Extending Range of Lorex PoE Camera

[szaraz]

Hello,

Sorry if this is not the right place to post this (mods: feel free to move if necessary)
I also greatly appreciate anyone on this forum's help since we all know Lorex customer service/support is lacking.

Forgive my noob question but...here goes:
I recently purchased a Lorex PoE system: Lorex Fusion 4K (16 Camera Capable) 4TB Wired NVR System with 8 Bullet Camera Featuring Smart Security Lighting and 2-Way Audio

I would like to place two of the PoE cameras that came with the system onto an outbuilding (pole barn) that is over the 328ft limit.
I am wondering what the best way to accomplish this would be?
I am thinking of running a direct bury ethernet cable to the pole barn from my router or NVR (not sure which will work). This run will be just a bit over 300ft.
Then at the pole barn end connecting a PoE switch and attaching the two PoE cameras to that switch.
Will this work? Or is there a better setup or something I am missing?

Thanks
-David

 

[wittaj]

Welcome.

Ubiquity Nano-Station for that distance or fiber run and return the Lorex LOL or be one of the many that then return here a year later asking about upgrading their Lorex system. We should have a support club there are so many LOL.

Rarely are the all-in-one box kits with all the same camera focal length a system that will provide what you are looking for unless all of your IDENTIFY needs are within 10 feet of the camera (many of us have promoted from that been there done that LOL), and they placed 4K on the sensor designed for 2MP, so it will need 4 times the amount of light to produce the same brightness as a 2MP.

 

[TonyR]

If you have power at the barn and clear LOS (Line Of Sight) between the 2 points then I highly recommend a Ubiquiti Layer 2 Transparent Bridge as depicted below.

You'd assign unique, static IP's all the same subnet but outside of your router's DHCP pool. The 2 cams at the barn would be in this subnet, same as the NVR's LAN, not the private subnet that the NVR assigns to POE-connected cams. They would be powered by their own POE switch or POE injector.

 

[Oldtechguy66]

just now saw this post, so it's somewhat out of date, but describes a common problem. Numerous ways around the "100 meter limit" for Cat5E - but that limit is really dependent of the bandwidth needed. The longer the cable, the higher the parasitic capacitance, and lower the bandwidth... IE, max usable freq drops proportional to length. Same thing happens with coax, but it inherently supports much higher frequencies; hence its use in long distance transmission schemes. You could use LAN to coax converters (pair) to implement coax, but they come with their own unique quirks. There are also LAN extenders/switches, and some NVRs have the ability to do that implicitly - though watch out for bandwidth AND power limitations. One of my Lorex NVRs has extended-LAN capability, though only on 8 of 16 POE ports, with POE current limits (PTZ likely won't work). I haven't tested that, as my cameras are either within 100m, or much farther away... in which case I use similar topology to that which TonyR illustrates well. I have the same situation (szaraz), a remote pole barn - but mine is ~1/2km (1600ft) from any other bldg with commercial power. I used the same setup as TONYR above; only I set up a 120W PV panels, charge controller, 12v deep cycle marine battery, and 12 to 24/ 48VDC converters (for POE and the radio link). Works fine w/ clear line of sight or even minor foliage. Only difference is I used TP Link CPE radio links because I had them on hand, and found them generally more reliable than UBTN (though I've used a lot of UBNT eqpmt as well). Anyway, the cost of the radio links, off grid power eqpmt is still far below what it would cost to have commerical power run to my remote polebarn. It also made it possible to set up other remote cameras on our farm, where it would be impossible to run cable or utility power.
BTW - you'll find that the Fusion NVR has some really irritating quirks, as in you're stuck w/the hobbled 'Lorex Home' app vs the more capable 'Lorex Client' app.. Sad that Lorex cripples some otherwise decent Dahua NVRs with quirky, buggy firmware and apps (and refuses to correct bugs) - which is why I no longer buy Lorex. I learned the the hard way.
Good luck...

