deep-discharge gel batteries for $500, charge controller $150, cables, mounting hardware, etc. and you're at about $2000 + labor.

 

This may look like overkill, but if you have a couple cloudy days you want enough reserve power to keep the system running and then quickly recharge to 100% once the sun returns. A couple hundred $$ system built from a low-wattage solar panel, marine battery, and trickle charger will be dead in a day.

 

Someone else can chime in on wirelessly broadcasting 4-channels of video 1000'...

 

You might be able to cut the power needs and power system cost in half if you can find stand-alone cameras that can broadcast 1000' to a DVR in your house.

Don't forget to deduct 25% from all of your available Ah as the DC to AC power converter will lose that much power during the conversion. Unless you can wire everything directly to the battery, but I don't recommend that.

Nice work ronp.

To stream the video back wirelessly I would recommend using any solution from http://www.kbcnetworks.com Their products are solid, especially for low bandwidth applications. They're also probably the most cost effective I can recommend that aren't going to fail every couple of days. Two other good brands for wireless are http://www.fluidmesh.com/ and http://firetide.com/ but those two brands will cost you a few thousand bucks while you can probably do it using one of KBC's WES II products for less than $2000 plus labor.

Don't forget line of site is very important if you want to have a reliable wireless signal over long distances, so hopefully that's something you can get. As you will see there are mesh units that don't require a clear line of site but they can be unreliable and I wouldn't want to spend a thousand bucks on something that 'might' work.

Lastly, you will need to encode the video signals to send them back to your home wirelessly via the KBC products. Obviously if you put a DVR in the field it will encode those signals for you. However, if you want to save on power you could use a four channel encoder in the field and install a NVR at your home to record the digital video signals.

If you send KBC a satellite shot of your property it's quite likely one of their engineers will be willing to spec out a solution for you. Fluidmesh has always spec'd out systems for me in the past so I can't see why KBC wouldn't do the same.

So...$2000 for a solar power system and $2000 for a wireless transmission system added to the $500 or so for a 4-channel DVR and cameras. A contractor with a ditchwich and 1000' of burial-grade Cat-6 and/or 1000' of RG6 and 1000' of 12/2 UF might be looking pretty good!

You don't say if the 3-acre field is used or mowed. If not, and digging is as tough as you say, I'd suggest 1000' of 1" gray PVC conduit (.27/ft at HD) and lay it directly on the ground. Ground both ends of each cable with lightning arrestors and you're good - unless you get a direct hit.

Thank you all for the replies. ronp, the field is mowed and cars and trucks run over it getting to my shop, so over ground is not a good idea. The ground is so difficult to dig in, the power to my shop is not completely covered up. It's just ran in a place with little traffic, and I sweat bullets every time I mow. The phone is a satellite from the house. It works as long as I don't shut the shop door.

One side of the field (landlocked side) is easily penetrated, but the side I need to monitor is really a pain. The camera needs to be roughly 100 yds from the shop and 300 yds from the house to monitor the alarm and give enough time to respond. I have several muscle cars that I'm in process of restoring, or that are waiting to be restored, so I don't want to wait until someone is picking over the cars to find out they are there. I could just put a camera on the shop if they were closer, but that wouldn't give enough response time if I'm asleep. Out here, the police are just for cleaning up the mess and taking reports. Unless one is just riding by, they are at least 18 minutes away, in reality, closer to 30. That's in an emergency, not a robbery, so until I get a camera up, the dog, AK, and me will just keep walking when the alarm sounds. If the economy was better and I could get a better price for the finished cars, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

the power to my shop is not completely covered up. It's just ran in a place with little traffic, and I sweat bullets every time I mow.

Wait. What? You said in your OP that the camera system needed to be solar powered. If you have power to your shop and it's on the same transformer or breaker box as your house then you've opened up many more (less expensive) possible solutions for the camera/DVR and for getting the video signal back to your house. Do an internet search for "Network Powerline Products".

Have you looked at the "vehicle detectors" that are available? For example, Dakota Alerts has several models. This one transmits the alarm signal up to 1/2 mile (http://www.dakotaalert.com/catb2b1/product_info.php?cPath=51&products_id=133). I have one attached to the alarm input of my camera's DVR so it starts recording all cameras when a car enters our dead-end street - long before any of them would have detected motion and started recording. Yes, someone could walk in but 1)they can only steal what they can carry and 2)if they previously walked in and scoped out what you have, they'll be back with their car or truck to load up.

I have a large "This Area Under Video Surveillance" sign, too. I have video of people approaching the sign, reading it, looking around for the cameras, then turning and leaving.

And, inside the cabin, why not install a simple alarm triggered with a motion sensor connected to a painful, ear bleeding, 140dB siren (see http://www.cabinalarm.com)...unless of course you want to, personally, catch them in the act...

I still think the camera needs to be powered separately as the placement needed for alert time is (I measured today) 150 yds from the shop. It is across the field from the shop and house. However, running info to the house from the shop is possible I guess via the means you suggested. I'll look into it most definitely. The house and shop are on the same meter, but different breaker boxes. My driveway is 1/2 mile long and is shared for the first 1/8 mile. There is another house about an 1/8 mile from me but it's empty. So, anyone here is lost, up to no good, or has called ahead of time. I have a motion detector on the drive now that I want to monitor with the camera as it would save sleep and steps in general. I know deer can set it off, I'm not sure about coyotes. It depends on their height.

Catching them is mandatory as there is no one around to hear an alarm but me and the mutt. He's legendary to the crackheads and tweekers around here as he has bitten several. They still try him when they get desperate. So far, he's won.

