Out of Control PTZ

I have two Bosch Desa XL 16 port boxes. We have three Bosch Envirodome PTZ cameras running off of one of the Desa's. I initially tested them in the lab using biphase for control. I noticed that the camera would occasionally spin out of control for several minutes and the light on our Bosch 8786 RS232 - Biphase converter was blinking rapidly like it was receiving signal from the Desa. I rebooted the Desa in order to stop the camera from spinning. This spinning camera would only happen when using the Remote View software that Bosch offers. Controlling the camera locally on the Desa works great.

At the site, the cameras are in position. Again I notice the spinning every once in a while. Bosch has said they have never heard of this before of course. I get rid of the biphase converter and use an RS232 - RS485 converter. I don't notice any spinning until I am showing the customer how to operate it and it starts spinning out of control again. Any ideas?

We are forced to use this crappy remote view software due to the physical location of the buildings involved. There is an existing data network running over a fiber backbone but there aren't any additional pairs in order to centralize all the Desa's.

So I guess I have two questions:

Is there any way to fix the out of control spinning? I currently have the termination resistor in place and the run is approximately 200'.

Has anyone been forced to use this remote view software for a 24/7 monitoring environment for 100+ cameras?

Thanks!!!

I'm not totaly familiar with the Bosch product but I've had the same problem a few years back with other PTZ domes. Maybe for a different reasons though;

1. It was the VCL dome range. When the dome is powered up it spins around and tilts to finds its reference. There are two Vertical and Horizontal metal tags inside the dome painted white for this purpose, and on the rotating chassis in-line with these tags is an tiny integrated IR LED TX/RX device. This device needs its light to be reflected back off the tag when it get there to say OK I'm where I'm supposed to be at. These domes are made in the UK, so when we installed them here in South Africa, the sunlight is so much brighter that it over-powered the RX circuit of this device and the dome occasionally spun around trying to find itself. We cured the problem by coating these little IR devices with a permanent marker pen (we gave it some shades )

2. Another dome I remember it happening to was a Sensormatic model. This dome was constantly sending data to & fro (I think it's position sensors fed the data back first for sector titling, and then incoming data placed the dome), and whenever it didn't like the data it got back it took itself for a spin. Sensormatic had to get their software sorted out. They also denied having a problem !! (most of them do).

From what you say, it sounds like a bug in their software, but ..

Questions: You did say this only happens with the remote software, even when using 485 ? How have you configured the data paths (star, multi-drop) ? If star, are you using a data/code distributor ? The cable run is no problem. Is it all fiber, or only certain sections? What fiber units are you using ?

Can't say this helps you but this is my experience. Lets see what else can be suggested.

Thanks for the advice. I will look into the position sensor issue.

Yes, this is happening with 485 as well. All three cameras are running off a single bus with the last camera terminated.

The fiber is not being used for any carrying of video at this point. It is only used for the remote view. I will find out how many strands are available this week. It is multi-mode I believe.

We are discussing running some kind of analog to ip encoder/decoder to get the signal back to a centrally located Desa rather that use the remote software. Eliminating the remote view software should hopefully help with this issue as well as improving PTZ response time.

I will check out the issue with an old friend of mine who works for Bosch Security in Oz. See what comes up.

if you are going to go that route, check out www.acti.com for IP/Analogue encoders/ transcoders.

Rory

Here's the reply I got:

"Hello Sean,

Sorry, the Desa is from before my time at Bosch or its not something we use in this region so I have no knowledge of possible issues. I have however had the occasional funny with the domes which were solved by firmware upgrades or replacement.

Cheers for now

Name Withheld"

I would really make it your suppliers problem. If you've installed everything according to spec then they must surely stand by their product. The person by the the name of "they" seems to get away with a lot in co's like this

It sounds a lot like you have a data collision, I have never used a Desa before (I believe Bosch does not even make them), but I imagine that it must be similar to the other Bosch DVR's.

The most common reason that the camera would spin would have to be wiring in a star topography rather than in a straight bus and not looping from one to the other (you said you did this), the next most likely would be having several terminating resistors instead of just a single one at the end (once again you said you did this) the third would be that you have all the PTZ' coming from the one I/O port, there should be several ports (where the data is connected to an I/O card usually) and I have seen this many times, try to put each ptz on different ports IE not all wires touching together.

Fourth most likely would be that your 485 converter is faulty (this is of course unless it is inbuilt in the DVR). The fifth most likely would be the addressing of the cameras.

Sixth most likely is that the fibre data modems are not doing their job, simply check with a multimeter when moving the keyboard and look for voltage changes..these drive the motor and should be different for every direction.

The Bosch PTZ's can be switched to Pelco mode, so try doing that, they can be controlled by Bilinx Tool as well just over the video cable, so you could try that to test if it is data that is your issue.

I have used heaps of these domes and the only time I have seen what you are talking about is when I was forced to wire in star instead of bus and only happened when remote software conflicted with local control causing packet data collisions.

The Desa was a Phillips PC DVR, sais Phillips on it .. i switched one out for a client to a GE DVMRe-CT. Remember Bosch is still a baby to the CCTV world .. and here is a link to the Desa. (scroll down)

http://www.burlecctv.com/multiplexdvr.htm

Just wanted to post an update...

We eliminated this problem by not using the remote view software supplied by Bosch for the Desa. The latency of the network only made the spinning problem worse. We ended up using the GE S735DV units to control the PTZ cameras over some fiber that was available. It works flawlessly now. The Desa is centrally located with the other computers that use the remote view software for the fixed cameras.

Thanks for everyone's info and help.