After months of bugs and promise, I finally got it!

[JImCan]

I started many months ago not knowing 'jackc'hit'. All I wanted ...was to mount a camera in a pretty part of my property to create another window in the kitchen. Like most newbies, I bought unbranded RG59 cabled gear which did not work well for me. I read HIK was a big name... but that did not work well either. Someone mentioned, when asking for simplicity with quality - Dahua. That also did not go so well.

It appeared either the gear I bought was faulty*, my cabling ends, and/or my complete lack of understanding the interface were all conspiring to defeat me ...including rats that ate cable on the ground once. The outdoor connectors seemed to corrode easily in our rainy/humid conditions. I went from RG59 to Cat5 to Cat6a ...that did not seem to help much.

In the end - it appears the major culprit was lack of power within the various NVRs to make a solid handshake with the camera - over 500 feet away. I would get a good image, then lose it. If left on, it would magically reappear in the middle of the night to only disappear the next morning. Somehow I remembered someone mentioning a POE switch being added mid-cable to get really long range...

I ordered a 60watt, BV-tech, POE switch off Amazon and had full resolution in a matter of seconds. It has not dropped out in the last two days! Even thru local tornadic conditions.

'Finally got it' is not totally true ...I have a long way to go to get exactly what I think I want, but with a new LG gaming monitor and camera upgrade, I hope to get closer.

Jim

*once described here as 'Chinese Junk' ...as if there was another nation of origin?!

 

[aristobrat]

over 500 feet away

Oh wow! 328 feet (100m) is the usual maximum length that one segment of CAT5/5e/6 can be.

 

[crw030]

I think the OP alludes to adding a POE mid-cable? which could explain the extreme distance possibly.

 

[aristobrat]

I think the OP alludes to adding a POE mid-cable? which could explain the extreme distance possibly.

Agreed. I may have misread it, but it sounded like the initial configuration was NVR ... <500 feet of Ethernet> ... camera. If so, it's hard to imagine that ever worked. Glad it's good now!

 

[JImCan]

Thanks, guys... To clarify, I simply plug the NVR into the switch with a common ~5' cable that came in some other package. To clean it up, I will make a short replacement with some Cat6a. The switch and the camera are separated by 500+ft of Cat6a. It's finally getting fun.

Jim

 

[crw030]

The switch and the camera are separated by 500+ft of Cat6a.

@aristobrat yikes you were right, OP trying to get reliable IP over 500 foot ethernet.

@JImCan I would think you might want to do what you can to work within the max lengths which are recommended for a technology, "winging it" might be some of what is causing your intermittent issues. I would be worried about the ability to power a POE over such a long distance due to extreme voltage drop. What gauge is the Cat 6a wiring you are using? 23AWG? I'm guessing you're dropping nearly HALF your supplied voltage over that distance (meaning switch is working overtime).

 

[fenderman]

I started many months ago not knowing 'jackc'hit'. All I wanted ...was to mount a camera in a pretty part of my property to create another window in the kitchen. Like most newbies, I bought unbranded RG59 cabled gear which did not work well for me. I read HIK was a big name... but that did not work well either. Someone mentioned, when asking for simplicity with quality - Dahua. That also did not go so well.

It appeared either the gear I bought was faulty*, my cabling ends, and/or my complete lack of understanding the interface were all conspiring to defeat me ...including rats that ate cable on the ground once. The outdoor connectors seemed to corrode easily in our rainy/humid conditions. I went from RG59 to Cat5 to Cat6a ...that did not seem to help much.

In the end - it appears the major culprit was lack of power within the various NVRs to make a solid handshake with the camera - over 500 feet away. I would get a good image, then lose it. If left on, it would magically reappear in the middle of the night to only disappear the next morning. Somehow I remembered someone mentioning a POE switch being added mid-cable to get really long range...

I ordered a 60watt, BV-tech, POE switch off Amazon and had full resolution in a matter of seconds. It has not dropped out in the last two days! Even thru local tornadic conditions.

'Finally got it' is not totally true ...I have a long way to go to get exactly what I think I want, but with a new LG gaming monitor and camera upgrade, I hope to get closer.

Jim

*once described here as 'Chinese Junk' ...as if there was another nation of origin?!

You are confused, hik and dahua both make great cameras and junk. However, the issues you had was because the installer was junk. The culprit was not the NVR, but rather someone who has no clue about installing cameras then doing so without the slightest bit of basic research.

 

[JImCan]

"You are confused" ...Perhaps I was misread or it was clumsily phrased: Someone who goes by Looney, presumably very knowledgeable, called my choice of kit, 'Chinese Junk' in another post. I suspect, even tho' it was sold within the U.S. it may all have been sold outside a privileged/protected network. I thought it funny when he called it Junk; as if the 'good stuff' comes from somewhere else?!

"someone who has no clue" — 100%. Well, I had no clue, granted. I have made product for Pvt. and Commercial aviation for ~40yrs. Nothing I made came with instructions. I did not have to steal or reverse engineer anything we made. I have no inclination toward electronics; I simply need to solve, what should be, a few simple problems ...I usually get there.

Jim

 

[aristobrat]

Someone who goes by Looney, presumably very knowledgeable, called my choice of kit, 'Chinese Junk' in another post.

It looks like the conversation in your other thread went like this:

The NVR is a DHI-NVR4104-P-4KS2 ...camera: DH-IPC-HDW4631C-A

That's a China region cam, all bets are off.

Looney's reply above is correct. The DH-IPC-HDW4631C-A was made only for use in the China market. The only language this camera supports is Chinese. If your model has English prompts, then someone has replaced the official Dahua firmware with a firmware hacked to support additional languages. Nobody knows if other changes were made to this hacked firmware, and you can't upgrade the firmware version to a newer version without risk of bricking the camera or having all of the prompts return back to Chinese, which makes troubleshooting issues with this camera more difficult.

 

[aristobrat]

I usually get there.

With your current setup having an Ethernet segment whose length (500ft) exceeds the maximum length spec (328ft) by 50%, I'd be concerned that it might not last long.

 

[looney2ns]

When outdoor connections are properly water proofed, they won't corrode.
Use di-electric grease in the connections then wrap with coax seal.
Dahua make cams, nvrs and switches specifically for these long distances such as yours. They're called epoe.

 

[fenderman]

"You are confused" ...Perhaps I was misread or it was clumsily phrased: Someone who goes by Looney, presumably very knowledgeable, called my choice of kit, 'Chinese Junk' in another post. I suspect, even tho' it was sold within the U.S. it may all have been sold outside a privileged/protected network. I thought it funny when he called it Junk; as if the 'good stuff' comes from somewhere else?!

"someone who has no clue" — 100%. Well, I had no clue, granted. I have made product for Pvt. and Commercial aviation for ~40yrs. Nothing I made came with instructions. I did not have to steal or reverse engineer anything we made. I have no inclination toward electronics; I simply need to solve, what should be, a few simple problems ...I usually get there.

Jim

You are still confused. It IS chinese junk. And yes there are good stuff that come from elsewhere. You were duped into china region hacked cameras.
You still have no clue. I dont care what you did for 40 years.