Our domestic oil tank is sited a couple of hundred yards away from the house and if possible I would like to monitor using a camera. There is no direct line of sight so wireless is not an option. I already have a camera on the garage which is out of wifi range but it is connected to a little box that sends the data down the mains cable which is also on the same circuit as the house. This works reasonably well.

Now here's the question. Is there a limit to how far the data will travel down the cable. I would have to run a cable from the garage which is 40yds from the house and the mains system and then a further 150 yds to the oil tank. So the mains supply is long. Would it work or can you suggest an alternative Locost approach please?

A decent cat6 cable will work over 100s of meters. Just think about how long they need to be in large office buildings.

Cat 6 is 'by the book' rated to 100 metres, but that is to preserve full bandwidth with no losses. For lower bandwidth applications you'll be fine going further than that.

Having said that, I would be tempted to run a repeater of some kind in the garage.

I'd be pretty confident that will work perfectly.

Many thanks for your replies.

Sorry to be a numpty but in addition to the ethernet cable would I have to run a power supply as well?

Can you recommend a suitable camera please? I've found this on Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ANNKE-Packed-Vandal-proof-Network-Ethernet/dp/B0754LD1F4/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?adgrpid=52016299566&gclid=Cj0KCQiA4sjyBRC5ARIsAE HsELGII2GuqL69cH4JSIrU5CLIe83o-0Ko8wkKKotRtfky_h2wjY8puvgaAsCvEALw_wcB&hvadid=259043901968&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=1006680&hvnetw=g&hvqmt =e&hvrand=7105035444063861655&hvtargid=kwd-298009703744&hydadcr=5082_1827834&keywords=ethernet+cctv+camera&qid=1582459315&sr=8 -2-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzSFU5SFJZRVo1TlpMJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMDEwNzE3M0tJNFVZUDQ5SVRIRiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwODU5OTMwQU 1DOUlQSkpHSklUJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

you want a poe camera 'power over ethernet'
they will work with cat5e cable at 100meters

you may need external grade cable.

edit:
to view and capture on a pc you could use a program called contacam


[Edited on 23/2/20 by gremlin1234]

I am after a cctv set so watching this post I don't know what to buy
Jacko

Whatever you do, don't use ethernet over power. POE, fine, EOP - not fine. I tried with some good quality EoP adapters and had endless dropouts and failures across a 25m link to the garage. Fed a Cat5E run direct from my router (50m) and it handles 2x1080p cameras, my CNC controller and a wifi extender with no problems at all.

stupid question but why is your oil tank so far away from the house?? 200 meters that seems mental, I'd let it drain down and move it closer...

quote:

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Originally posted by coyoteboy
Whatever you do, don't use ethernet over power. POE, fine, EOP - not fine. I tried with some good quality EoP adapters and had endless dropouts and failures across a 25m link to the garage. Fed a Cat5E run direct from my router (50m) and it handles 2x1080p cameras, my CNC controller and a wifi extender with no problems at all.

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Take a single cat5 run to the approximate location you want the camera (in my case, the consumer unit in the garage, so that I had power nearby). I then mounted a 8 port netgear gigabit switch (~£15 from memory, on amazon). Plug the Cat5 line into one of the ports. This then splits the cat5 to multiple ports cleanly and lets you mount as many cameras as you have ports for.

Power all the things as normal, and the switch will combine all the data lines into the one cat5 and send it back to your router so they all appear transparently on the network in the house as if they were in the same room.

Be wary of the camera types you get though. most of the available ones these days require cloud connections and an SD card - this type record locally in a loop, and if anything happens they spit it out over the network to your phone and the cloud - you pay for the cloud service. This may be what you want, it's what my parents use happily.

If you get another type, they'll record remotely - I personally use a DVR like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DQ7T573/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_4G8uEbHR39CW7
and all my cameras talk back to that where it sits just recording away. This keeps the data in the house (under the floorboards) and means no cloud service required. But this does require more setup and effort.

