Recently installed 4 IR cameras at a park playground, the township had trenched and installed CAT 5 cable to the camera locations. Cameras are fine in daylight but do not work at night; contacted the dealer and they say that in order for the IR to function (80 IR LEDs, 12V DC 500 ma) a minimum of 18 ga wire needs to be used. Re-running the cable would be extremely difficult so I'm looking for options, would swapping out the cameras to low lux be a solution? If so what would be a good camera to use? Camears are about 30' from the playground. Thanks as always.
Tom

[quote="tosul"]Recently installed 4 IR cameras at a park playground, the township had trenched and installed CAT 5 cable to the camera locations. Cameras are fine in daylight but do not work at night; contacted the dealer and they say that in order for the IR to function (80 IR LEDs, 12V DC 500 ma) a minimum of 18 ga wire needs to be used. Re-running the cable would be extremely difficult so I'm looking for options, would swapping out the cameras to low lux be a solution? If so what would be a good camera to use? Camears are about 30' from the playground. Thanks as always.
Tom[/quote]

The answer to your question may be here.

http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=5771&highlight=

Enjoy.

"Only users granted special access can have access to that forum"

Guess its in the dealers only section?

[quote="kensplace"]"Only users granted special access can have access to that forum"

Guess its in the dealers only section?[/quote]


Whoops, sorry.

what's the distance from PS to camera's? Is the cable direct burry cable or in conduict/PVC? what is the output voltage at the camera reading on a multimeter.

sounds like you are using 12dc? you can alway switch to 24vac or 28vac if the camera's handle both.

or use a adjustable DC power supply that goes to 15vdc and then adjust that output to a higher voltage to compensate for the loss at the camera...........................

other option is to double up on a pair to create a "bigger" guage wire.................

try using DC 1500 mA / 1.5A power supply ( iPS12D1500 ) which might help but your dealer is right about using 18G cable and I have not seen that many places power work very well over Cat5 cable unless its a 300mA or lower camera in short distance...