Using A PoE Switch to Connect to NVR

HalliganHook

HalliganHook

n3wb
Mar 29, 2019
13
3
New York
Hello All,

My NVR is currently located on the second floor of my house, where all my CAT6 camera wires run to.

I am looking to relocate the NVR to the basement of my house. (I have several unused CAT6 wires going from the second floor location to where I want the NVR in the basement)

Can I plug the (8) CAT6 camera wires into a regular PoE 8-port switch and run the uplink to the NVR located in the basement? If so, are there any issues doing so? Thanks in advance.
 
Depending on if your cams are standard POE or POE+, any standard POE/POE+ switch would work.

Edit: you can also confirm what wattage your cams pull and make sure the switch outputs more.
 
For a rough guide if you assume, and we know what that can do, that each camera takes a maximum of ten watts a switch with 80 watts or more would do the trick. Given that bigger is better, I'd look for one rated at a minimum of 100 watts to provide additional overhead and keep it running a little cooler. My experience is that the typical PoE camera, fixed lens and not a PTZ, draws around seven watts with the IR on at full.
 
sebastiantombs said:
For a rough guide if you assume, and we know what that can do, that each camera takes a maximum of ten watts a switch with 80 watts or more would do the trick. Given that bigger is better, I'd look for one rated at a minimum of 100 watts to provide additional overhead and keep it running a little cooler. My experience is that the typical PoE camera, fixed lens and not a PTZ, draws around seven watts with the IR on at full.
Click to expand...

As per the manufacturers website... 12VDC: 0.5A, max 6W; PoE (802.3af, 37V to 57V), 0.2A to 0.1A, max 7.5W.

Is is safer to assume each camera is pulling 8W, since it looks like 7.5W is the highest they'll go? Thanks!
 
Safer to assume ten watts per camera just for a "swag" factor and to provide additional overhead. Bigger is better in a case like this.
 
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HalliganHook said:
My NVR is currently located on the second floor of my house, where all my CAT6 camera wires run to.
Click to expand...
Do the cameras all currently connect to PoE ports on the back of the NVR?
If so - changing the network topology to connect the cameras to an external PoE switch will require some configuration changes to both the NVR and the cameras.
And the detail of those changes will depend on the brand and model of the (unspecified) NVR.

What is the brand and model of the NVR and the cameras?
 
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alastairstevenson said:
Do the cameras all currently connect to PoE ports on the back of the NVR?
If so - changing the network topology to connect the cameras to an external PoE switch will require some configuration changes to both the NVR and the cameras.
And the detail of those changes will depend on the brand and model of the (unspecified) NVR.

What is the brand and model of the NVR and the cameras?
Click to expand...

He stated all his CAT6 wires (I assume that's also cameras) run into the NVR on the second floor. So simply moving the NVR to another location and placing a POE switch in between will not require any configuration changes, correct?
 
OICU2 said:
So simply moving the NVR to another location and placing a POE switch in between will not require any configuration changes, correct?
Click to expand...
Yes, it will require changes.
If you take a Hikvision NVR for example, the IP addresses associated with the PoE ports by default are in the range 192.168.254.x
That's the address range that the cameras will be currently using.
Moving the cameras to an external PoE switch implies that the NVR LAN interface will require network access to the PoE switch.
The NVR LAN interface is on a different IP address range than the PoE ports of the NVR, therefore will not be able to access the cameras.
The address range will be that used by the house network, assuming the NVR web GUI is used for access, as it's currently on the second floor.

The configuration change in that scenario is :
Change each camera IP address to be a unique one in the same address range as the NVR LAN interface, outside of the router/gateway DHCP scope.
Change each NVR PoE channel IP address to match the camera that it should connect to.
This requires that the channel mode is changed to Manual from Plug&Play to allow a manually-set IP address.
 
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If he already has two subnets in his existing setup, one for the cams that use the POE ports and one for the NVR to be on the regular LAN for access, and he will have the same setup in the basement, it would work the way I described. All camera CAT6 cables would now go into a POE switch that replaces the NVR on the second floor. That new POE switch would have one uplink back to one of the POE ports on the NVR that has been moved to the basement. The NVR would then still have a regular LAN cable plugged into it in the basement, thus I believe needing no config changes for either. At least, that's how my Hik's are setup.
 
