HiddenMountain

That is so cool! Do you have any pictures/videos of your generator setup? How do you store your power when the stream output slows? Battery array of some sort?

 

Also, when you are choosing your LED bulbs, the main things you need to compare is the lumen rating (light output), as well as the beam spread of the light. There are other things like color temperature. Warm colors like 2700K look better typically (because people are used to the warm color of incandescents).

 

I bet plugging in a 100W incandescent flood would be a big no-no in your house!

We call it "The Snow Cave"

One Stream Engine chugging along nicely. It was 20 below Celcius the day I took the pic.

 

Can you post some screenshots of the pictures. Do you have you DVR locally networked yet?

 

Also, make sure that you have your DVR recording at D1 resolution.

Thanks for the info Sean.

I still haven't got the LAN working yet.... It's all a bit overwhelming and we have had such a busy summer that I just haven't had the time to really get into it.

I have to have total peace and quiet to concentrate on this stuff and it has been anything but that around here! Then there's work....

I have been playing around with the new PTZ you sent me, and thank you big time for that!, but as I said in my email, I think I am over my head with that too....

And, putting a new metal roof on the house kinda takes up some time....

Hey Soundy, that sounds like a plan! Just bring your tools and be prepared to work!

Of course, you'll have to get past the wifer. She is quite sensitive to folks just landing here for "the tour". Quote, "This isn't freekin Disneyland"....

Oh well, she can be quite nice, kinda like a pitbull.....

Can anyone help me figure out how to focus my outdoor cameras?

They are Samsung SCC-130B's.

We can get them close to perfect, but there's no way they would be any good to the police for identification purposes.

We're using a QVIS 8 channel DVR, if that helps any......

Actually, we do have a couple of 100W floods in the front of the house, but we sure don't leave them on for too long!

The gizmo is called a "Stream Engine", it's made by a company in Nova Scotia called Energy Systems & Design. It generates 30A @ 12V and we store the power in 8, 100 AH batteries. The excess power is sent into a "load dump", a basic heating element. We invert to 120V AC with a pure sine inverter, which runs the washing machine, power tools, fridge and all the other goodies.

I have some pictures on my laptop hard drive (LT died a couple of weeks ago), but it'll take some doing to post them and after a long week on the road, I'm ready for bed....

I'll work on getting them up tomorrow.

Also, why do you need LED - they are still so expensive. I've been using 20W (100W equivalent) CFL flood lights in all of my PIR light socket for a while now - they work fine! They do take a minute to warm up - and at first light they put out only like 60%.

Sorry for the delayed reply, work eh......

We live completely off grid and generate our power from our creek, 450 W continuous, so we are very energy conscious.

I keep seeing those LED, solar powered ones and figured they would be the way to go. They would be placed in the trees around our place, for security and convenience, and the idea of running wire to each one is totally not happening....

If you're trying to capture quick-moving subjects, you probably want instant full-brightness... plus LED is still far lower power consumption than even CFL.

Exactly. We have CFL flood lights around the house and on really cold nights, they take forever to simply come on. LED's are expensive at Homo Despot, but we have found some online that are fairly reasonable.... (just know that "Made in China" can mean, "Fail and burn down house"!)

Thanks for the replies guys. Can anyone recommend a brand?

I found some Westinghouse PIR lights on Amazon but the reviewers all said they were cheap c**p.

My electrical supplier has some real fancy ones, but $200 for a night light is a bit steep. The salesman even advised me to look online for a better deal!

I may have mentioned this before but we live in the forest and this time of year there are moths the size of birds slamming into the porch lights. That's why thought it would be best to have the motion sensor mounted away from the actual light.

We're almost there..... If it wasn't for life getting in the way of all of my little projects, well, I guess my projects would get done sooner!

I'm down to the wire (no pun intended) on my CCTV system and was looking for some IR's for some of the cams. Then I read somewhere that some solar powered, motion activated LED lights would be the way to go. I agree for lots of reasons.

I read that one of the more common problems is the moths and other bugs that are attracted to the light, thus continually setting of the MD and running the batteries down prematurely. Obviously, a system with a remote mounted MD would be best eh?

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

Good Morning..... stretch......

Thanks for that bit of good news Sean.

My first big task is getting my DVR recognized by my router.

I've had to delve into the innards of the router when I set up my Nettalk VOIP device a few months ago, so I might even have a clue as to how to do this!

It's a Cisco/linksys E1000. I have overcome the password problem in IE and am ready to make the necessary adjustments..... carefully....

