Not Enough Wires

[Rio1]

We bought an hikvision 8 channel NVR and 8 ColurVu cameras and two 1000 feet coils of wire and had a handyman come out and run the wires through the attic. Cost us $500 for a less than 3 hours work. He did not touch the cameras or NVR, just ran the wires and left them hanging on both ends. I put the plastic pieces on the ends myself after watching a YouTube video. Our farm helper put up the cameras at the locations we wanted them once the wires were run. $500 seemed kinda expensive but no one else even called up back so...

Anyway, for some reason he only ran 6 wires. I wasn't home and my husband was busy working and didn't notice.

He wants $300 to come back and run the other 2. I refuse to pay that much when it's his own fault. I am so mad I told my husband I'll run the wires across the living room floor and out the window first. We are senior citizens and can't climb through the hole in the ceiling to get into the attic and run them ourselves and our farm helper is too fat to fit through the little hole.

The cameras are just plug into the back of the NVR and there's the picture! Easy Peasy.. but beyond that I know nothing about this stuff. I've heard of a splitter will that help us? Or should I just run the wires out the window, LOL

thank you for your advice

 

[TonyR]

I am sorry someone apparently took advantage of you.....that sounded like way too much $$$ for what was done and especially since the job is incomplete.

Is there any way you could use 1 of the 6 existing cables to pull in 3 new cables? 2 to complete the job and 1 to replace the one you use to pull, giving you the 8 total you need. Perhaps a local teen could do the grunt work under your guidance since you already have successfully terminated the ends of the cable.

 

[IAmATeaf]

Could a small Poe switch be used at the far end to give you the extra connections you require?

So for example I run 3 cables to my garage but push come to shove I could simply add a POE switch there if I needed extra capacity.

Having posted this ive no idea if this would work when using an NVR, I use BI so easy peasy.

 

[Rio1]

I had my daughter put an ad on the local Facebook to try and find a kid to crawl in the attic and tape and pull the wires down. Several people responded but not a one of them actually showed up.

So I could plug a POE switch in at one of our outbuildings/barns to keep it out of the rain and then plug in new cables into that? Is this the same as a splitter? Then we could see all 8 cameras?

Is there a guide here somewhere that explains all these terms?

 

[wittaj]

While $500 seems high, many here have reported costs of $60/run, so you are not too far off....well if they ran all of them

Yes, you could use a POE switch at the end of one of these runs and plug the other end into the NVR and the cameras into the POE Switch. With IP cameras, it just needs power and hooked into the same "network" as the NVR and you are good to go.

Depending on far that run is, you may need the POE switch anyway for power as it degrades over length. If the distance is short, or for one along your house, these work very good as well:

Amazon.com : Loryta PoE Extender Mini Passive 2 Port POE Switch, IEEE 802.3af/at POE Extender, POE Repeater, Ethernet Splitter, Powering 2 POE Devices (IP Camera) Over One Cat5/6 Cable PFT1300 : Camera & Photo

Amazon.com : Loryta PoE Extender Mini Passive 2 Port POE Switch, IEEE 802.3af/at POE Extender, POE Repeater, Ethernet Splitter, Powering 2 POE Devices (IP Camera) Over One Cat5/6 Cable PFT1300 : Camera & Photo

www.amazon.com

 

[fenderman]

While $500 seems high, many here have reported costs of $60/run, so you are not too far off....well if they ran all of them

Yes, you could use a POE switch at the end of one of these runs and plug the other end into the NVR and the cameras into the POE Switch. With IP cameras, it just needs power and hooked into the same "network" as the NVR and you are good to go.

Depending on far that run is, you may need the POE switch anyway for power as it degrades over length. If the distance is short, or for one along your house, these work very good as well:

Amazon.com : Loryta PoE Extender Mini Passive 2 Port POE Switch, IEEE 802.3af/at POE Extender, POE Repeater, Ethernet Splitter, Powering 2 POE Devices (IP Camera) Over One Cat5/6 Cable PFT1300 : Camera & Photo

Amazon.com : Loryta PoE Extender Mini Passive 2 Port POE Switch, IEEE 802.3af/at POE Extender, POE Repeater, Ethernet Splitter, Powering 2 POE Devices (IP Camera) Over One Cat5/6 Cable PFT1300 : Camera & Photo

www.amazon.com

60 per run is actually very cheap - if they are run in walls. 125-150 is the going rate.

 

[wittaj]

In that case, they got a deal!

Not really since he didn't run them all, but I bet he underestimated the job and walked off once he reached the number of hours he estimated to perform the work.

And in the end, the homeowner is left with an incomplete job.

 

[Rio1]

60 per run is actually very cheap - if they are run in walls. 125-150 is the going rate.

