3782 posts
Looking at installing cctv. So much on the market but chacing a 240volt 4 system camera wireless to harddrive reciever (which harddrive locate in roof with (supply ) **** is doing my head in. Anyone recently installed a camera system.
The cameras will be located so far away i do not want to run av to reciever but have 240 volts present onsite to power cameras.
See no point using 240 volt + 12 volt transformer to cctv camera. Like the camera to be hardwired 240 volt wireless to an independent hard-drive reciver. I dont want to have my power hungry computer running 24/7
Alot of selling points now are smart cameras and stuff ip viewing on smart phones etc.
I guess my question is if you have a ip camera set-up do you need to run it thru wireless modem and have a computer installed in your roof to record/receive.
Anyone running 240 volt wireless cameras to a reciver other than a computer? Post the kit that you bought.
Just so many kits for so many applications!
WA
142 posts
I have a little experience with IP camera systems and installation
to transmit the signal you can either do this wirelesly or with an ethernet cable a great secure method is Ethernet over mains power as long as its on the same phase it should work fine
you can send this to a pc or a seprate a hard disc recorder.
Some can run stand alone with inbuilt sd cards this will work if you use inbuilt timers & movement activated recording
you won't be able to watch the picture on your smartphone unless you pay for a static IP address (usually $10 - $20 on top of your bill)
most providers only provide a dynamic one as standard
Edit: you will be able to watch online with a dynamic IP address it will just keep changing on you usually every time you log on so pretty much every day
IP cameras can be a pain to set up and even though all is supposedly well at both ends occasionally the DVR's will drop a camera for no apparent reason and can cause frustration
normal style megapixel camersa (not IP) are also worth looking into if your pairing with a DVR and a lot of readily availiable DVR's have their own ability to be viewed online as long as you have the current IP address, passwords etc. . .
and generally Ip cameras are more expensive than equivilent non IP ones
3782 posts
Theres alot of bomb dvr packages available but the wireless cameras are run off a 12 volt power supply which means you need to run a transformer the advantage of this is that you can run a uninterrupted 12v power supply on a security system with a 12 volt battery back-up. .
Just want to run multiple independent 240 volt hard wired, but wireless into reciever/ cameras to a box in the roof and not have to use av cables.
The Ethernet over-mains is a new thing Im not completely sure if its safe as in anyone with half a brain and a packet sniifing programme could hack your internet and passwords unless hey were seriously encripted via a power point.But then again if someone was that smart they'd be hacking banks. !!! . I think this will become more common and its taking over smart wiring. !
I have 440 volt mains but a 240 volt rcd circuit at the power meter which has been made redundant after the house build. I was looking at running 240 volt 16 amp circuit straight from this redundant rcd and over to the gate.
The gate is a atleast 100 metres from the house to run a av /cable-would mean digging a long trench.
There would be no point placing a lunch boxed sized transformer 240v to 12 v in a junction box. The idea was to hard wire a 240 volt night vision camera straight to the gate and wirelessly feed to to the house.
WA
3271 posts
I don't have much to offer on the technicalities of equipment and installation but unfortunately you seem to get what you pay for. I've viewed a lot of cctv footage over the years, a vast percentage offer no hope of identifying the person or what they did on the footage. Go for something that records at a decent frame rate, the systems that capture one or two frames per second miss a lot of the action. I've also yet to see an infrared camera and infrared illumination that was any good.
Try and find a system/software that records 'events' rather than 24/7. The recording is usually motion activated making best use of your hard drive. I've got access to a system that has a remote camera feeding wirelessly (about 500 metres) to a router and hard drive. The computer only need be turned on when wanting to playback the recorded footage or the live action.
131 posts
It would probably be easier to tie a big angry dog to your mull plants, instead of installing cctv.
WA
142 posts
Ethernet over mains is not new at all. . . . my comment on it being more secure was referring to the fact that it is not as easily intercepted as wireless which is able to be intercepted with a phone/laptop and a bit of know how
whichever way you decide to transmit the signal with IP cameras the level of security you choose it is up to you from just a password to full signal encryption before transmission depending on the applicable cameras firmware
If your front gate is over 100m from the house then i would consider a direct link from this camera to the house (as chris has suggested above) There is pretty much no cameras i have seen that have this long distance option out of the box
although these can cost thousand's from the big names in the industry i know of a supplier in balcatta that does these links for a couple of hundred (these one are used on some WA mines) and could probably be sourced off fleabay even cheaper
i know these links are usually used for distances from half a km to 40 km but its up to you to weigh up the costs/time involved in getting mechanically protected power and signal cabling to the gate (a small solar panel battery camera and microwave link could be a lot cheaper than the power run from house to gate unless you are a sparky )
most of the IP cameras that i have dealt with have the ability to set multiple separate zones within each cameras frame of view and each of these zones can have its own sensitivity set for movement activated recording
WA
304 posts
I have a 8 camera system, using Foscam 8918 IP cams with night-vision, bi-directional sound, pan and tilt. Cost: $80 per camera, from Mangocam. Some are wired, some use the home WiFi. PoE is also possible, and I'd say probably the best option for your gate application, even though it does require some digging. 100m is a bit long for regular WiFi. Most of my cams are set to record on motion ("events" as you say), and send the images to a Raspberry Pi model B ($35), which stores and manages the data on an oversized (purely to avoid Flash memory lifetime issues) USB drive. The cameras have been operating for years, no issues at all. The Raspberry Pi is a new addition - before that I used the NAS feature of the home router. The great advantage of the Pi is that it only consumes around 2W of power - less than the external HDD that used to be attached to the router. I've set it up to archive the images daily and create daily MP4 movies of all the "action" using ffmpeg. It is also possible to up the intelligence of the system by using some Linux tools such as Motion or ZoneMinder, however, I find that the Foscams are reliable and intelligent enough. Video monitoring is possible from anywhere with Internet access via smartphone app (I use IP Cam Viewer for Android), PC, etc... E-mail/SMS and other types of alerts are also possible from the cams directly.