I really like the car alarm. That's going to be a definite, Thanks!!

I looked at the car alarm and it seems like a helluvan idea.

How does it work? Magnetic sensor or something?

By the way, awesome responses (other than the first doo doo head)

George

The car detector works magnetically. You bury a "wand" (looks like a 16" piece of pipe) next to the driveway and it detects large metal objects moving by. You can adjust the sensitivity from 3' to 12' radius. My only complaint is that mine goes off due to nearby lightning - it doubles as a storm detector. I could probably fix that by burying the wand in the center of the drive rather than next to it and reducing the sensitivity but I'm too lazy.

There are several other brands of car detectors but this one has better transmission range (1/2 mile) and it has relay outputs that you can connect to your CCTV DVR's alarm inputs. The combo makes a great license plate camera setup. Lots of online retailers sell them for much less than the retail price.

For renegadebuck if he has line of sight from his shop to the driveway entrance he could skip all the solar powered camera issues and instead put a long-range camera on the shop pointing down the driveway and have the DVR triggered to record that camera when the car detector goes off.

Ron

Sounds like an idea to me

Ok, so I'm a little dense. Explain why moving the rod would keep lightning from setting it off?

George

If the rod is buried on the edge of the driveway I need to have the sensitivity turned up to maximum, a 12' radius detection zone, so it will detect cars on the other/far side of the driveway. But, with the sensitivity turned way up the rod also tends to detect lightning because the bolts emit lots of electromagnetic and electrostatic energy. If I move the rod to the center of the driveway then I can turn down the sensitivity to the minium 3' radius since cars will then mostly go right over top of it no matter which side they drive on. With the sensitivy turned down it no longer detects the lightning.

Ron

Gotcha!

 

For renegadebuck if he has line of sight from his shop to the driveway entrance he could skip all the solar powered camera issues and instead put a long-range camera on the shop pointing down the driveway and have the DVR triggered to record that camera when the car detector goes off.

 

Ron

I don't have line of sight from the shop, but I do from the house (not of the entrance, but to part of the driveway) Is there a camera that would be reasonably priced that would have a 300 yd range?

300 yards is not much at all but that depends on what kind of detail you want. Mainly you want to know if it's a person/car or a deer setting off your alarm, right?

Unless you clearly want to identify WHO is coming (and if it's an intruder, at least initially you really don't care), then a good camera with a good 50mm or higher lens and I'm guessing 600 lines of resolution should be enough but I'm sure the other guys here that actually KNOW this stuff will chime in and tell you if I'm wrong.

I think there are also surveillance cameras with interchangeable lenses which definitely would fix that distance problem.

Oops! I left out "at night" on the last post. I know there's no problem during the day. It's at 3:30 in the morning like this morning when the alarm went off 3 times in 2 hours that I want to know.

Hypothetical here...Why do you need a camera down at the "end" of the driveway so far from your house or shop? If you had a camera out that far and someone walked or drove in at 3am setting off your motion detector, by the time you heard it, woke up, got out of bed, walked over to your monitor, pulled up the video feed, rubbed your eyes, and looked it over, they'd already be at your shop, or at least approaching it. They wouldn't any longer be in the field of view of the camera at the end of the street. (Now, if you had a 24x7 security guard continuously watching the monitors, that's different.)

I'd suggest skipping the camera at the end of the driveway and instead put a couple cameras around the shop pointing out to points of entry, one of them could be a high-quality long-range IR camera pointing down the driveway, and maybe put a camera inside. Use a power-line wifi network to get the DVR signal back to the house. Hook up your motion and/or car detector to the alarm inputs of the DVR to start recording all channels for several minutes. When your bell goes off, you can pull up a DVR feed of video from all around your shop and see who's visiting...

Just my two cents...

Hypothetical here...Why do you need a camera down at the "end" of the driveway so far from your house or shop? If you had a camera out that far and someone walked or drove in at 3am setting off your motion detector, by the time you heard it, woke up, got out of bed, walked over to your monitor, pulled up the video feed, rubbed your eyes, and looked it over, they'd already be at your shop, or at least approaching it. They wouldn't any longer be in the field of view of the camera at the end of the street. (Now, if you had a 24x7 security guard continuously watching the monitors, that's different.)

 

I'd suggest skipping the camera at the end of the driveway and instead put a couple cameras around the shop pointing out to points of entry, one of them could be a high-quality long-range IR camera pointing down the driveway, and maybe put a camera inside. Use a power-line wifi network to get the DVR signal back to the house. Hook up your motion and/or car detector to the alarm inputs of the DVR to start recording all channels for several minutes. When your bell goes off, you can pull up a DVR feed of video from all around your shop and see who's visiting...

 

Just my two cents...

The camera wouldn't be at the end, no where near really. It's 300 yds from the house where the motion detector is, and car alarm will be. When the alarm goes off, I let the dog out, glance for headlights, and then would sit at the monitor and call up what set it off. If I see headlights, I'm out the door with the dog. I'm going to take your advice(after all, that is why I asked for it), and put cameras on the shop incorporating the power line wifi if possible.

The idea of a camera where the alarm is, is the same as the alarm. I want to know somethings coming before its here. One of my neighbors (about 4 miles away, but that's local) was invaded by desperate druggies with a sawed off shotgun and pistols not long ago. He knew they were there just before they were in. When in a defensive situation, distance is your friend. I don't ever expect or want to be in that position, if I'm prepared, I won't. After all, I was a Boy Scout.

Thank you very much!