camera-newbie

Is this still applicable to the Raymax RM50-F-120-TEL? The instructions only talk about telemetry on the F100 specifically but there is a line at the end mentioning telemetry as an option for the RM50.. If that works out, then I just need to find a place to buy one from..

Michael.. You're da man! I had seem that their illuminators support telemetry but didn't look into what it really meant.. Doh! I'll check it out.. Nice! " title="Applause" />

Hmm.. Interesting.. Since I'm running Avigilon at home, a quick search reveals that the Dynacolor ONVIF cameras are supported as of this past summer with version 4.8.2.12 released in August.. Seems like if I wanted to get one of their IPv1v3 cameras, it'd work with Avigilon.. Might have to get one to try out.. Thanks for the info Max!! " title="Applause" />

Hi all.. Just a quick update and one more question if you don't mind as I'm waiting for some parts to arrive for the next round of the camera system.. I'm now looking at the best way to trigger the power on an AC socket (or 2-3) to control IR lighting which will be turned on by an I/O port on my encoder upon receipt of a signal from the sensor mentioned above. In this case I'll be probably using a Raytec Fusion 50 IR illuminator (or similar) but would prefer not to power it 24x7 if I don't need to.. The thought was to only power the IR up (and start recording) when one of the sensors is triggered. Should I even bother with this level of detail or just leave the IR powered up 24x7 and let the internal photo-sensor turn it on/off at night and just run it all night long? I'm thinking that it would save a fair amount of power and be a bit more covert if it was not on, unless a sensor was triggered.. besides extending the life on the IR itself.. To that end, and if I go that route, I need a way to control the power on one or more AC outlets OR the output of whatever supply I use to power the Raytec (or equiv) since it doesn't run on 110v directly anyway -- I could power it from the same AC supply that powers the CNB cameras which might be the easiest way as long as the current draw is not excessive (22W) and not exceeding what my supply is capable of.. Comments? P.S. One of these might be the ticket.. Just need a 12VDC power supply to feed into the encoder (handles max voltage 28vdc IIRC) to trigger the relay upon sensor detection..

Just curious for those of you with residential CCTV systems - have any of you gotten insurance discounts for having such a system and did you have to jump through any particular hurdles if you did to get it 'approved' by your insurance company (like an inspection or minimum requirements,etc)? Just curious.. I popped a note to my carrier (USAA) to see if they give any CCTV discounts -- I don't mind if they come and inspect after I get it all installed. Seems to me that a decent CCTV system ought to be similar to having an alarm system discount unless the thief steals your NVR/DVR that has the recordings on it..

Nice pics guys! My work must be professional compared to some of these! By the way.. earlier in the thread (page 1 or 2) there was talk of using double-stick tape and glue for cameras.. My brother (who obviously won't be reading this) "helped" my mother in the kitchen by attaching a cabinet over the stove area (to the ceiling) with marine adhesive -- there was nothing supporting it but the adhesive. Obviously my mom didn't see him do it but he used NO screws and months later after the cabinet was sagging about 4 inches and my brother-in-law & sister came to visit (in Oregon) and he about freaked out.. He immediately got a huge pile of books to stack up under the sagging ends and to temporarily support the entire cabinet before it just let-go and fell.. Luckily he came in time and was able to properly secure the cabinet in the attic to the studs using proper fasteners.. Doh! My mother, to this day, has not told my brother about his 'quality' work.. And, she will no longer allow him to "help" her out..!

David - IF you end up using any sensors (e.g. optex) on the remote building and need to relay them over to the main building to trigger recordings, I was told by Inovonics support yesterday that their transmitters (e.g. EN1941) can do 1/2 mile line of sight over a 900Mhz spread spectrum link.. Just passing that along if you need to transmit sensor info too.. YMMV!

Hmm.. I'm pretty sure their website was up about a month ago when I was looking at one of their cameras but got crickets back when asking about people using them -- I see the listed on craigslist a lot and I think ebay.. Oh well..

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At the time I was wiring for DirectTV setups which used a pair of RG6 cables for each receiver (we had a dual-LNB dish) -- one for each of the double-tuners. Once you figure in some redundant wires in the off chance a rodent does you in or you pierce a cable with a nail or something, I just figured 5 seemed like a good number.. No particular scientific reason beyond my judgment call.. Now, I would NOT put more than 5 in a single double-gang opening -- five was a PAIN to manage by itself! Those RG6 wires do not like to bend much but are there should there be a need! Unfortunately the one room that we did not destroy, the kitchen, is the place that I'd love to have more wire in -- there's currently ONE lone ethernet drop for a printer, NO RG6 and one phone cable.. It's lacking what the rest of the house is loaded with.. Oh well.. Can't do much about it without ripping out drywall since it'd be a MAJOR PITA to do since the walls are external walls meaning low-roof lines,etc.. I'll be posting some pics RSN on here so you can see my work-in-progress.. AK - I'll PM you about Sage.. P.S. I should note that since we ditched DirecTV about 6 months ago, we no longer use any of these RG6's running to the various rooms.. Everything is being streamed over gigabit ethernet.. care of our SageTV system. I

