Just Sharing My Progress

I just grabbed a couple Amcrest ProHD 1080P cameras for indoor use (IP2M-841EW). My cat’s been sh***ing in the corner by my pool table and I plan to catch him in the act and confront him with the video evidence next week. That’ll teach him...

Anyway, I couldn’t find much info beyond Amazon reviews so I may post something simple once I get a chance to play with them.
 
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Good height on the cameras, it is in your face.

Do you have a camera at your front door?
 
In Phase 2 I'll be installing an IPC-HDBW4231F-AS about 1' to the right of the front door and about 5' high. A 2.8mm lens should cover both packages and faces. I'm also thinking about putting a license plate reader somewhere out front at some point.
 
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Nice details with your network diagram and showing how you are planning in phases! I just got some cams (8) finally and plan on starting testing and then getting a few of the high priority ones up before new year. Do you have a sidewalk/driveway view of your current cams you have up?
 
What software did you use to make the network diagram.
 
Mike46052 said:
Nice details with your network diagram and showing how you are planning in phases! I just got some cams (8) finally and plan on starting testing and then getting a few of the high priority ones up before new year. Do you have a sidewalk/driveway view of your current cams you have up?
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Thanks! I'm kind of figuring this stuff out as I go, so I'm taking my time and doing it right the first time (hopefully). Plus, spreading it out over several phases allows me to budget for higher quality components, allows time for better and cheaper cameras to come to market as technology advances, and perpetuates the enjoyment of the project.

I'll post a pic of the install this evening if I get home before sunset.
 
Here's a pic of the installation, so far. I'm waiting on a PFA130-E mount for the camera on the left. That's why it looks off center. The one on the right is completely installed and just needs a little tweaking to optimize pixel usage. Both cameras are painted an antique metallic color so that they blend with the light fixtures. I think it turned out well, though I need to touch up the repositioning scratches. As you can see, they're very discrete. The wife doesn't even notice them.

I marked the locations of my Phase 2 cameras on the outside corner and at the door. I can't wait for Phase 5 when I put an auto-tracking 40x PTZ up on the 2nd floor overlooking the neighborhood.

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smithb said:
Here's a pic of the installation, so far. I'm waiting on a PFA130-E mount for the camera on the left. That's why it looks off center. The one on the right is completely installed and just needs a little tweaking to optimize pixel usage. Both cameras are painted an antique metallic color so that they blend with the light fixtures. I think it turned out well, though I need to touch up the repositioning scratches. As you can see, they're very discrete. The wife doesn't even notice them.

I marked the locations of my Phase 2 cameras on the outside corner and at the door. I can't wait for Phase 5 when I put an auto-tracking 40x PTZ up on the 2nd floor overlooking the neighborhood.
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First off you have a great looking house!

Secondly, it took me waaaaaaay to long to figure out where these were from this pics vantage point haha!
i had to go back up in the thread and read about where you were putting them! So discrete!
Whats the height on them about 7' id assume by garage door height? I'm surprised how close over the light you were able to put the cam and not have it show up in the view.

If you get a chance id like to see them closer up! I would like to paint mine I'm just a bit nervous!
How did you mask the lens and what was your painting method? Rattle can or brush?

I'm debating on doing the PFA130 e or PFB203 i think im leaning more towards the PFB203 but i think after seeing yours i may like going more discreet and getting a couple PFA130e

I have to go to the store and build a test rig tomorrow and start doing test with mine this weekend.
any advice on testing? also with those being on your garage wall, did you just penatrate fully through to the interior of the garage and feed those into the attic space above garage and route the lines from the attic to your switch?
EDIT: after looking at your pics it looks like no real attic space above your garage...

Sorry for all the questions! keep posting pics and progress i know i love seeing what others do and gaining ideas and learning some tips/tricks that may be useful along my way of doing my own install.

THANKS!
 
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Thanks! They’re mounted at about 7.5 ft off the ground. I’ll try to post some closer pics this morning. The garage does have attic space but I went the quick and dirty route because I needed them operational immediately. It looks pretty good, though, so I doubt I’ll ever go back and hide the cables. The pics will explain it better than words.

