House install locations part deux

[conner05]

Alright y'all. I did some more research and here's what I've come up with.



I'm thinking I'll start with the talk-back cams at the entrances, then move on to the pair 5442-ZE's at the shutters. After that, I'll go for the two tree installs for license plate captures. Finally, I'll do the third and fourth 5241-Z12E install and overview 5442 Z4E.

The only thing I'm missing is coverage for the left side of my house (you can see it in the garage pic on the far right). I have windows down there, but since I'm going to be putting some in the garage, too, I'm not super concerned.

Thoughts?

Previous post for those interested - Help deciding on new install locations around house

 

[conner05]

Also, would love some insight on running cable to trees. Since AT&T may run some skeleton cable for me I'm trying to figure out the best place to have that line ran - should it come out from the soffit? Should I burry PVC all the way to the tree? Do I need some special cat6 for weather purposes? Just lots of unknowns for me on that one.

 

[Flintstone61]

maybe you can make Art-decco box next to the tree that looks like a lawn decoration. Except secure it to the earth like a mofo.
Like snoopy laying on his dog house. Or a fake old-timey Well with a bucket on a rope.

 

[Flintstone61]

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[conner05]

@Flintstone61 that seems like even more work than just mounting them to the tree lol.

 

[wittaj]

Are the Z12E in the front tree for plate reading? If not, then they might be overkill (or you get them and convert to LPR down the road). The Z12E on the awning looking back at the house I assume is overkill. A 6mm or Ze varifocal would be the better choice.

2nd floor soffit you are proposing a Z12E and Z4E - what it the intended use for it in that location - is the backyard out a ways that you want to get identify out 150 feet? I think you would be better off with a 2.8 or 3.6 overview at that height and then a Z4E for an optical zoom in to a pinch point.

For the wiring to the trees - you would want to get outdoor rated cable.

 

[conner05]

Are the Z12E in the front tree for plate reading? If not, then they might be overkill (or you get them and convert to LPR down the road). The Z12E on the awning looking back at the house I assume is overkill. A 6mm or Ze varifocal would be the better choice.

2nd floor soffit you are proposing a Z12E and Z4E - what it the intended use for it in that location - is the backyard out a ways that you want to get identify out 150 feet? I think you would be better off with a 2.8 or 3.6 overview at that height and then a Z4E for an optical zoom in to a pinch point.

For the wiring to the trees - you would want to get outdoor rated cable.

Yes the Z12E's are for plate reading. I have this cool idea where I'd like to capture the plates with AI, read the text, store to a local database, then generate a report of all cars for a given month

The Z12E on the back awning is for looking toward the driveway - but yea, could prob still downgrade that one. It's about 50 yards from that awning to the road.

2nd fl soffit Z12E is for a broader road/neighbor shot so I want to be long range. The Z4E is for an overview of the backyard.

 

[wittaj]

OK that all sounds great.

Yeah, we already have the tools here for your cool idea about capturing plates. In fact, we have it set up to send an email every day of the new plates and seen before plates.

 

[conner05]

That's slick. I was going to write my own software for it as a project but if it already exists then even better! I assume that will integrate with Blue Iris?

 

[Flintstone61]

@Flintstone61 that seems like even more work than just mounting them to the tree lol.

, yeah it is. but the neighbors wont complain about being surveiled. Build the cams inside the well no Cables showing. Build it up the garage , cut two holes in her, people wont rip them off the tree that way.

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

Another planning tool that might be of some use. It allows you to enter your address, and if you choose specific cams & lens it depicts the coverage of a variety of things: FOV, IR range, DORI scale, etc.

I rented a trencher last year and buried some conduit to a couple 8x8 pressure treated posts planted along the property boundaries. Will pull in some Ethernet cable this season for cams and/or IP illuminators. Will mount a couple pieces of cedar 2x6 horizontal across the top creating a"T" pole. Not sure, yet, if it will have a weather station, or bird house, or maybe feeders. But there will be at least one camera incorporated per post. Still pondering hiding it in the birdhouse, but will most likely mount tucked up in between the cedar boards. With a little paint and the other items on the post, the hope is one will have to look hard to ID the camera.