A few more suggestions as someone who remodeled our entire house (or 95% of it) 5 years ago.. Consider where you want all of your telephone wires, ethernet & video connections to terminate for ALL rooms in the house and setup some dedicated space to house the relevant equipment for handling those connections. I did a ton of research on that stuff at the time and knew I was going to be running my own low-voltage wiring for everything from RG6 to CAT5e for both ethernet drops & home-run phone drops (I don't daisy chain phone wiring). I installed two 36" wall mounted (surface mounted in my case) enclosures to hold the patch blocks, termination blocks and whatnot needed. There are a ton of companies that make these enclosures -- Lutron, Channel Master, Open House to name a few. I'm using the OpenHouse brand and have had no issues with them. Please note that most of them do not allow you to mix-n-match brands as their hole layouts in the enclosures are likely different. Do a google search on "structured wiring enclosure" and you'll see what's out there.. I've since had to re-do part of my wiring layout twice to accommodate added growth for more TV handling (I use SageTV now owned by Google with external HD HomeRun tuners among other things) than I originally designed for and the last work I did was within the past 3 weeks to accommodate our new CCTV cameras which needed more power outlets, room for 24VAC power supply for the analog cameras and room for my Avigilon 4 channel encoder to encode my analog cameras into something a computer can use (H.264 streams). In my case, for our ~2700SF house, I've got wall space taking up approx. ~6' of garage wall making the space perhaps ~50SF of space needed for all of the equipment -- I've got routers, WAPS, switches,etc.. I even mounted a few 1x16 pine boards I had sitting around to the wall to screw things into that did not fit into my 36" enclosures.. Also, heed Matt's advise on running extra cables -- I ran 5 RG6 cables to EVERYWHERE I thought I might want to put a TV someday -- two outlets in every room with home-runs back to the garage. I did the same for Ethernet + phone (not 5 runs but 2 per outlet) with different color CAT5e -- blue for Ethernet, white for phone. All of this is run through the attic which now looks like the wiring in the local IT shop Running CAT5 is super simple when the walls are completely open.. I think I ran through about 2000' of CAT5 and several boxes of RG6 before I was done -- interestingly enough, in our area of Los Angeles, none of the inspectors gave any care about the low-voltage stuff I was wiring up -- just didn't care.. Anyway, the work was simple but time consuming -- I figured I probably saved myself more than $5k in doing the work myself although I did not get any bids since I knew exactly what I wanted. In hind sight, had I known in advance I was going to install cameras down the line I would have installed boxes in the relevant places on the exterior walls that could be covered for now until needed with home-run wiring to the 'IT closet'. Hope this makes sense and sorry for the long post..

I think I've set my eyes on the Optex HX-40RAM model which claims per their docs to be able to mount up to 10' high max which is what I'm planning on following. Some of the DSC models (LC-171 specifically) claims a max height of 1.5M for whatever reason.. I've ditched that idea in favor of the HX-40RAM.

Cool.. Thanks for the video.. I had to wait to get home to see it since Youtube is blocked while I'm at work.. By the way.. I was chatting with one of the support guys over at Inovonics and he said the range of their transmitter (model#EN1941) is 1/2 mile line of sight so it shouldn't have any issues penetrating a few walls in our house and traveling about 125ft max. Pretty slick..

Ok.. I'm thinking that their HX-40's might be the right ticket for me -- perhaps 3 of them in the backyard.. one on each rear corner of the house since they only cover 85 degrees max and another on the chicken coop pointing perpendicular to the others, towards the neighbors fence.. That last one will be a wireless version with integrated transmitter. Now I just need to find a transmitter than can share the batteries used by the sensor AND fit into the battery box provided.. Anyone used the battery powered version of the HX40?

Optex is telling me there units will last 3-5 years on battery Cool.. Thanks for the info!! Also, with any of these PIR devices, is it considered OK to have overlap when using multiple devices without one causing problems for the other IF some of their coverage areas overlap? Hmm.. In looking at the install guide for the VX402, swaying trees may be an issue for it which is something that would be in its FOV in my case.. Dang.. It doesn't help that it wants to be no higher than 1.2 meters.. I guess I could put it REALLY low (2.7 feet) and hope for the best. I do have a couple of peach trees (dwarf's) that are really low to the ground so perhaps that won't be as much an issue unless it's really windy which usually isn't the case..

One other thing I noticed while perusing the various sensor mfg sites.. Most sensors must be mounted fairly low to the ground -- one by DSC needed to be no higher than 1.5M off the ground max.. Can any of these sensors be placed 8ft or higher up -- like on the edge of a roof and pointed in the general direction of the target area? Seems like a no based on what I've read.. Edit: I did notice that Optex has a high-mount model #HX-40 that might work but the specs claim it shouldn't be mounted any higher than 10 feet.. I'd prefer something twice as high -- at least 20 and possibly as high as 25 feet. I'm starting to think that instead of using a single sensor in the middle of the yard and high up, I'll need to use two sensors at each corner of the roof line and aim it to the left or right to cover the yard that way.. Going that route would probably have the sensors mounted about 8' up give or take. Is this more of less what some of you have done?

