I installed a wedge cam this weekend in the corner of my front porch next to the door bell. A lot of folks on here have installed the same cam in the same fashion so there's nothing new here. I've seen several inquiries on the forum asking members how they installed their camera so I thought I'd just add my installation to the mix; maybe it'll help someone out. And, this is PART II of my front porch camera install; PART I can be seen HERE. And click HERE to see a short video of a Amazon delivery using the cams installed at the front porch among other cams.
Luckily, the right side of my porch where I wanted the cam installed is the south side so it'll never get direct sunlight exposure. Depending on how your house is constructed a job like this could be more or less challenging than my experience. It could have been easier but it could have been harder; there wasn't a lot of cussing or loss of blood on this job...maybe a few bruises...LOL. Here are a few pics and commentary to go with the install.
This is where I wanted it to go. The exterior walls of my house are stucco over concrete block except for one place...the front porch (lucky me)
which is wood framed. Note the power outlet below the doorbell.
Walls have wall studs which make great obstacles when trying to run cable. On the opposite side of the doorbell wall is the dinning room so I went to that side to locate where the wall studs are using a stud finder (that I already own). The stud finder doesn't really work through stucco and steel lath which explains why I did it from the inside. It turns out my stud finder can also locate powerlines which really wasn't an issue but good to know where not to drill...there's that exterior outlet and one on the other side of the wall in the dinning room. I found a couple of wall studs and marked them with tape.
Next I placed my template sticker that comes with the cam in the precise place I wanted the camera located. Don't put it all the way in the corner as you need a little clearance when the cover of the cam is installed. I ended up deciding to mount the camera lens at 4' 9" because aesthetically it would be mounted in the middle of where the intercom/doorbell is and I like it when things line up.
Now that I had the stud locations from the inside I marked the outside based on my inside measurements; this let's you know where the camera will be relative to the studs. Studs can sometimes be in the way...uh oh, there's a stud directly behind where the camera's water proof cable/connector would feed through the wall!
BTW, that doorbell/intercom is a crappy Nutone product I installed myself back when I built the house...the intercom portion of the system always had terrible audio quality...real chitty. But, I can see I was planning for the advent of some sort of future special tech by running two 4-conductor telco wires; one set was capped off awaiting the arrival of that new technology...LOL. Cat6 POE wasn't dreamed up yet back in the day but nice to know I was trying to be forward thinking.
Now it's time to make holes in the exterior wall. Since there's a wall stud directly behind where the camera's cable/connector is supposed to go I moved the hole over to where I knew I wouldn't hit the wall stud...but that means I had to create a "channel" for the cam's wire to go leading it to the hole to be made for the cable connector. Using my Dewalt 18V drill fixed with a concrete drill bit and the drill in drill-hammer mode it was light work to drill into stucco. For the large hole I drilled a bunch of little holes in a circle pattern then drilled out the rest. Same method was used to create the channel for the wire and of course the holes for the mounting screws. I cleaned up the big hole and the channel with my Dremel tool using grinding drums. This all sounds like it was difficult but it was easy as pie. The stucco is 1/2" thick and under it is steel lath screen. I was able to get the remnants of the lath out with needle nose pliers and the Dremel finish off the rest of it. Under the steel lath is 1/2" plywood. I used an auger wood bit larger than the camera's waterproof connector to get through the plywood. Behind the plywood is just wall insulation and on the other side of that is the drywall of the dinning room wall. From the outside I took a long screwdriver and pushed through the drywall on the other side. That hole in the drywall will be a locator when it's time to run the cable.
Now comes the messy/hard part...making the path for the wire from attic down the wall. Well, first I had to figure out how and where the wire was going to run. Depending on the height of your interior walls you might find something that deviates from my experience. I have vaulted ceilings throughout the house. Effectively, my interior ceiling drywall is nailed to the bottom of the roof trusses which are the scissor truss type. The wall that I want to run the cable is therefore higher than 8 feet because of the ceiling vault. There's always going to be a top plate on top of your wall studs. The top plate is two 2 x 4's stacked on top of each other and my top plate is on top of 8 foot studs. The top plate is what is blocking me from running cable from the attic down through the wall. That means I've got to drill holes in the top plate big enough for the ethernet cable. To drill through the top plate I needed to know where precisely it is. Using a stud finder I found the top plate and cut a hole in the drywall to see the top and bottom of it. It oftentimes helps to have various types of "fishing" tools to fish the cable from here to there. I find both the monofilament line and fiberglass rods most useful typically. In the pic below you can see the red monofilament type going from the outside hole I made then though the hole I punched though the drywall when I was outside. Above that, you can see the hole I cut in the drywall exposing the top plate. In this pic I've drilled a hole at an angle from a lower hole up though the top plate. Above the top plate is attic insulation that I'll poke the fiberglass rod though and hopefully see it from the attic side when I get up there. It's easier said than done because I have to go up into the attic and go on a fishing trip looking for the fiberglass rod.
