Looking at a Outdoor night camera.

K

Ken B

Well-known member
Oct 9, 2002
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One is looking at my hangar where the GMC is parked from a pole off premises. The othere is about 1/3 down my home 450 feet diveway where there is an Oak tree to mount it on. My problem is while the camera is WiFi (or Ethernet), It also requires power. The power supply that comes with it is a 9 volts at 1/2 amp wall wart. Running power to either location is not really an option. So I thought of solar. I do not know at this point what the real current draw is as I have not bought one yet. So assuming from the supplied power supply I will need double what it supplies during the day for an additional amount to charge a battery on the pole and tree to supply power at night.

Ideas anyone as to what I should use.
 
Ken,
If you search for "power over ethernet camera" you will get lots of hits for something you can use. Solar/WIFI is also common with a search.
 
I can not use POE as I have taxiways to get to my private owned hangar and a concrete driveway at home to cross. I will still look at your WiFi solutions as suggested.

I have POEed many different applications over the years and most of the remote cabled stuff (access points and cameras) within the same building is POE. I originally made my own adapter / injectors before the manufacturers starting offering it. They worked fine as long as the power was DC and in the same building. I simply used the spare pairs for power. I had to be careful doing that because they used several different voltages from 48 vdc and lower.

In this case the power is 9 vdc which is kind of rare these days. A lot of Ethernet cables are only 24 gauge which really limits how much current you can pull through them. That is why I like the higher voltage stuff. Same amount of power with less current. This camera will do 9 volt POE without me building injectors but Ethernet just does not fit in these two cases.
In this case the camera is super low light and in both areas there is no artificial light available. You do not install light poles near taxiways. Helicopters do not like them. So wireless solutions is the way we go, except they get hit by lighting a lot. I have one wireless bridge / repeator that has been hit 4 times. Lightning arresters and shielded Enet cables have not helped. I have a sector antenna like the cell phone companies use on grounded towers. I might try that one next.

Thanks for the ideas.
 
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Ken B said:
I can not use POE as I have taxiways to get to my private owned hangar and a concrete driveway at home to cross. I will still look at your WiFi solutions as suggested.

I have POEed many different applications over the years and most of the remote cabled stuff (access points and cameras) within the same building is POE. I originally made my own adapter / injectors before the manufacturers starting offering it. They worked fine as long as the power was DC and in the same building. I simply used the spare pairs for power. I had to be careful doing that because they used several different voltages from 48 vdc and lower.

In this case the power is 9 vdc which is kind of rare these days. A lot of Ethernet cables are only 24 gauge which really limits how much current you can pull through them. That is why I like the higher voltage stuff. Same amount of power with less current. This camera will do 9 volt POE without me building injectors but Ethernet just does not fit in these two cases.
In this case the camera is super low light and in both areas there is no artificial light available. You do not install light poles near taxiways. Helicopters do not like them. So wireless solutions is the way we go, except they get hit by lighting a lot. I have one wireless bridge / repeator that has been hit 4 times. Lightning arresters and shielded Enet cables have not helped. I have a sector antenna like the cell phone companies use on grounded towers. I might try that one next.

Thanks for the ideas
Click to expand...
Ken, I use Ezviz at our place in Mx, mostly because I could buy it locally there and it was not expensive. They have solar powered outdoor cameras, although I don't have any of that type. They have been working fine for about 6 months now. You do need to subscribe to their server service to get camera access and emailing of alarms over the internet. I believe the cost is $80/yr for up to 4 cameras with one week storage. You can download the video and store it locally. We have 3 cameras set up.
I don't have the email alarm set up because bugs and lightning will trigger a recording session. I'll need to play with it more when I get back down there.
The IR night vision is B&W but is quite clear.
Ezviz equipment is available in USA and Canada.
 
Ken B said:
Thanks Bruce, I will look at them.
Click to expand...
Ken.. we are using arlo at work. So far so good, but it is summer. I am not sure how well they will work this upcoming winter.

A trail camera also works wonders. You can buy one with a cellular plan. They can send out a photo, and you get that alert. Then go log into your camera. Trail cams seem much better at keeping false alerts to a minimum over security cameras i have found. .
 
Thanks, I had not thought about trail cameras. My daughter bought 4 of those Arlo cameras and installed them at her house. I have never looked at the output from them. I need to go do that.

The one I am looking at has an F1 lens with full color at night. I am next to the main taxiway for both vehicles and airplanes. I am hoping to read vehicle license plate numbers at night from the rear. Headlights are an issue from the front. . We have had 7 catalic converter thefts from 4 vehicles recently. I actually saw the vehiclle of the theives but did not realize the theft had occurred at the time.
 