For the Test rig I recommend using the largest grade of gravel you can find. A bucket full of pea gravel weighs more than a bucket full of the coarser stuff. I also found it helpful to mount the camera to a 3-4ft 2x4 and then clamp that to the 8ft 2x4 in the bucket. That allows you to make minor height adjustments fairly easily. I also had two separate rigs so that I could test them at the same time.

I tested in two phases. Phase 1 was with the bucket rig to pinpoint optimum viewing angles and Phase 2 was with command strip hangers to gage discreetness and attain WAF. Definitely take your time testing. Mine were on the bucket rigs for about a week before I was confident that I had the right placement.
 
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Nice I look forward to seeing more pics.

I like the idea of command strips to do a 2nd round of testing for WAF! I have a stucco exterior so I don’t think I’ll be able to do that otherwise I risk my cams taking a 6-8ft fall to the ground which is not what I’d like.

Did you take any pics of your process painting them? Steps of how you covered the lens and how you actually painted either spray can or just brushing?

I know there’s another guy on here that has a thread on painting cams recently but he hasn’t updated on his process yet. I’m so fearful I’ll get paint all over the lens and especially with the “black face” HDW 5X31-ZE models.
 
Here are some closer pics of the installation. The paint job was quick and dirty out of necessity, so I'll need to touch it up at some point. I masked the face with blue painter's tape. I overlapped the sides and trimmed around the glass with a razor for a nice clean edge. I had a couple of bleed spots that I cleaned off with my fingernail. It's not really a problem with the full-face glass cover, but if you're concerned about perfection I'd recommend using frog tape. I think picking a color to match the style of the light fixtures has a much more appealing look than trying to match the color of the siding. This color is Rustoleum Metallic Burnished Amber from a rattle can. I'm looking forward to seeing the updates on the camera painting post, as well.
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My VMS is in my basement workshop, which is conveniently located adjacent to the garage foundation. The cable runs aren't the most professional looking, and I'd probably not be too pleased if I'd paid someone to run them, but my standards have a tendency towards leniency when I do the work myself. Some of the cover plates were installed after the fact so I simply snapped one side and slipped it over the cable. It's not perfect but it passes the 6-foot aesthetic acceptability test for a garage environment.
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Outside looks great! I agree about the garage and cables...it’s a garage not an entertaining area and it doesn’t impact the curb appeal!
 
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Mike46052 said:
Did you take any pics of your process painting them? Steps of how you covered the lens and how you actually painted either spray can or just brushing?
Click to expand...

I used a rattle can but I'll probably use a brush next time if I can find a suitable paint color. I initially wanted to completely remove all of the guts and cure the paint in the oven but that proved to be more work than I cared to attempt with a huge risk of failure.
 
Side question...is visio free?
I’ve seen a few of those recently and I with me also getting ready to set up my ubiquiti networking gear I’d like to map it all out.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Just a quick update...

It seems that it takes me about a week to figure out each step of this process. I'm inclined to at least attempt to figure things out on my own with the aid of the Wiki and the search function before I reach out with questions, so that's to be expected. I finally figured out how to connect to UI3 and the Blue Iris app within my home network and I'm currently working on getting OpenVPN to work for remote access. I'm pretty sure there's a setting that needs to be checked (or unchecked) somewhere "inside" the computer.

Hopefully, my IPC-HDBW4231F-AS will arrive on Friday so that I can move into the final steps to implement Phase 2. I decided to push all backyard cams to Phase 3 and incorporated three interior Amcrest ProHD IP2M-841EW cameras into Phase 2 because I needed a nursery cam and I really wanted to watch my asshole cat shit in the corner.

Here's the updated Phase 2 exterior camera placement. The driveway cams are focused on the indicated areas but I can actually pick up enough detail to recognize neighbors on the sidewalk and see mail deliveries and garbage collection quite clearly.
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the easiest way to set up a vpn is the have it in the router. I use an ASUS router.
But your internet providers equipment may have VPN capability. to use a router you will need to put the internet providers equipment in pass thru or bridge mode.
 
I have a surfboard modem, which I believe is exclusively a bridge. I have an Asus RT-AC68U and have activated the VPN and generated the config file. I just can’t get it to connect. I’m pretty sure that I disabled all port forwarding so I think I need to figure out if I need to open one or ???

I’ll tinker around with it tomorrow.
 
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