Once I get this mastered, it should be fairly straight forward.....

follow our internet tutorial first and see if this gets you anywhere as a switch may not be needed:

 

 

Please see my email about hughes net. You may have problems with them as I have had problems with them getting it internet workable in the past when they were my ISP. In order to get it working, you have to upgrade to their static IP plan. If they told you that you already have a static IP, then hopefully you already have that plan in place but please note that its a possibility that you may not as they normally do not put that plan in place unless you specifically ask for it (and charge you extra for it). If I read your email right, you have another ISP that you use too? If so you may want to try that too. Anyways, try out the tutorial first to see if that gets you somewhere and report back with your findings.

No, Hugenet is not our main ISP anymore, we even got FAPped today and we barely even used it! We also have a Line Of Sight ISP called "lookieloo. Strange name but at least it's fast. Pings at between 15 and 20 consistently.

That's not our problem at the moment though...

It's a good thing that I have lots of hair, because I'm ready to pull it out now

We need to use IE to set the router and DVR up, correct? I can access the router's admin page no problem on Firefox, but IE won't let me in! 401 error FORBIDDEN!!! effin complicators!

Sooooo, now what? I tell ya, geeks are getting back at me for being mean to them back in the day.....

And I forgot to put more beer in the fridge!

We will overcome!

Thanks to you all for your advise!

...

The story so far.......

I have almost all of my cameras wired and ready to go. Manroom wiring is neat and organized as per the wifers demands... ... ... PTZ will be bench tested once I'm confident that everything's hooked up right.

The DVR is set up but not plugged in.

Now, my ISP has assured me that we have a static IP, which is good. However, he said we need a switch BETWEEN the modem and the router that the DVR is attached to. This is where a beer or seven is looking like a good option.... Computers and I are not friends, let alone something as alien as networks! I have yet to figure out how the whole thing works, let alone hooks together

As much as I would like to get my toy working tonight, I think it's best if I study my next moves carefully, BEFORE I turn everything on.

And just for good measure.....

Any last thoughts?

Yeah, that's wut I'm sayin....

Well, now I feel like getting on the Surgeons Forum and asking about brain surgery! How hard can it be with all the pros right there to help!

Sean, what are you doing man? There is no way you can "re-create" in 2 days

I got almost all of my cable runs done yesterday. (I'm leaving the 2 long outdoor ones until I find a suitable grunt to dig trenches and lay conduit.) So today is "dangling off steep roofs and hook up day".

Sean, thanks for the tutoring. I have been know to screw up toast, so pray that I get this right.

Also, the 24AC power box has way more connections than I need. Iffin I was to disconnect one of the transformers, which one?

As for the RX vs TX thing, no offence guys but we'll be doing it Seans way.

And as for the lower back pain and mutual funds questions.....

I find that back pain goes away after about the fourth beer and you can't eat gold or silver.....

After googling till my fingers bled, with nary an answer in sight, I thought, WTF, this is why I joined this forum.

I recently purchased a used system from our very own SEANHAWG and he has been great. He went on vacation though, and even though he said he'd answer emails while lounging by the pool, I don't want to bug him with this.

(Just wait till you get back though bud )

Ok, it's an ULTRAK KDSA00N1. It's probably a no-brainer to the experts, but I ain't no expert!

I need to know what wires go where.... or if wires go "where"....

Video, ok, not that dumb.

24V, there are 2 terminals marked 24V and a common in between.

There are TX- & TX+, RX- & RX+, and a ground

I'm not too concerned about the alarm connections....

Sean set the DVR's , (a QVIS Appllo 1U) channel 1 for the PTZ before he shipped it, so that part is already done, but after that it's kinda like driving in the dark with no headlights.....

Any help you all could share with this neophyte will be very much appreciated.

Jon

Yeah, you guys think you are tough because you can handle -40C.... Come here to central California and see how you do at +45C

 

When the soles of your shoes start sticking to the asphalt, you might rethink your evil plans!

Hey, thanks for thinking in Metric already! " title="Applause" />

Northern Mexico?

ak357, what will we call our new province?

Cool. Yep, pretty hard to beat BC for all around awesomeness eh....

Hi Soundy

We're in the Nahatlatch Valley, aka, the middle of nowhere, where we love to be!

Glad to meet ya and thanks for the hello...

Howdy from another ex-Vancouverite, living 150 miles just outside.....

Greetings all,

Well, after my disastrous experience with EX-10 two years ago, and much study on the subject, I am finally getting with the program....sort of.....

I have been reading here for a while now and decided to join today.

One of your members, Seanhawg, has been helping me put together a CCTV system for my house in the mountains. A few more details and it'll be on it's way. Thanks again Sean.

I'm sure I have lots to learn yet!

Thanks eh!

Jon