My neighbor and I both use Arlo XL cameras available through Costco online. Image quality is excellent and batteries last around 1-2 months as opposed to weeks on the package deal cameras. They also have a built-in light when activated at night and you can define image capture zones for eliminating background noise. I also noticed on the Arlo website that they have a solar charging accessory that eliminates removing the camera to charge the battery. Videos are stored on their website for a short duration unless you have a subscription.
 
Is there any way to store and view the videos locally? How far away can you see at night and how is the resolution at that distance? I assume that they are Black and White at night. The problem we have is two separate camera systems picked up the thief's car and you can not tell what kind it is or what color it was. Could you read license plates with them?

Our county installed 90 camera license plate readers around the county. No one here seems to know much about them because an independent company did all of the work and manages them. If a cop wants information he has to fill out a request with an assigned case number to retrieve anything. All they ever talk about is they caught someone by reading their plate. I think they look up the registration to determine the vehicle brand and color. The county next to me did the same thing but the two systems are not compatible and do not talk to each other. So if you are doing something wrong, head to the county line. The most recent one they wanted the guy really bad. It was a bank robbery. So when the lookup showed he left the county, the police telephoned the next county and they hand entered the plate into their system. Even then it took 3 days to find the car. He should have gone another 3 miles west and he would have been out of state. I do not think the system is real time.

The contractor installed one of the cameras in the wrong county. In another case the camera and pole got hit. It took 2.5 months for them to realize it was off line. The whole thing is not ready for prime time, but it does work occasionally.

We are just trying to monitor one entrance and taxiway.

Thanks
Ken B.
 
Ken B said:
Is there any way to store and view the videos locally? How far away can you see at night and how is the resolution at that distance? I assume that they are Black and White at night. The problem we have is two separate camera systems picked up the thief's car and you can not tell what kind it is or what color it was. Could you read license plates with them?

Our county installed 90 camera license plate readers around the county. No one here seems to know much about them because an independent company did all of the work and manages them. If a cop wants information he has to fill out a request with an assigned case number to retrieve anything. All they ever talk about is they caught someone by reading their plate. I think they look up the registration to determine the vehicle brand and color. The county next to me did the same thing but the two systems are not compatible and do not talk to each other. So if you are doing something wrong, head to the county line. The most recent one they wanted the guy really bad. It was a bank robbery. So when the lookup showed he left the county, the police telephoned the next county and they hand entered the plate into their system. Even then it took 3 days to find the car. He should have gone another 3 miles west and he would have been out of state. I do not think the system is real time.

The contractor installed one of the cameras in the wrong county. In another case the camera and pole got hit. It took 2.5 months for them to realize it was off line. The whole thing is not ready for prime time, but it does work occasionally.

We are just trying to monitor one entrance and taxiway.

Thanks
Ken B.
Click to expand...
My cameras pick up traffic on the street even though I just have it pointing down the side of my MH. The cameras are in color during the day and I believe they are in color at night as well. I would think a license plate would be readable at night since the camera light would reflect the license plate.

Attached is a downloaded video from the iPhone app of a UPS Delivery today on our front porch. The second video is down the side of the motorhome. Camera was activated by the wind moving the shrubs around - drives me crazy because it wastes battery life.

Ed

View attachment 1690592468597.mov

View attachment 1690580673774.mp4
 
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Ken B said:
Is there any way to store and view the videos locally? How far away can you see at night and how is the resolution at that distance? I assume that they are Black and White at night. The problem we have is two separate camera systems picked up the thief's car and you can not tell what kind it is or what color it was. Could you read license plates with them?

Our county installed 90 camera license plate readers around the county. No one here seems to know much about them because an independent company did all of the work and manages them. If a cop wants information he has to fill out a request with an assigned case number to retrieve anything. All they ever talk about is they caught someone by reading their plate. I think they look up the registration to determine the vehicle brand and color. The county next to me did the same thing but the two systems are not compatible and do not talk to each other. So if you are doing something wrong, head to the county line. The most recent one they wanted the guy really bad. It was a bank robbery. So when the lookup showed he left the county, the police telephoned the next county and they hand entered the plate into their system. Even then it took 3 days to find the car. He should have gone another 3 miles west and he would have been out of state. I do not think the system is real time.

The contractor installed one of the cameras in the wrong county. In another case the camera and pole got hit. It took 2.5 months for them to realize it was off line. The whole thing is not ready for prime time, but it does work occasionally.

We are just trying to monitor one entrance and taxiway.

Thanks
Ken B.
Click to expand...
I’ll send you an email with some examples of what the arlo does.

The massive issue with cameras is a fine line of relavant alerts and over alerting. You get too many alerts you will start ignoring and miss something important.

i have yet to have much luck with license plates unless you have a good dedicated license plate camera. Even those have to be aimed right and not good for covering vast area. We have those on our commercial system and they are not cheap.
 
Ok...got me on this one... described as "home" security system... cannot find a 12V version but also could not find the spec sheets... there a 12V version?
 
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