TechBill's surveillance build

[TechBill]

Inside the garage above the door that lead to the kitchen. The 4231 will go there to keep an eye on it when the garage door is left open during the day. Folks down the street had their stuffs stolen from garage in broad daylight hours.

The truck is a square body 1986 Chevy which I am restoring. It one of my first full size truck that I owned.

 

[nayr]

Amazon sells cheap lil devices you can attach to your garage door that will automatically close it on a timer, supposing you have an opener hooked up.

 

[TechBill]

Amazon sells cheap lil devices you can attach to your garage door that will automatically close it on a timer, supposing you have an opener hooked up.

I plan to add a Z-Wave to the opener so we could close the garage door remotely if needed. My wife want to leave it open while doing some outside work.

Folks around here had their stuff stolen when they left the garage door open while they were in the backyard doing yard work and needing to get stuffs from the garage. We got some pretty bold criminals in this area.

My parents live in a very nice HOA subdivision which is about a mile from from my home and once they borrowed my truck to haul some dirt for their yard work. I told them to be sure to lock the tailgate because they are keeping it in their driveway overnight. Sure enough my dad forgot to lock it and next morning the tailgate was gone.

Even my brother had his scooter stolen from my parent garage while my parents was at home.

I teased them and told them that they live in a bad neighborhood area

 

[nayr]

heh, yeah someone stole half of my jeep doors parked out front once.. no point locking it being a ragtop, what bastards..

no place is safe; if you live in a nice area you just have nicer shit to steal so they take a bus/bike/sneakers and go where the good shit is; I think some thief's have a robin hood complex and feel like they stealing from the rich to give to the poor (themselves)

I had less shit stolen when I lived in the hood; had my bike taken once when I left it in front yard.. but dad spotted a kid riding it around the next day and we got it back heh.. Though later in life someone broke into my hood apartment and just stole my 8-bit nintendo that was already an antique, left my TV and everything else. go figure.. Must just be the lil kids who steal from hood, the adults dont bother with that junk heh.

 

[TechBill]

I am having a hard time deciding where to put the cameras in the back of my house and I could use some feedback on this one.

On the back of my house, it have a deck and two entrance ways. One entrance at the top of the deck and an another entrance underneath the deck leading to the basement. I am hoping to cover both entrance ways with only one camera but it look like I will need at least two camera.

I already planned to put the Huisun PTZ on the fence opposite from the house and point it toward facing the house to use it keeping the eye out on my kids playing in the backyard and weather/wildlife spotter.

I will be installing a fence on the side of the house closing it off during springtime. The other side is already fenced in and also have a double gate on it but I plan to rebuild it. I am not sure about having cameras monitoring the both side of the house since I never leave anything valuable on the side of the house. There been no reports of stuffs stolen from backyards around here, just mostly from mailbox, package from porch, unlocked cars and inside of the garage.

 

[TechBill]

I want to add that the basement door will be replaced with a steel door with no glasses in it.

 

[nayr]

take advantage of the varifocal zoom in on those choke points, the bottom of the stairs going up to the top door would be a great place to focus on.. people look up stairs before walking up em.. or focus it right on the top.

going downstairs that is too frigign easy, put it on that deck beam right square center of the stairs.. thats gonna be bout head height and you can look out to horizon more than likely instead of down, could make good general overview too

your two sides, might look at the new Z5 Starlight Bullets, put em on back corner looking forward and zoom in to frame em on the gate and that choke at bush.. if you dont put em too high the'l keep walking closer and closer and your pixels on face will just increase.

You have choke points for both sides and both doors, use em and zoom on em.. you can always add a wide angle camera up high later for that general overview or use your PTZ

 

[TechBill]

going downstairs that is too frigign easy, put it on that deck beam right square center of the stairs.. thats gonna be bout head height and you can look out to horizon more than likely instead of down, could make good general overview too

here a screenshot if I was to put the camera above the door down the stairway. However on the left side where all the toys are underneath the upper deck, I plan to convert it into a storage area by closing off it off and put a barn door type in front of the deck to access it so there will be a wall on the left side. The stair itself is temporary =P it will be replaced with a wooden deck stairway and a gate added in front. On the right will have a railing to prevent anyone falling in.

 

[nayr]

if your going to board that all off move it out to the deck support I see at the very top of the image, use a lil bit of EMT Conduit under it to secure the cabling from damage.

you'll get a wider view of the yard and someone going to basement has to pass right infront of it, might even see em pulling bikes out of storage.

might be a lil vibrations when someone's walking on the deck but it wont matter much I dont think, that looks pretty solid buit

 

[TechBill]

take advantage of the varifocal zoom in on those choke points, the bottom of the stairs going up to the top door would be a great place to focus on.. people look up stairs before walking up em.. or focus it right on the top.

The top deck is still proving to be difficult one. I cannot put the camera next to the door because one there no room to put it there and have it looking down at the stairway. The chimney will be partially blocking the view. Every time the porch door is open, it will completely block off the camera.

I am standing on top of the stair looking at the door.




If I was to place the camera on the ceiling above near the corner where that brown patio chair is at in the above photo, it will get a good view looking down the stairway but it become vulnerable because it will be low enough and reachable for someone to climb over the deck behind it (near the windows in photo above) and do some damage to it without exposing themselves on video.

