Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

solarvic

Does anyone here have much knowledge about surveillance systems? I ate lots of thieves that are metal recyclers in my area. I am thinking of getting a surveillance system with multiple camera,s to watch my home, solar panels, and house across the road. They are thinking of one too and watching the front of my house. Does anyone have good suggestions and does anyone know how much energy they consume? I was looking at Tigerdirect and they have one with a Samsung monitor and 4 cameras expandable to 8 cameras. I didn,t know what category to post this in but if the monitors think it would be better in a different category they can move it. :Dsolarvic:D

niel

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

i assume you meant to say you met some thieves.:roll: anyway, that brings up some questions, are you going to have somebody else install it or is it to be a self install? if somebody else installs then he may ask you these questions below. high def or standard? wireless or wired? standard day view only, led night vision, or wide dynamic night vision enhancer? color or black and white?

n3qik

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

There is another thread, where we touched on cameras. See if I can find it. We start here: http://forum.solar-electric.com/showthread.php?13595-Motion-Sensor-Security-Lights/page2 The camera's I am using are 4 watts each.

solarvic

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

Yes niel I didn,t ate the thieves, I hate the thieves!!! I had a couple junk cars in my woods . Drug them up by my gaswell so I could call the recyclers that pay you to come and get them. Instead of paying recyclers I got the thieving kind. One they stole the radiator , aluminum wheels and whatever copper they could get. The other one they actually was cutting up the car and stealing the body parts. I caught them, this time, got the licence number and called the police and made them unload it. A couple days later I noticed what got unloaded is gone. I had a $22,00 tractor stolen in 98. And my house burglerized a couple months later. So with a servelence system I might be able to see who the thieves are. Since all that happened I don,t leave my home that much and go to bed with a gun and an axe. My daughter lives accross the road from me and we are comtemplating on doing some self install systems. Its all druggies and pot smokers. None of them can get jobs around here even though a couple places are hireing a few people. All the good jobs require you to pass a drug screening before they will hire you. Now most want hair samples so they can detect back farther in time if you are a druggie. :Dsolarvic:D And before I didn,t have any houses near me and now there is 3 homes on other side of road. The thieves are getting bolder. I caught three three thieves red handed last week. One of them was a woman.

niel

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

ok. it might not have been good to divulge all of that info, but it's clear you need to take precautions. maybe you can address the rest of the questions i posed to get an idea of what you may want?

it may also be a good idea to invest in a good burglar alarm system.

monoloco

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

Rottweilers are a lot more fun.

waynefromnscanada

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

Depends on what one wants/needs, but I came across something that's perfect for what I need. A vehicle back-up camera, meant to mount over the rear license plate, with a little 2 inch color monitor, all 12 volt DC with wireless transmission from camera to monitor. About 2 watts total consumption. I mounted the camera in under the roof edge of the house, protecting it from rain etc, and where it has a fish-eye view of the area I want to keep an eye on. I know this is not for everyone, but it's perfect for my needs, and it was only about $60.

Wayne123

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

If you buy a camera system make sure the video quality is good enough to I.D. someone or read a car license plate or you will be wasting money. Dogs work better than alarms but alarms don't crap in your yard.

jtdiesel65

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

That's happening everywhere now. There are folks even going into homes and cutting out all the copper. It's not uncommon for car dealers and home owners to have their catalytic converters cut out of their cars. There are even folks cutting metal out of substations.

I personally just returned some metal. Copper was $2.30/lb. I also had a bunch of scrap wire like 12-2, etc and that was 1.15/lb.

If you have specific areas where you have close range, a game camera might work ok.

stephendv

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

I like the wireless IP cameras and installed an outdoor one over my panels with a view of the road and use moveable indoor ones for inside the house when we're away. They have motion detection so will send me an email with the images attached when they detect any movement. The indoor ones also have 2 way audio, so you can connect them to speakers and scare the bejesus out of whoever's there. Of course, you need an internet connection for them to work. Pretty cheap too compared to the professional surveillance systems.

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philb

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

There are many camera systems on the market. I bought 4 analog cameras and a DVR recorder new for less than $400.00 delivered off Ebay. The computer monitor was purchased at the local computer show used for $35.00. It came ready to hook up. It can be used with a network, internet or stand alone. It records in several modes. TTL alarm in and outs are also included and can be used to activate variety of things. If reception is lost in one camera, the other 3 automatically start recording. I use motion detection because I don't want to have to sit through a lengthy recordings.

A second option is a game camera. They can take quality pics. I didn't go this way because that's another item to steal easily.

I also looked at the pinhole cameras because of their 2.5 cm size. The resolution was not too good.

Wireless cameras are tempting, but may interfere with other devices like phones. They normally broadcast on similar frequencies. So, for me, that was out.

That's not all the options you have

Don't wait too long like I did. I'm now 49 deep cycle batteries less than 2 months ago. The thieves returned two more times to collect things they couldn't load before.

The thieves have returned again. They knocked on the front door and then carefully scoped out all the stuff they wanted to take on that trip. After seeing one of four cameras peering around the corner at them, they took a closer look at it. The man took a deep breath and turned around and walked back to his truck on the street and left!

I have a small sign under the cameras that has a devil smiley face with the words "smile your on my Internet video."

I do agree, dogs are the best deterrent, but the cameras only eat electricity.

LucMan

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

A dog and a 12 guage should do the job. No need to identify the culprits if they don't come onto your property. And dogs are great company.

TheBackRoads

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

I don't mean to get off topic but what do y'all recommend for IP/network cameras?

shift

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

It all depends what you want to spend, but get the highest resolution within your budget.
How much are you looking to spend?

SteveK

Re: Surveillance system suggestions and efficiency

We installed a few megapixel IP cameras 3 years ago. Bought a combination of ACTI and Sanyo. Wired some trees in the yard and corners of house with Cat5e and use "Luxriot" as the DVR/NVR.

The ACTI TCM-5311 is a great camera (back then). Works excellent in low light/IR lighting with a good lens. The video is good enough to recognize someone's face in the dark from ~25' with IR downlighting from the eaves. Lush contrast in the daylight hours. Easy to control. H.264. http://www.acti.com/product/detail/Box_Camera/TCM-5311

ACTI also has a great NotForResale program that allows you to buy 1 camera with free software at ~50% retail to own and try out. I was able to do that.

The Sanyo VCC-HD4000 works best in the day. It's lens is fixed so no customizing. Lots of bells and whistles. It is actually a converted Sanyo digital camcorder (the model# escapes me). Lots of "snow" in the darkness that is not correctable..... Has on board hard drive capability so no network required, self contained. Just review the hard drive if there was an event. http://us.sanyo.com/High-Definition/Full-HD-1080p-Day-Night-Network-Camera

I use "Panvigor" (generic) large heated camera enclosures. These are high quality but got them for cheap on EBAY. I just searched for Panvigor and it appears they no longer exist. Everyone slaps their name on those enclosures.

We have assisted in the capture of a convenience store thief next door to us. His car made three passes in front of our house before he broke in to the store. Although we could not see the plates, the year/model was the same and that helped the PD with the investigation.

We have also stopped the bad guys from stealing anymore dirt bikes from us....