In my attic I can walk from truss to truss without stepping though the ceiling. I'm 6' 3" and there's enough room for me to walk from one end of the house to the other in a hunched down state. My camera system equipment is over on the far end of the attic in a closet of my home office.
This PVC pipe is a passage from my office closet (where the equipment is) up to the attic. From my office closet I pushed my Cat6 cable up though the pipe so I can go up in the attic and pull a bunch more up before I make my trip across the attic to near the dinning room. When I get there I'll look for my fiberglass rod. Unfortunately, I could NOT find the fiberglass rod; I had to go back-and-forth between the attic and the dinning room several times and mess with the fiberglass rods and even tried the monofilament line to get it to be visible in the attic. I gave up then used a steel fish tape that's spooled on a reel. This is the third type of "fish tape" I have; all three types of fishing tools were bought from Harbor Freight. Each install I find it's useful to use one of the three types. I reallly dispensed a lot of the steel fish tape into the attic to make sure it was visible. With the steel fishing tape in view I used my long pole with a hook made of a coat hanger to grab and pull it to near the center of the attic where I was standing. I like to use electrical tape to fasten the end of the ethernet cable to the fish tape. Going back to the dinning room I simply pulled on my fish tape and pulled enough wire down from the attic through the top plate and into the dinning room. Then it was a matter of pulling the cable the rest of the way through the wall to to the outside hole.
Now it just a matter of putting on the waterproof connector and wiring up the RJ45 which you can see below. Plastic wall anchors were inserted into the pre-drilled mounting hole and at this point I'm ready to install the camera.
I put some foam insulation around the cable to plug the hole I had made in the stucco. This area of the front porch is safe from the elements including severe thunderstorm rains.
While I'm at it making holes in the drywall I may as well run Cat6 to the intercom/doorbell box. I started off running the one cable for the wedge cam but I'm glad I decided to go ahead and run a cable to the intercom box. Maybe it'll be useful for something else.
Viola...and there you have it.
Horizontal for now but maybe I'll go vertical in corridor mode.
Luckily, the right side of my porch where I wanted the cam installed is the south side so it'll never get direct sunlight exposure. Depending on how your house is constructed a job like this could be more or less challenging than my experience. It could have been easier but it could have been harder; there wasn't a lot of cussing or loss of blood on this job...maybe a few bruises...LOL. Here are a few pics and commentary to go with the install.
This is where I wanted it to go. The exterior walls of my house are stucco over concrete block except for one place...the front porch (lucky me)
which is wood framed. Note the power outlet below the doorbell.Walls have wall studs which make great obstacles when trying to run cable. On the opposite side of the doorbell wall is the dinning room so I went to that side to locate where the wall studs are using a stud finder (that I already own). The stud finder doesn't really work through stucco and steel lath which explains why I did it from the inside. It turns out my stud finder can also locate powerlines which really wasn't an issue but good to know where not to drill...there's that exterior outlet and one on the other side of the wall in the dinning room. I found a couple of wall studs and marked them with tape.
Next I placed my template sticker that comes with the cam in the precise place I wanted the camera located. Don't put it all the way in the corner as you need a little clearance when the cover of the cam is installed. I ended up deciding to mount the camera lens at 4' 9" because aesthetically it would be mounted in the middle of where the intercom/doorbell is and I like it when things line up.
Now that I had the stud locations from the inside I marked the outside based on my inside measurements; this let's you know where the camera will be relative to the studs. Studs can sometimes be in the way...uh oh, there's a stud directly behind where the camera's water proof cable/connector would feed through the wall!
