Need LPR Camera Replacement For My Dead Huisun Mini PTZ V1

[hook3m]

Now that my Huisun Mini PTZ that was dedicated to LPR is dead I need to find a replacement. Until it died it worked perfectly for Licence Plate recognition even with OpenALPR. I do not mind spending upwards of $500 for an alternative but requirements are:

Varifocal - manual or auto in excess of 22mm
IP based with POE
ONVIF
Good IR for nighttime recognition.

Thanks!

 

[nayr]

The Birdhouse LPR camera I pieced together was ~$170 for the gun, +$45 for a 60mm Varifocal Lens, and +$65 for the IR Cannon, so just under $300 but you also need an enclosure of some sort.

this is good to ~180ft, you could save a few bucks with a lesser lens and IR cannon for shorter distances..

I get 4MP images out of OpenALPRD, the extra resolution is nice for plates.. alot better at reading with more pixels

 

[klasipca]

For $500 you probably could find something, but why? If you mention Huisun worked for you perfectly, why not buy two v2s one for backup? Sorry for not recommending any cam, I feel like it's a waste of money spending so much for LPR camera for home use which barely gets viewed.

 

[nayr]

not everyone is a cheapass and if he has one more failure he'd of been better off spending the money on something he could rely on.

 

[hook3m]

For $500 you probably could find something, but why? If you mention Huisun worked for you perfectly, why not buy two v2s one for backup? Sorry for not recommending any cam, I feel like it's a waste of money spending so much for LPR camera for home use which barely gets viewed.

I'm also looking for something I can use / sell commercially. Eat your own dog food kind of thing. Huisun is too unreliable right now for me to sell to others. I'm not done with Huisun though.

 

[hook3m]

The Birdhouse LPR camera I pieced together was ~$170 for the gun, +$45 for a 60mm Varifocal Lens, and +$65 for the IR Cannon, so just under $300 but you also need an enclosure of some sort.

this is good to ~180ft, you could save a few bucks with a lesser lens and IR cannon for shorter distances..

I get 4MP images out of OpenALPRD, the extra resolution is nice for plates.. alot better at reading with more pixels

Can you send me some links of what you have? Thanks Nayr

 

[nayr]

Dahua IPC-HF5421E
6-60mm F1.6 1/3" DC Driven Auto Iris Vari-Focal, CS mount lens
850nm 4500mW 3-LED Adjustment Focusing IR Illuminator

only issue I can report is the illuminator+camera is a bit too much combined load apparently for a cheap 12v PoE Splitter, so I am going to run another ethernet cable and power the illuminator separately.. then at least if the splitter dies again it wont impact the camera..

watch the IR cannon, it goes on sale for for ~$55 from time to time.. if you are going to sling this commercially try to snatch a few then or talk about a bulk orders perhaps.. I doubt you'll find anything better suited for LPR, its got a varifocal lens as well and its very ideal for this use.. you can get lower power versions for cheaper too if your looking at shorter distances.. that would help with overloading the PoE splitter.

the gun camera is the industry choice for LPR, its the most flexible with good quality varifocal lenses avilable cheaply from wide angle to >130mm.

my 180-200ft distance is about as far as you can expect to get a ANPR system setup I believe, to go out any further you'd have to stack those IR cannons and focus them all at the same point.. it'd be diminishing returns and the farther away you go the more the environment can fuck with you (rain/fog/snow+distance=noise)

the amount of IR needed is kinda variable, but the more you have the lower your gain and the sharper the plate.. I have no problems getting speeders doing 60mph through my residental area @ 1/500 shutter speed but I am at a shallow angle so the relative motion is not as bad.. as you increase the angle of attack your shutter speeds are going to have to increase to maintain quality at the same speeds.. having an IR cannon that is variable is handy.

 

[hook3m]

Perfect! Thanks Nayr.

 

[nayr]

attached some sample images from my system, two frontal shots and two rear shots.. the frontal ones are a good 40ft or more away due to my angle.. between ~140-180ft on average

and here is 720p 20fps video, not the full 4MP glory but still
each time the text changes it's the best guess from OpenALPR, this was a rather difficult one with two vehicles speeding badly and the oncoming plate is damaged.. click on the gear and slow it down.

 

[hook3m]

Dahua IPC-HF5421E
6-60mm F1.6 1/3" DC Driven Auto Iris Vari-Focal, CS mount lens
850nm 4500mW 3-LED Adjustment Focusing IR Illuminator

@nayr Looking to go this route with the following enclosure. Do you think this will work? Since you have the same setup, minus enclosure, is it solid and reliable enough to sell to a customer? Compatible with OpenALPR?

https://www.amazon.com/Evertech-Security-Surveillance-Heater-Blower-Weatherproof/dp/B00LU2NLIA/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1466127448&sr=8-5&keywords=camera+housing

Thanks!

 

[Q™]

...I'm not done with Huisun though.

There's gold in dem dar hills.

(but diggin' it out can get kinda messy)

 

[nayr]

@nayr Looking to go this route with the following enclosure. Do you think this will work? Since you have the same setup, minus enclosure, is it solid and reliable enough to sell to a customer? Compatible with OpenALPR?

https://www.amazon.com/Evertech-Security-Surveillance-Heater-Blower-Weatherproof/dp/B00LU2NLIA/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1466127448&sr=8-5&keywords=camera+housing

Thanks!

that enclosure would work fine, mine's been solid so far.. knock on wood.. yeah it gives MJPEG stream and works fine with OpenALPR GPL, however if you want high resolution image captures your running the primary stream in MJPEG which sucks to record if you want recordings too.. I record the 720p sub-stream for audio and video.

I have to use an external script to refocus in daytime and nightime off sunrise/sunset calculations, the lens said it was IR corrected but the focal point changes with IR lighting.. so I think the specs are full of shit, perhaps a better lens will not require this or perhaps you can run it in black and white all the time.

 

[caeks]

Now that my Huisun Mini PTZ that was dedicated to LPR is dead I need to find a replacement. Until it died it worked perfectly for Licence Plate recognition even with OpenALPR. I do not mind spending upwards of $500 for an alternative but requirements are:

Varifocal - manual or auto in excess of 22mm
IP based with POE
ONVIF
Good IR for nighttime recognition.

Thanks!

Hey mate.

Did your V1 support MJPEG streaming? I am attempting to run openalpr with a V2 however it seems to be quite unreliable. I know that the non commercial version of alprd doesnt support h.264 streams. however it still connects to the stream and detects plates, just seems a bit unreliable compared to other cameras I have used. Im going to try and transcode the stream to MJPEG and see if that helps.

Cheers