 

[Hakapik]

just now saw this post, so it's somewhat out of date, but describes a common problem. Numerous ways around the "100 meter limit" for Cat5E - but that limit is really dependent of the bandwidth needed. The longer the cable, the higher the parasitic capacitance, and lower the bandwidth... IE, max usable freq drops proportional to length. Same thing happens with coax, but it inherently supports much higher frequencies; hence its use in long distance transmission schemes. You could use LAN to coax converters (pair) to implement coax, but they come with their own unique quirks. There are also LAN extenders/switches, and some NVRs have the ability to do that implicitly - though watch out for bandwidth AND power limitations. One of my Lorex NVRs has extended-LAN capability, though only on 8 of 16 POE ports, with POE current limits (PTZ likely won't work). I haven't tested that, as my cameras are either within 100m, or much farther away... in which case I use similar topology to that which TonyR illustrates well. I have the same situation (szaraz), a remote pole barn - but mine is ~1/2km (1600ft) from any other bldg with commercial power. I used the same setup as TONYR above; only I set up a 120W PV panels, charge controller, 12v deep cycle marine battery, and 12 to 24/ 48VDC converters (for POE and the radio link). Works fine w/ clear line of sight or even minor foliage. Only difference is I used TP Link CPE radio links because I had them on hand, and found them generally more reliable than UBTN (though I've used a lot of UBNT eqpmt as well). Anyway, the cost of the radio links, off grid power eqpmt is still far below what it would cost to have commerical power run to my remote polebarn. It also made it possible to set up other remote cameras on our farm, where it would be impossible to run cable or utility power.
BTW - you'll find that the Fusion NVR has some really irritating quirks, as in you're stuck w/the hobbled 'Lorex Home' app vs the more capable 'Lorex Client' app.. Sad that Lorex cripples some otherwise decent Dahua NVRs with quirky, buggy firmware and apps (and refuses to correct bugs) - which is why I no longer buy Lorex. I learned the the hard way.
Good luck...

Eventually, for extremely long distances, you can use optical fiber. On the market, there are cables that, in addition to the fiber, also carry two conductors, positive/negative, to power the device. It's a kind of Power over Fiber (POFiber)..

In any case, yes, the use of battery/solar-powered wireless CPEs is the less expensive solution, certainly more affordable than a mini GPON infrastructure with PO(E).

 

[lewic]

There are POE switches that have extend mode. For example the Hikvision ones have a switch to turn it on and it will go up to 820 feet depending on the quality of the networking cable and terminations. I believe the Dahua ones will be able to go even farther. Do note that the bandwidth is lowered to 10 mbps when the extend mode is in use.

 

[TonyR]

Only difference is I used TP Link CPE radio links because I had them on hand, and found them generally more reliable than UBTN (though I've used a lot of UBNT eqpmt as well). Anyway, the cost of the radio links, off grid power eqpmt is still far below what it would cost to have commerical power run to my remote polebarn. It also made it possible to set up other remote cameras on our farm, where it would be impossible to run cable or utility power.

I'm still a UBNT fan but last year their devices were either unavailable or cost prohibitive so I installed a pair of of TP-LINK 2.4GHz N300 Long Range Outdoor radios (CPE210) in January '23. After 10 months, not a peep out of the customer so I called and he said "working great."

Based on that endorsement I installed a pair of the 5GHz version (CPE-510) at my stepmom's place December '23 to provide Internet to her barn/guest house where there's an indoor Netgear Wireless Access Point (WAC104) - Dual-Band 1200. She has Sprout 300Mbps fiber at the house and on my phone speed test said I was getting 85Mbps down/up at the barn now.....quite a jump from her previous ISP last year which was 1.5Mbps ADSL from CenturyLink.

 

[ludshed]

I can attest to the dahua EPOE, when it first came out I did something I’d never conceived; splicing 2 boxes of cat5e together. It worked fine at 2000’ for standard cameras, would not work for PTZs.

 

[lewic]

I can attest to the dahua EPOE, when it first came out I did something I’d never conceived; splicing 2 boxes of cat5e together. It worked fine at 2000’ for standard cameras, would not work for PTZs.

From my testing, technically it is able to send a network signal at that range. The issue is the power side. It is not able to send POE power to that distance. So with the PTZ's drawing more power, that is probably the problem at that distance.