Drive-by shooting!

[CanCuba]

Nice photos @CanCuba I notice that you have your cameras mounted pretty high. Does having them mounted higher help view the license plates of passing vehicles?

Property considerations. I own the second floor (as it's known in North America, many other countries refer to it as the first floor) and didn't want to mount the cameras on what is the neighbour's property below the soffit.

Not doing any licence plate recognition. But that same camera still gets about 300 to 600 face captures a day between the hours of 7am and 8pm. It goes to IVS outside of those hours.

 

[CanCuba]

I have one of these running a Color4K/X and lower-end 2431 bullet. Zero issues. I like that the electronic part stays inside with the NVR and the y-cable outside is small and easily fits in a junction box.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B09XDLGGDC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[wittaj]

I have one of these running a Color4K/X and lower-end 2431 bullet. Zero issues. I like that the electronic part stays inside with the NVR and the y-cable outside is small and easily fits in a junction box.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B09XDLGGDC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That is interesting. It basically combines the two I linked and cheaper.

 

[samplenhold]

OK, so why plug into two of the POE ports on the switch?

 

[JDreaming]

OK, so why plug into two of the POE ports on the switch?

Needs more power for 2 cameras.

 

[wittaj]

Needs more power for 2 cameras.

The point he is making is the first option I presented is just that white splitter that goes nearer the cameras and it is powered by pulling a few watts off the POE port.

The 2nd option I gave uses two poe ports and doesn't use any power other than the cameras. It has a Y adapter for each end.

This option CanCuba provided combines the two and provides a powered splitter (maybe) and a Y cable - what is the purpose of a powered splitter right next to the POE switch and taking up two ports? It isn't able to create more wattage.

Personally I would go with the 2nd option I gave as I don't see why the white splitter is needed in that instance.

 

[samplenhold]

Needs more power for 2 cameras.

So if the POE port was a high-power port, you would not really need to do that, correct?

 

[Flintstone61]

So if the POE port was a high-power port, you would not really need to do that, correct?

Well wouldn't you want the data from 2 cams diverging into 2 seperate ports?

 

[wittaj]

Well wouldn't you want the data from 2 cams diverging into 2 seperate ports?

How many ports are used to push data out to your computer from say an 8 port switch LOL...

 

[CCTVCam]

Personally I'd purchase a 2nd small switch. I just experienced switch failure - a TP link after only approx 3 weeks despite a claimed high power budget of @50w, and have now switched switches to a Netgear which appears much more heavily built. Maybe I was just unlucky. I still only have a 4 port + LAN switch but I'm only using 2 ports and have a 83w power budget with 30w per port max (poe+). Interestingly, the 4K t's I have plugged in don't even draw 9w combined according to the power max light. I think there's a lot to be gained by idling electronics.

The way I'd set up it "as is" is a single cable from the house carrying just data to the 2nd switch and the poe from the 2nd switch to the cameras - 1 port for each camera.

Better still, BI PC or NVR cable direct from the house to the outdoor switch eliminating the 16 port switch entirely. The more links, the more chance of failure plus the only virtue to using the 16 port switch in this scenario is if it's nearest the point at which you want the cable to exit the house and the PC / NVR are inconveniently located away from an external wall. If you want the convenience of being able to unplug, simply add an rj45 wall socket where the cable enters the house and use a patch cable from that to your NVR / PC. Adds another point of failure, but unless the cable outside is directly tugged (shouldn't happen if clipped), it's unlikely a wall socket will cause issues (I always several small leave loops of cable outside for re-termination as well (not necessarily where the cable enters the house).

 

[CanCuba]

The point he is making is the first option I presented is just that white splitter that goes nearer the cameras and it is powered by pulling a few watts off the POE port.

The 2nd option I gave uses two poe ports and doesn't use any power other than the cameras. It has a Y adapter for each end.

This option CanCuba provided combines the two and provides a powered splitter (maybe) and a Y cable - what is the purpose of a powered splitter right next to the POE switch and taking up two ports? It isn't able to create more wattage.

Personally I would go with the 2nd option I gave as I don't see why the white splitter is needed in that instance.