Really? Seems like a lot! He basically dropped all the cords down behind the wall and out the hole my husband drilled behind the NVR and then all out one hole he cut going out one hole by the roof and pushed them all out the one hole going into the back yard and dropped them outside in a bundle. He was here for less than 3 hours total including at least an hour he spent outside taking smoke breaks, LOL

 

[fenderman]

Really? Seems like a lot! He basically dropped all the cords down behind the wall and out the hole my husband drilled behind the NVR and then all out one hole he cut going out one hole by the roof and pushed them all out the one hole going into the back yard and dropped them outside in a bundle. He was here for less than 3 hours total including at least an hour he spent outside taking smoke breaks, LOL

If you have someone willing to work hourly then do it but as you stated no one wants to do that kind of work

 

[crw030]

I had my daughter put an ad on the local Facebook to try and find a kid to crawl in the attic and tape and pull the wires down. Several people responded but not a one of them actually showed up.
So I could plug a POE switch in at one of our outbuildings/barns to keep it out of the rain and then plug in new cables into that? Is this the same as a splitter? Then we could see all 8 cameras?
Is there a guide here somewhere that explains all these terms?

You have two problems to solve, you need a network connection for each camera and you need to power the cameras.

1. You could put a dumb hub/switch (not POE) at the end of a cable to share a network cable between two cameras and power the cameras from wall wart DC power. Something similar to: Cheap Hub on Amazon
2. You could put a POE switch at the end of a cable to share a network cable between two cameras, plus also power each one individually via POE (Power over Ethernet, basically the power is provided via the network cable itself). This POE switch would need to be protected from environment (you mentioned out buildings/barn which can be somewhat hostile environment for this type of gear), and would probably need its own power plugin. Something similar to: Cheap POE switch on Amazon
3. If you don't have a power plug available at the far end, some people on these forums have used a POE Passthru like this: POE Passthru but it requires IEEE802.3at from the source device (NVR in your case), so best check that before going this route.
4. You could buy a bunch of network splitters that convert ONE 8-wire network cables into TWO 4-wire network cables. A 4-wire ethernet cable is a 100Mb ethernet equivalent (more than enough for the video of a camera), but maybe provide the NVR model so experts here on the NVR can speak to whether the NVR will power the camera properly over a 4 wire connection (has to do with Mode-A and Mode-B POE etc, so be safe). Something like this might work after checking out the NVR and cameras would be compatible: Generic Amazon Splitter

If he did a crappy job and didn't staple/tape/fasten the cables you might be able to do as @TonyR recommends quite easily, just secure 3 new cables to the far end of one existing and pull it all the way back thru. If the lazy installer put even a single kink or fastener in the cable then finding a teenager or new installer would be required.

 

[Rio1]

You have two problems to solve, you need a network connection for each camera and you need to power the cameras.

1. You could put a dumb hub/switch (not POE) at the end of a cable to share a network cable between two cameras and power the cameras from wall wart DC power. Something similar to: Cheap Hub on Amazon
2. You could put a POE switch at the end of a cable to share a network cable between two cameras, plus also power each one individually via POE (Power over Ethernet, basically the power is provided via the network cable itself). This POE switch would need to be protected from environment (you mentioned out buildings/barn which can be somewhat hostile environment for this type of gear), and would probably need its own power plugin. Something similar to: Cheap POE switch on Amazon
3. If you don't have a power plug available at the far end, some people on these forums have used a POE Passthru like this: POE Passthru but it requires IEEE802.3at from the source device (NVR in your case), so best check that before going this route.
4. You could buy a bunch of network splitters that convert ONE 8-wire network cables into TWO 4-wire network cables. A 4-wire ethernet cable is a 100Mb ethernet equivalent (more than enough for the video of a camera), but maybe provide the NVR model so experts here on the NVR can speak to whether the NVR will power the camera properly over a 4 wire connection (has to do with Mode-A and Mode-B POE etc, so be safe). Something like this might work after checking out the NVR and cameras would be compatible: Generic Amazon Splitter

If he did a crappy job and didn't staple/tape/fasten the cables you might be able to do as @TonyR recommends quite easily, just secure 3 new cables to the far end of one existing and pull it all the way back thru. If the lazy installer put even a single kink or fastener in the cable then finding a teenager or new installer would be required.

Thank you so much for the very detailed response! I sure do appreciate it!!!

 

[crw030]

Thank you so much for the very detailed response! I sure do appreciate it!!!

Hopefully it gets you to a solution, be aware that in barns and so forth you have to be prepared for some unexpected issues, are all these cables inside and protected from rain/moisture? What about mice/rats? What about farm animals, I've seen threads on these forums where cows will rub their way through the cables and mice will have them for dinner.

 

[Rio1]

Hopefully it gets you to a solution, be aware that in barns and so forth you have to be prepared for some unexpected issues, are all these cables inside and protected from rain/moisture? What about mice/rats? What about farm animals, I've seen threads on these forums where cows will rub their way through the cables and mice will have them for dinner.

Yeah the barns are probably not ideal but I have a 20x40 shop that I have food and stuff stored in and it's pretty tight, and has better insulation than our house most likely it's Heated and A/C and we keep it about 65 year round.. The wires we bought were gel filled for direct burial so I would think they would be ok in there. The longest run is about 250' I think. We ended up using just 1 of the roles of wire so still have a lot left over.