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Poorly Installed IP Surveillance

2K views 14 replies 6 participants last post by  Wired4Life10 
#1 ·
Don't know what to say. Walked onto this job and more problems than I'd believe. Also, 24 1MP cameras recording to a single 1TB hard drive in a server with no RAID and only recorded on motion that isn't picking up people.

The pic of the ladder is showing where the switches were in an area. 20' up on a shelf. Also no breaker labeled to reset switches if needed. All cameras are PoE.
 

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#6 ·
3xdad said:
What ladder, post details of your mobile workbench.:thumbsup:
It's not painted yet except a sample spot on the top.

From another post:

It sits 35-1/4L x 23-3/8W x 37-5/8H.
Surfaces are 1/2 plywood.
4" non-marring casters (for basketball floors and marble floors)
Removable joist hooks for hanging 6' ladder along side.
Flip top wings for ~6' workbench.

What's left to do is the following:
Paint! (Black body, silver metallic top)
Wait for arrival of custom metal push bar
Wire in 12V LED surface lights
Wire in 3 gang box on side with 2 receptacles and 1 switch for surface lights (will be supported by 2x4 wood frame to house the box). Using 12/3 SOOW 50' feeder.

I built it as a workbench because I do a lot of custom panel work before installing them to the walls and find myself using my tailgate a lot but freezing in the winter time. This will allow me to use it inside my work trailer (7x16) and also take onto commercial job sites such as schools and distribution warehouses.

I realize some of you may have done it a different way but this fits my needs 100% and hope it gives you all some ideas of what would work for you.
 

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#8 · (Edited)
MAK said:
Why the hell would the previous installer put the switches in that location? That defies all logic. What kind of cameras and NVR were in there and what are you installing?
Vivotek FD7131 cameras, ExacqVision running on windows 7 with dual core, 2GB memory, 1TB hard drive (no raid or external backup) 3 netgear fs108p PoE switches 2 equivalent EtherWan switches 1 equivalent dlink switch Nothing matched in network hardware but it was installed at the same time. Also they did not use a router. It was all assigned on 169.xxx.xxx.xxx addresses.

Now the customer thinks I'm BSing him when I say a lot needs to be done. I've installed a router and remapped the cameras but they are also recording off motion detection and it's not getting any recording other than changes in color temperature from the fluorescent lighting.
 
#10 ·
Wow! 1TB storage, zeroconf network settings and 6 crap switches to run 24 ip cameras on a bare bones exacqvision server (probably32bit).
The only thing that could be worse is if it were 24 Poe injectors. :laughing:

I like Exacq when it is running on a legit machine but if it's on something as what you described forget it. It won't matter what NVR software it is it will run like crap. Those switches listed probably don't have any GB ports either.:thumbsup:
Maybe you can salvage the Exacq license and reinstall on a server. Still going to need $1000. Poe switch. Not sure what the server will cost but I wouldn't be surprised to see this jump over $10k with the headend equipment alone. I have never used vivotek cameras so don't know the quality there but if it is not wide dynamic range they probably are going to perform poorly under fluorescent lights. There are so many things wrong with that job.
Good luck with getting the customer to understand the scope of the problem.
 
#12 ·
five.five-six said:
I normally don't use a router when all the cameras are on their own lan. It reduces latency to only have layer 2 switching Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I437 using Tapatalk
While that may be true in some instances, it also makes a difference if no devices run through the layer 3 devices. In this case, it's all layer 2 connections with a router only for dhcp and to provide a way to easily RDP in. I have to RDP due to the only monitor being a 42" LCD mounted 8 feet up running 1080p over HDMI. I can't read that.
 
#13 ·
MAK said:
Wow! 1TB storage, zeroconf network settings and 6 crap switches to run 24 ip cameras on a bare bones exacqvision server (probably32bit). The only thing that could be worse is if it were 24 Poe injectors. :laughing: I like Exacq when it is running on a legit machine but if it's on something as what you described forget it. It won't matter what NVR software it is it will run like crap. Those switches listed probably don't have any GB ports either.:thumbsup: Maybe you can salvage the Exacq license and reinstall on a server. Still going to need $1000. Poe switch. Not sure what the server will cost but I wouldn't be surprised to see this jump over $10k with the headend equipment alone. I have never used vivotek cameras so don't know the quality there but if it is not wide dynamic range they probably are going to perform poorly under fluorescent lights. There are so many things wrong with that job. Good luck with getting the customer to understand the scope of the problem.
True. I did make a slight transition but it needs more. They had 2 of the netgear switches stacked in the "MDF" if that's even what you want to call it. I swapped one for a gigabit 8 port and had all switches home run to that and give a gigabit link to the "server". It's not amazing but it's definitely better than it was.
 
#15 ·
five.five-six said:
To clarify, normally my NVR will have 2 NICs, one for the camera network, no router, just static IPs, and the other NIC for the WAN and LAN. It keeps workers from playing with the cameras and reduces my impact on their office network.
I understand that but in this situation, the cameras were on a secluded network that just had wireless turned off in the router. When I maintain it, I log in, turn on wifi and tun. When I'm done, I disagree wireless.
 
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