How long would that last one work when running from a battery? That'd be something I could possibly attach to the side of the chicken coop to provide further yard coverage perpendicular to the house.. Slick.. If it can last on a battery for perhaps 2-3 months that might be OK. Does optex make a version with doppler as well as PIR? The docs seem to indicate that they only use PIR..

I think I was reading somewhere yesterday that there's some range of light that most IR light sources put out (but which is not strictly IR?) that bugs are attracted to and if you filter those out then they won't be attracted.. Too bad I can't find where I read that.. I did find this amusing article that has since been retracted.. Oh well.. How about hiring a kid with a water pistol to use IR glasses and shoot whatever is moving.. You can stimulate the local economy that way..

Thanks for the suggestion.. By the way, I did get a note back from Ledtronics regarding their R30-123-881-120AN bulbs.. They're rather spendy at almost $100/ea and I'm told the usable light extends somewhere between 20-25 feet and they also claim no visible light.. I'm not sure about heat on them though and whether that's an issue or not, but since they're not super high power perhaps that's OK.. I think for the same price I'd rather play around with the CNB MIR1000's which are ready to go instead of needing a housing to screw into as well.

I've found someone that I might be able to get 4 Bosch 940nm EX26 illuminators from someone for $100ea (60 degree beam) and wanted to get your collective opinion on this before I move forward. I gather I can adjust both the photo cell and IR output based on the spec sheet I found. I found a few comments here on the site from Rory about these being great.. My primary goal would be to light up a 50x50' area from a height of about 25' and based on what comments I've found this seems like it'd do that easily.. Should I jump on this to help my CNB domes out for night capture? Also, if you've used any of the EX26's with the 940nm LED's, is there any visible red glow from these? I saw a thread kinda sorta indicating that they might glow a little..

That $85UK dollars is roughly $136US today -- I think for a little more you can get some nice CNB VCM-24VF's. You don't mention whether this system is for outdoor recording or indoor but with vandal domes I'm going to assume outdoor as those CNB's will be great for that use. I've got a pair of them and they're rather well designed hardware IMHO. Anyway, some food for thought!

I'll assume the site you're referring to is the grayglass.net site. I don't mind pinging them and can certainly ask about shipping. As for the longpass cut, I've got no clue on what that means.. .. However, I did enlist the help of Google and found the description below at this site: A longpass filter has low transmission in the shortwave region (stopband) and high transmission in the longwave region (passband). If you've got a particular feature you can put on here, I'll gladly include it in my query to greyglass.. Should I just ask if they are able to do a longpass cut on it? Not sure if that's the write terminology/usage -- my hunch tells me it's not the right phrase.. Also, any particular thickness? I'm assuming you do NOT want their Infrared Reflecting Borosilicate (IRR Borosilicate) which can reflect a part of the IR -- spectrum correct? I'll also assume that we're talking about their Grayglass Float Borosilicate 33 product unless I hear otherwise.. Also, just to ensure I've got this straight in my head, this filter ought to keep any visible light from being emitted from an 850nm IR light source.. correct? Effectively removing any red glow.. I live in the LA area and most houses here are 10 feet or less from each other and usually have bedrooms on the sides (much of the time) meaning that if I were to leave a visible light on the side yard turned on all night that it may cause my neighbor to get annoyed as their bedroom may be lit up -- but a motion detector based light may be OK if it's not triggered too often. P.S. Has anyone tried a pet UV heat lamp to see how far the IR projects on those? I've heard of people using those lamps to generate IR for some cheapie projects and they claim it works but nobody posted specs on roughly how far the IR gets -- my hunch is not particularly far (perhaps 10')

I could just put up some motion detector lights that trigger on movement at night and turn on conventional (non-ir) lighting -- certainly would be cheaper. I just don't want to run any lights constantly at night to annoy the neighbors since I'll be likely putting cameras on all sides of the house. I'll do the followup with the above mentioned company since it's local for me and I can find out a bit more without spending any $$.. Does the Borosilicate glass (like this one?) keep the red from showing on a traditional 850nm IR light? Also -- I stumbled across this and thought you might find it interesting to read.. P.S. Thanks for the heads-up on the CNB MIR1000.. I didn't realize they made any illuminators.. I'll check them out -- I wonder if Sean can get these..

Thanks Mike.. I put in a ping with Ledtronics.com which is not too far from my home and will be checking on some of their IR floods which come in 880nm, 940nm and I believe 850nm ratings.. Might be good enough for my needs possibly when combined with a PIR/Doppler sensor setup but would need to be tested and only if those bulbs are reasonably priced.

Thx.. I forgot to check on whether the red glow is seen at all angles or not.. If it's only seen direct head-on then it might be OK for the 850nm's..