Hi,

Are the cheap IR illuminators on Amazon.com; made by clover, lorex, and others worth anything at all to use orr just a waste of money? $30-$50 range. I don't need long distance only supplimental.

the old saying is you get what you pay for.., also ir is only good on b/w camera's and some high end limited color cams.. if distance is not an issue then cheap may work just learn about nano meters also know the lux ability of your camera's when ordering ir.

NO WAY, waste of money. You wont want to look at those pictures, trust me :D
As long as its not ExtremeCCTV or "Raytec" IR illuminator, its rubbish. I try not to use iR at all, instead normal 500W illuminators. Whats the point of having foggy grey image? Anyway you cant see faces properly.

I have had a few budget installations where cheap IR Cameras did surprisingly well. The demands on them were limited as they just had to provide an image where people could be identified at closer ranges. I don't have any images captured, but found one online showing the type of results I have typically had.



These were with very cheap IR 4-9mm Day / Night Cameras that I picked up for under $90 and can be found from many sources including FLebay. No doubt they fall well short in the eyes of those who have seen high end IR solutions. These customers were amazed at the fact that a decent image could be captured in complete darkness and thought such technology would have cost many times what they paid. I have found that the actual IR illumination is around 1/3 of what they advertise though.

I'm currently experimenting with a handful of different illuminators. I'm spending my own money, and I didn't feel like spending 1K on an extremeCCTV illuminator, so I ordered an array of cheapos from Ebay (Hong Kong specials), and a couple from supercircuits, like this one:



I've got about half of them in my hands so far, and the supercircuits models provide the most even illumination of the lot... they spread about 45 degrees, and provide about 15-20 feet of usable IR (nowhere near the 30 feet advertised... buyer beware). A couple of those scattered along a hallway, alleyway, or the side of a building might do just fine for a short-range application. At $50 each, you could also get a handful of them for a fraction of what an extremeCCTV model would cost, though with admittedly less range. What's nice is that you'd get redundancy, and you're not hosed if an 8-900 dollar illuminator goes tango-uniform on you.

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Update time:

Got a couple of these:



They're roughly the equal of the super-circuits models in terms of illumination, and at the same price point (approx $50 each). The Ebay model linked above (can be found here: http://cgi.ebay.com/Outdoor-Waterproof-IR-Led-Night-Cam-Array-Illuminator_W0QQitemZ230298047206QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item230298047206&_trkparms=72%3A1423%7C39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14 ) has the advantage of allowing you to adjust focus and beam spread... it also looks more waterproof than the super-circuits model. At this point, the Ebay model has the edge.

And then there's this model:



Not nearly as impressive. It's certainly very bright, but only about a 30-degree beam spread (much less spread than advertised). It also has moving parts... an internal fan that audibly whirs when the unit powers up. It also ran for all of an hour before crapping out... literally flickering off-and-on for the rest of the night.

I'd avoid that one.

I also have a couple of these:



They're a bit brighter than the super-circuits model... but with much less beam spread. They're much more of a spot-light than a flood. They also get pretty damned hot when running, and I have doubts about their weather resistance.

So that's what I know so far.

So you want some infrared illuminators to use with your security system? You've probably looked at the dark, grainy images produced by many security cameras at night, and wondered if there was a way to brighten up those images.

First, some background.

As anybody with a video surveillance system knows, most day-night cameras do NOT function in complete darkness. They switch to black-and-white mode when the ambient light drops to a low enough level, but even a low-lux-sensitive camera is blind without some sort of supplemental light. Fortunately, CCDs (the actual "eye" inside many modern security cameras) are sensitive to wavelengths of light that are invisible to the naked eye, specifically the near-infrared band. It's possible to brightly illuminate a scene with infrared light, while having it appear pitch-black to the unaided eye.

Some cameras, including many cheaper bullet-cam varieties, include some form of built-in IR. At first glance, this would seem to kill multiple birds with one stone: camera and supplemental light source in a single package, less wiring, simplified installation, etc. However, there are significant drawbacks to this arrangement.

One notable limitation is that camera-mounted IR sources attract bugs... lot of them. Humans can't see infrared light, but many insects and animals CAN... and they're drawn to that light; the proverbial moth-to-a-flame. This is mostly an annoyance, unless you're using motion-detection with your cameras, DVR, or camera server software. In that scenario, the bugs flying into the lens will continually trigger your motion detection, and fill up your storage media with all sorts of images that you don't want. This greatly increases your signal-to-noise ratio, and may lead you to turn off your motion detection entirely.