From ceiling near door looking downward the stair.

 

[nayr]

nobody will climb over that stuff to disable your camera when a mask will do a better job all arround, most people not familiar with your property will never see that until its too late.

 

[TechBill]

if your going to board that all off move it out to the deck support I see at the very top of the image, use a lil bit of EMT Conduit under it to secure the cabling from damage.

you'll get a wider view of the yard and someone going to basement has to pass right infront of it, might even see em pulling bikes out of storage.

might be a lil vibrations when someone's walking on the deck but it wont matter much I dont think, that looks pretty solid buit

Different possible camera locations

Here what it look like up close leading to the basement door.


At the far corner of the deck beam - Winter evening sun will hit it (backyard is in the south)


At the center of the deck beam right above the steps


Opposite of that corner right at the foot of the upper deck steps

 

[TechBill]

nobody will climb over that stuff to disable your camera when a mask will do a better job all arround, most people not familiar with your property will never see that until its too late.

Criminals around here are dumb enough try to steal cameras without a mask thinking that they can pawn it off for drug money. =P

Since you mentioned that I should add bullet to choke off each side of the house, I am thinking about just doing that to choke off the deck area. I am thinking putting camera right at the edge of the deck beam which overhand the deck itself pointing down the side of the house.

Thinking about a turret or bullet there at the end of beam overhanging the deck.
View attachment 15264

The camera view from that beam looking toward to the side of the house which also seem to cover the deck rails. Our house is a walkout so the land slopes down from front to back, anyone can climb onto the deck near the house where it the shortest and reachable.
View attachment 15265

 

[canadian]

Your post has been very helpful @TechBill and everyone else's threads and comments, especially your thought process on camera location. I came across the same this week with mine and your comments confirmed that I will most likely do the same door camera placement you're finding. The front of our houses are very similar. Much appreciated and thanks. I'm just starting out and I'll post some pic's on a new thread later today.

 

[TechBill]

Tonight I did some testing comparison between the 4231 and 5231 cameras indoor with no IR and very little lights coming from a dimmed hallway. I was in a rush so I didn't really test it but I was expecting to see the 4231 maybe darker than the 5231 in the same lighting condition and I was surprised to see they are still similar.

It possible that 4231 is a tiny bit more grainy than 5231 however I think both camera look identical to me in a dark room.

5231
View attachment 15449

4231
View attachment 15450

 

[code2]

4231 to me is grainer

 

[TechBill]

I know it been awhile since i updated this thread, my work has been keeping me busy and I been waiting for better weather before going out and install cameras.

Today temporary mounted camera on the front door but due to the limitation of spots to mount camera on the front door is giving me a hard time to decide where exactly I want to put it so I am asking for your feedback on this one.

Right now I have the camera IPC-HDW5231R-Z on the right side (right facing out) of the door in corridor mode (image set at 90 degree).

At first, I had it at normal mode but I was seeing too much of walls on both sides and no matter how I adjusted in normal mode, I could only see front half of the porch. Person near the door or the shipping packages on floor would just disappear out of view. (I travel a lot and I need to know if there are packages on floor to call a family member to come and put it in the house)

When I put it in 90 degree mode, it seem a lot better however I am starting to wonder if putting IPC-HDW5231R-Z on the front door in corridor mode is a waste of the camera and I should use IPC-HDW4231EM-AS for the front door and move the 5231 in other area of the house.

Also any person standing at the front door during 3pm-5pm hours seem to be a bit dark and I could barely ID the person.

5231 in corridor mode

 

[TechBill]

I decided to try moving the camera more closer to the door leaving only about an inch gap between the door edge and camera. Then I zoom it in a bit to bring the background up closer and remove as much walls I could on both sides from the image.

I think the new adjustment that I made is just about what I wanted it to be.


Camera placement. At first I had it in the middle of that plywood to line up nicely with the side windows but I was seeing too much of the right wall and it seem I am getting more of the side head shot than frontal head shot. The plywood will be moved over so the camera will be mounted to the middle of the plywood. It a 3/4 inch thick plywood giving me wide range of adjustment and fine tuning as I needed.

The soffit shown in the photo is the older 1970 wood soffit and the previous owner installed one of those snap in aluminium soffit over it so I took it off to install the plywood which is screwed directly to the studs providing a good strong base for the camera. The soffit will snap back in covering up the plywood base then I will screw camera on the soffit into the plywood base behind the soffit.



This what what it look like when someone is at the door. By moving the camera closer to the door, my mailbox is now visible in the video which is what I wanted. I use zoom in to eliminate most of the wall as much possible but still have most the of the patio floor shots to keep eye out for shipping packages.




Nighttime shot



Nighttime shot with porch light turn on. The porch light alone was enough to kick the camera back into day and color mode. There a small glare on the len which I think I could fix it by putting electric tape over a small area on the backside of porch light glass.

 

[l4cky]

did u have to buy Bracket to mount this?

 

[TechBill]

did u have to buy Bracket to mount this?

Nope. It mounted directly from the box.

In the box is a special security screwdriver set to separate the camera from mount so you could screw the mount on the ceiling or wall then put the camera back on and screw it down