OICU2 said:
If he already has two subnets in his existing setup, one for the cams that use the POE ports and one for the NVR to be on the regular LAN for access, and he will have the same setup in the basement, it would work the way I described. All camera CAT6 cables would now go into a POE switch that replaces the NVR on the second floor. That new POE switch would have one uplink back to one of the POE ports on the NVR that has been moved to the basement. The NVR would then still have a regular LAN cable plugged into it in the basement, thus I believe needing no config changes for either. At least, that's how my Hik's are setup.
Click to expand...
So, in my mind, I have the same thought process as you. I will put the PoE switch where the NVR currently is and plug all right camera wires into it. The uplink will go into the rear of the NVR in the basement in Port 1. I did not think I would need to reconfigure anything.

Side note, the new PoE switch will have access to the main network network for my residence as well. They’ll be right next to each other but in my version of this setup the PoE switch and NVR only connect to each other, not my network switch.
 
alastairstevenson said:
Yes, it will require changes.
If you take a Hikvision NVR for example, the IP addresses associated with the PoE ports by default are in the range 192.168.254.x
That's the address range that the cameras will be currently using.
Moving the cameras to an external PoE switch implies that the NVR LAN interface will require network access to the PoE switch.
The NVR LAN interface is on a different IP address range than the PoE ports of the NVR, therefore will not be able to access the cameras.
The address range will be that used by the house network, assuming the NVR web GUI is used for access, as it's currently on the second floor.

The configuration change in that scenario is :
Change each camera IP address to be a unique one in the same address range as the NVR LAN interface, outside of the router/gateway DHCP scope.
Change each NVR PoE channel IP address to match the camera that it should connect to.
This requires that the channel mode is changed to Manual from Plug&Play to allow a manually-set IP address.
Click to expand...

And if the NVR is Dahua and has built in PoE the same is true. The cameras would currently be assigned a 10.1.1.x address on the NVR, and would need to be changed to reflect unique IPs on the network, and then rediscovered and manually added on the NVR on the camera registration tab.

if they’re Dahua cams and fairly new, they likely all assumed the NVR login credentials as well.

if a Dahua NVR without built in PoE switch, then perhaps no real config changes needed.
 
I find the Dahua NVRs assign the cameras based on the port they are plugged into. Never tried plugging a switch into the POE ports.

I’ve thought about doing something similar, but putting the Poe ports on their own VLan.
 
bigredfish said:
Correct
Click to expand...

So if I'm following correctly... A POE switch plugged into the POE port on a Dahua NVR would require manually assigning the cameras IP addresses and then manually adding them in the NVR?

Just received a Dahua POE NVR for a co-workers install and will likely have a couple cams direct off the NVR and then the rest on a separate switch. I'm new to the Dahua NVR world as I use BI myself.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Ive not tried connecting a switch to one of the NVR built in PoE ports.
But I recall someone did and I believe the catch was that the port will only send 1 IP address (on PoE NVR's each port is assigned a static 10.1.1.x address so any camera plugged into that port will get that address) unless you uncheck the box under networking on the camera that says 'Enable ARP/PING to set IP address service"
ARP-disable.jpg

In theory, if you uncheck that box and manually assign a 10.1.1.x address beyond the range used by the internal switch ports, (they typically begin at 10.1.1.65 and go up from there) then each camera connected to the external switch will work via the one connection back to the NVR.

I have and do run cameras both on the PoE ports as well as an external switch, but what i do is connect the NVR to the switch via its main ethernet port, so it sees cameras connected to that same switch as well as the cameras plugged into its own PoE ports.
 
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bigredfish said:
I have and do run cameras both on the PoE ports as well as an external switch, but what i do is connect the NVR to the switch via its main ethernet port, so it sees cameras connected to that same switch as well as the cameras plugged into its own PoE ports.
Click to expand...

Good to know. I'll likely try manually setting addresses first. Putting on the non POE side means the cameras are on the home network then, and not on a dedicated non-internet access network.


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I do recall (wish I could find that thread) that there might be a limitation on how many cameras can share that wire/port.....
 
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