Camera-mounted IR also gives away the location of your cameras. The vast majority of IR sources for security cameras are in the 880nm range. These are dimly visible to the naked eye as a dull red glowing light, and they may catch the eye of the very person you're attempting to discretely observe. There are IR sources that are truly covert/invisible to the naked eye, however these run in the 940nm range, and are significantly more expensive. It's also more difficult to find security cameras with good spectral response to the 940nm wavelengths, meaning that your regular CCD cameras may not benefit from the expensive 940nm illuminator you just purchased.

Many dome cameras also have built-in IR, some of which can be reflected back within the dome, interfering with the functioning of the camera. In addition, the polycarbonate domes that are frequently used on vandal-resistant cameras cut down on the transmission of the IR light, robbing your camera of yet more performance.

Fortunately, it doesn't have to be that way. This is where IR illuminators come in.

Illuminators run the gamut in terms of price, features, durability, water-resistance, etc. Even with all their differences, most modern illuminators have similarities in that they are LED-based, and run on DC current (requires a power supply).

I was surfing Ebay one day, and my curiosity got the better of me. They have a number of LED IR illuminators for sale there, and I wondered if any of them were a bargain (you can easily spend $1000+ on a high-end illuminator!) I ordered a handful of them, along with a couple from US-based super-circuits, to see how well they would work.

First two:

Link to supercircuits (model on left)
Link to Ebay (model on right)


Second two:


Link to Ebay (model on left)
Link to Ebay (model on right)


Last one:

Link to RayLED (british company)

Here is the scene where these lights will be tested. This is a daytime view, through a 420TVL day-night armored dome camera. This particular camera has built-in IR that is advertised to go 100 feet. However, as you're going to see with the camera and most of these IR sources, their "estimates" of range are wildly optimistic. You can pretty much cut the advertised range in half right off the top. The distance to the corner you can see in the picture is about 40 feet, and the illuminators will be tested by being mounted about 20 feet away, just off-camera along the right-hand wall, roughly focused on the same spot perpendicular to the camera's view. If that doesn't make sense, it will as soon as you see the pictures

Daytime view:


Night time view (with only the built-in camera IR operating). Ignore the IR light you can see coming from around the corner... that's another IR source and another camera. We're mostly concerned with the area between this camera, and the corner:





First, the super-circuits model. As you can see, it throws a dim pool of IR light, with a fair amount of dispersion. In contrast to what you're going to see from some of the other illuminators, it's more of a flood light than a spot-light. You can barely see me standing at the edge of the illuminated area. I will be standing in exactly the same spot for all of these pictures.




Second, we see the round, puck-like, 40-LED Ebay model. Compared to the super-circuits model, it's brighter, and the beam is tighter. It also gets quite a bit hotter when operating.



Third, we hook up the square floodlight-appearing Ebay model with 140 LEDs. This one's the brightest of the lot so far (as you might expect with the higher number of LEDs). It also has a cooling fan inside that whirs audibly when powered up. However, there is no visible vent area for the hot air to escape the case, leading me to doubt the effectiveness of the cooling fan. The included power supply also died within an hour of being hooked up.



Fourth, we connect the tubular round-lensed model. This one seems to be a much higher-quality unit, and also gives one the ability to focus the IR beam by adjustments to the lens. It provides very even illumination, without hot-spots, though it's a little dim compared to some of the other lights.



Last, we hooked up the RayMax50. This industrial-strength thing puts out some serious IR light, and adjusts from a 120 degree beam angle to 180 degrees (you're seeing the 120-degree setting in this picture). The angle adjustment allows one to illuminate the entire side of a structure with a single device, if desired. This all comes at a steep price, of course; almost ten times the cost of some of the other units:



I can't say anything about long-term reliability with any of these units, but they all do seem to work as advertised, with the aforementioned caveat about the limitations of their stated range. Even the RayMax doesn't seem to reach out quite as far as company literature claims.

I should point out that ANY of these illuminators would be sufficient for a person wearing a proper set of NODs. I tested all of these illuminators with gen2 and gen3 NVGs and found that even the cheapest illuminator (or simply the camera's built-in IR) literally turned night into day. It may be hard to appreciate in these pictures, but the entire area we're viewing is pitch-dark to the naked eye... positively stygian... but wire up a couple of these illuminators and don a set of NVGs, and it literally turns it into daylight with even second-gen goggles.

Hope this information helps somebody.


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Second set of pictures, taken with the same illuminators, in the same order, only these are from a WDR panasonic dome.