BTW, that doorbell/intercom is a crappy Nutone product I installed myself back when I built the house...the intercom portion of the system always had terrible audio quality...real chitty. But, I can see I was planning for the advent of some sort of future special tech by running two 4-conductor telco wires; one set was capped off awaiting the arrival of that new technology...LOL. Cat6 POE wasn't dreamed up yet back in the day but nice to know I was trying to be forward thinking.Now it's time to make holes in the exterior wall. Since there's a wall stud directly behind where the camera's cable/connector is supposed to go I moved the hole over to where I knew I wouldn't hit the wall stud...but that means I had to create a "channel" for the cam's wire to go leading it to the hole to be made for the cable connector. Using my Dewalt 18V drill fixed with a concrete drill bit and the drill in drill-hammer mode it was light work to drill into stucco. For the large hole I drilled a bunch of little holes in a circle pattern then drilled out the rest. Same method was used to create the channel for the wire and of course the holes for the mounting screws. I cleaned up the big hole and the channel with my Dremel tool using grinding drums. This all sounds like it was difficult but it was easy as pie. The stucco is 1/2" thick and under it is steel lath screen. I was able to get the remnants of the lath out with needle nose pliers and the Dremel finish off the rest of it. Under the steel lath is 1/2" plywood. I used an auger wood bit larger than the camera's waterproof connector to get through the plywood. Behind the plywood is just wall insulation and on the other side of that is the drywall of the dinning room wall. From the outside I took a long screwdriver and pushed through the drywall on the other side. That hole in the drywall will be a locator when it's time to run the cable.
Now comes the messy/hard part...making the path for the wire from attic down the wall. Well, first I had to figure out how and where the wire was going to run. Depending on the height of your interior walls you might find something that deviates from my experience. I have vaulted ceilings throughout the house. Effectively, my interior ceiling drywall is nailed to the bottom of the roof trusses which are the scissor truss type. The wall that I want to run the cable is therefore higher than 8 feet because of the ceiling vault. There's always going to be a top plate on top of your wall studs. The top plate is two 2 x 4's stacked on top of each other and my top plate is on top of 8 foot studs. The top plate is what is blocking me from running cable from the attic down through the wall. That means I've got to drill holes in the top plate big enough for the ethernet cable. To drill through the top plate I needed to know where precisely it is. Using a stud finder I found the top plate and cut a hole in the drywall to see the top and bottom of it. It oftentimes helps to have various types of "fishing" tools to fish the cable from here to there. I find both the monofilament line and fiberglass rods most useful typically. In the pic below you can see the red monofilament type going from the outside hole I made then though the hole I punched though the drywall when I was outside. Above that, you can see the hole I cut in the drywall exposing the top plate. In this pic I've drilled a hole at an angle from a lower hole up though the top plate. Above the top plate is attic insulation that I'll poke the fiberglass rod though and hopefully see it from the attic side when I get up there. It's easier said than done because I have to go up into the attic and go on a fishing trip looking for the fiberglass rod.
In my attic I can walk from truss to truss without stepping though the ceiling. I'm 6' 3" and there's enough room for me to walk from one end of the house to the other in a hunched down state. My camera system equipment is over on the far end of the attic in a closet of my home office.
This PVC pipe is a passage from my office closet (where the equipment is) up to the attic. From my office closet I pushed my Cat6 cable up though the pipe so I can go up in the attic and pull a bunch more up before I make my trip across the attic to near the dinning room. When I get there I'll look for my fiberglass rod. Unfortunately, I could NOT find the fiberglass rod; I had to go back-and-forth between the attic and the dinning room several times and mess with the fiberglass rods and even tried the monofilament line to get it to be visible in the attic. I gave up then used a steel fish tape that's spooled on a reel. This is the third type of "fish tape" I have; all three types of fishing tools were bought from Harbor Freight. Each install I find it's useful to use one of the three types. I reallly dispensed a lot of the steel fish tape into the attic to make sure it was visible. With the steel fishing tape in view I used my long pole with a hook made of a coat hanger to grab and pull it to near the center of the attic where I was standing. I like to use electrical tape to fasten the end of the ethernet cable to the fish tape. Going back to the dinning room I simply pulled on my fish tape and pulled enough wire down from the attic through the top plate and into the dinning room. Then it was a matter of pulling the cable the rest of the way through the wall to to the outside hole.
Now it just a matter of putting on the waterproof connector and wiring up the RJ45 which you can see below. Plastic wall anchors were inserted into the pre-drilled mounting hole and at this point I'm ready to install the camera.
I put some foam insulation around the cable to plug the hole I had made in the stucco. This area of the front porch is safe from the elements including severe thunderstorm rains.
While I'm at it making holes in the drywall I may as well run Cat6 to the intercom/doorbell box. I started off running the one cable for the wedge cam but I'm glad I decided to go ahead and run a cable to the intercom box. Maybe it'll be useful for something else.
Viola...and there you have it.
Horizontal for now but maybe I'll go vertical in corridor mode.
Last edited:
CFL area? You didn't have to deal with any fire breaks/firestops in between the studs?