I'm sure this setup is able to pass the full 25.5W of a POE+ port through without using any power itself. Which is ideal if you want to power two PTZs off the same run.

I've also used these:

https://a.co/d/aEHUfie

But these have a few disadvantages compared to the first setup I posted.

1) Would likely need to be installed in a junction box
2) Only provide 8W output one of the ports and 15W on the other port (can't power a decent PTZ off either)
3) More expensive
4) They get a bit warm when powered on

The advantage is that they only require one port on the switch/NVR whereas the first device requires two. And you could also plug in two runs with smaller cams and then connect to the NVR/switch if you're running out of ports.

You could combine the two seutps to get up to 6 cameras/POE devices if you cascade two of the second devices off the first device. Which would be great for a single run. But too many points of failure and it would be better to just go with a small POE switch.

Going forward, I'm going with the first option which is the cheapest. The device doesn't get warm and doesn't seem to require much, if any, power itself.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

https://www.amazon.com/Loryta-Extender-Repeater-Ethernet-Splitter/dp/B07RQ569MF/ref=sr_1_53?imprToken=eNnu.Pmf5hsW5hcTVECAQg&linkCode=w61&m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&qid=1683594433&redirect=true&s=merchant-items&slotNum=0&sr=1-53

Amazon.com

Do either of these provide any more power than the other one? I'm planning to put up a PTZ camera near a Color4K camera. The max power draw for the PTZ looks to be 21W according to the specs. The max for the Color4K is listed at 10.5. That exceeds the 30W per port max on the TP-Link POE switch I have.

 

[CanCuba]

Do either of these provide any more power than the other one? I'm planning to put up a PTZ camera near a Color4K camera. The max power draw for the PTZ looks to be 21W according to the specs. The max for the Color4K is listed at 10.5. That exceeds the 30W per port max on the TP-Link POE switch I have.

Then I'd go with this:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B09XDLGGDC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It uses both ports but the PTZ would require one port of its own anyways. I can't guarantee it, but I'm guessing you'd get the full wattage of each port as no limitations are mentioned in the item description.

 

[Flintstone61]

How many ports are used to push data out to your computer from say an 8 port switch LOL...

Yur mamma, at 2:00 am things dont alway compute....
1 cam per POE port is Spock logical.

 

[Flintstone61]

I think wittaj has been taken over by ChatBot GPT

 

[Cold-Lemonade]

Thank you to everyone for pointing me to some great threads here on LPR.

I purchased a IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E and I will monitor it through Frigate. I understand that I need to zoom in and use a high shutter speed and color/BW, depending on the time. I think I can automate these by having my Home Assistant issue a set of terminal commands to the camera's API. I am not concerned with OCR of the plate because my use-case is manually look for the vehicle's license plate if there is another drive-by shooting. All of my cameras are synced to the same NTP server and display the same time stamp so it won't be difficult.

One challenge is going to be placing the camera high enough to look over the parked cars to get a view of the passing cars. The photo below gives you and idea of my context. This image is from one of my turret camera monitoring the approach to the front facade of my rowhouse. There are usually cars parked everywhere along both sides of the one-way street in front. I think I should zoom the camera to the area I've highlighted in yellow. I'm also thinking of mounting the IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E about 4 feet above this turret cam which should help clear the parked cars' tops and get a view of the passing cars license plates. If this works, I'll do a similar thing looking the other way down the street to capture the rear plates.



What are your thoughts? Any advice or feedback on my idea?

 

[wittaj]

WOW - that is a challenging field of view.

Can you go even higher than you plan or are you at the highest point going up 4 more feet?

You don't even benefit by moving the camera closer in landscaping or what not as it would be too low.

Any chance a neighbor with a better field of view would let you put the camera on theirs?

 

[Cold-Lemonade]

@wittaj I could got a little higher, but I can go too much further otherwise I won't be able to mount it without a scaffolding. My plan is to try out different locations by opening a window on the floor above turret and seeing how it looks in the camera's field of view.

 

[Cold-Lemonade]

Another question: When running cat6 outside, do you run it inside a conduit? Or just bare wire along the facade of the house?

 

[wittaj]

Are they flat roofs that you can access?

You can place direct burial/UV rated cable exposed if you want.