 

[wittaj]

Here are at least 3 different applications that have been developed by forum members for plates:

OpenALPR Tool - Save and Query CSV Exports

Updated 2021.08.20 Both Downloader and Viewer have been updated. Most changes relate to being able to pull from the local web-server as well as the cloud CSV to allow much faster imports and thus alerts. Tied into this improvements made to alerting, searching, backups, etc. Please see This...

ipcamtalk.com

OpenALPR Webhook Processor for IP Cameras

I have created a docker container and windows application that can listen for OpenALPR webhooks when license plates are detected, parse pertinent information from the payload (plate #, make, model), and place them on the camera's text overlay. It also has a small dashboard to show recorded...

ipcamtalk.com

Blue Iris and DeepStack ALPR

I took a break from my DeepStack Custom Model project and started work on a DeepStackALPR solution. I made a lot of progress on the DeepStackALPR. The solution is API that crops and rotates (if needed) the license plate. Then the API reads all of the characters in the plate and logs the license...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[conner05]

@Flintstone61 I'll follow up later with what my wife says about it all

 

[The Automation Guy]

I'm thinking I'll start with the talk-back cams at the entrances, then move on to the pair 5442-ZE's at the shutters. After that, I'll go for the two tree installs for license plate captures. Finally, I'll do the third and fourth 5241-Z12E install and overview 5442 Z4E.

The only thing I'm missing is coverage for the left side of my house (you can see it in the garage pic on the far right). I have windows down there, but since I'm going to be putting some in the garage, too, I'm not super concerned.

Thoughts?

Your plan is fine. In a perfect scenario you would have cameras covering every square of your property with each camera having overlapping coverage so every camera is covered by another camera, etc, etc, etc. Most of us don't have that however. Maybe it's because we can't afford it, or we can't stand the look of 20 cameras hanging off our house, or we simply don't feel that the risk in our area is high enough to warrant it. Personally I don't believe the risk in my particular neighborhood warrants the "perfect coverage" model, but I know there are members on the forum that live in more urban areas where complete coverage really is needed.

Also, would love some insight on running cable to trees. Since AT&T may run some skeleton cable for me I'm trying to figure out the best place to have that line ran - should it come out from the soffit? Should I burry PVC all the way to the tree? Do I need some special cat6 for weather purposes? Just lots of unknowns for me on that one.

Honestly the best method would be to install fiber runs in conduit. This is because by using fiber, you completely remove the risk of a nearby lightning strike causing damage to your devices due to a power surge. You can get fiber to network cable converters for each end of the run. Otherwise if you do install regular copper wiring, you really need to pay close attention to the grounding of everything. Of course the longer these "outside the house" copper runs are, the larger the risk is.

 

[conner05]

Honestly the best method would be to install fiber runs in conduit. This is because by using fiber, you completely remove the risk of a nearby lightning strike causing damage to your devices due to a power surge. You can get fiber to network cable converters for each end of the run. Otherwise if you do install regular copper wiring, you really need to pay close attention to the grounding of everything. Of course the longer these "outside the house" copper runs are, the larger the risk is.

Even for PoE Cat6?

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

Even for PoE Cat6?

Yes.

 

[The Automation Guy]

Even for PoE Cat6?

I honestly wasn't thinking about the POE aspect. But a quick google search seems to indicate that it is possible to run POE over fiber. I'm not sure it's really mainstream yet, but it has been done already (ie it's not just theory). If POE over fiber isn't really mainstream or if it's too expensive, then I would probably run copper from the camera into the house and into a POE injector, and then run fiber from the injector back to the actual switch. This fiber run would act as a break and stop any possible power surges coming through the copper wire effecting your other equipment. It probably wouldn't save the camera, but at least that's all that would be damaged.

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

Even for PoE Cat6?

Yes.

Hah... I responded solely with the concerns of lightning and electrical harm. Totally missed the aspect of fiber not supporting PoE.

 

[Flintstone61]

POE fiber. that'll be next ...LOL just wait. maybe you can split the pairs.....Some use the same pairs for data as power though.

 

[wittaj]

One note about the IPVM planning tool mentioned above - keep in mind it is a nice tool to help figure out field of view angles, but much past 30 feet, I wouldn't use their representative day and night sample images as the quality you should expect to see.