IF you have the NVR/DVR you can just put it next to your existing computer and plug the monitor in when you want to see it.

[Edited on 24/2/20 by coyoteboy]

quote:

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Originally posted by coyoteboy
Take a single cat5 run to the approximate location you want the camera (in my case, the consumer unit in the garage, so that I had power nearby). I then mounted a 8 port netgear gigabit switch (~£15 from memory, on amazon). Plug the Cat5 line into one of the ports. This then splits the cat5 to multiple ports cleanly and lets you mount as many cameras as you have ports for.

Power all the things as normal, and the switch will combine all the data lines into the one cat5 and send it back to your router so they all appear transparently on the network in the house as if they were in the same room.

Be wary of the camera types you get though. most of the available ones these days require cloud connections and an SD card - this type record locally in a loop, and if anything happens they spit it out over the network to your phone and the cloud - you pay for the cloud service. This may be what you want, it's what my parents use happily.

If you get another type, they'll record remotely - I personally use a DVR like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DQ7T573/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_4G8uEbHR39CW7
and all my cameras talk back to that where it sits just recording away. This keeps the data in the house (under the floorboards) and means no cloud service required. But this does require more setup and effort.

IF you have the NVR/DVR you can just put it next to your existing computer and plug the monitor in when you want to see it.

[Edited on 24/2/20 by coyoteboy]

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I've just taken delivery of all the components necessary to build a POE CCTV system. The key to making it work in our situation without an inordinate amount of work is the WIFI bridge system that will fire the signal up to 10km in line of sight. In this case the distance is probably no more than 50 metres.

Over the next few days we'll be working on assembling the kit and mounting the hardware. If anybody is interested in how we get on and the result I'll be happy to share them with you.

Suppose that saves rolling some cable out.

Nicely jammable though, so if the recording device is in the house, you'd best set up signal loss alarms on the cameras. £2 9v battery and relay can produce enough broadband noise to destroy your wifi bridge connection.



[Edited on 5/3/20 by coyoteboy]

I have an existing multiple channel cctv
However I wanted a front door camera to see couriers from my workshop. I was wondering if I could get Ethernet camera to work with some conversation box to my existing coaxial system via some black box that was stable.

Idea on a postcard

I already have the cat 6 cable runs built in to the walls from the rebuild hence the reason I want Ethernet

Help

quote:

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Originally posted by coyoteboy
Suppose that saves rolling some cable out.

Nicely jammable though, so if the recording device is in the house, you'd best set up signal loss alarms on the cameras. £2 9v battery and relay can produce enough broadband noise to destroy your wifi bridge connection.



[Edited on 5/3/20 by coyoteboy]

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Just picked up on this thread.
For your NVR hard drive make sure you use a surveillance rated drive WD and seagate both do them and they are only a couple of quid more. they are designed for continuous use where as a standard hard drive isnt.

It sounds like you have gone the right route with a wifi bridge. Make sure you set them up as a point to point system (base station and outstation) or whatever terminology the equipment uses. Password protect also with a strong password so no one can jump onto it and use your wifi / hack into it. also hide the SSID

going back through the thread about the 100 metre rule for cat5 / 6. This is still used as a benchmark distance to avoid data packet collisions.
devices will still work over 100 metres but the system as a whole could suffer with some data loss.
If you were going above 150m I would definitely use a repeater such as a veracity OUTREACH MAX VOR-ORM-XT

If you get stuck let me know and I'll try to help, hopefully know what I'm doing only been fitting CCTV systems for 30+ years

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy

quote:

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Originally posted by coyoteboy
Suppose that saves rolling some cable out.

Nicely jammable though, so if the recording device is in the house, you'd best set up signal loss alarms on the cameras. £2 9v battery and relay can produce enough broadband noise to destroy your wifi bridge connection.



[Edited on 5/3/20 by coyoteboy]

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Yip I use a Wifi bridge between two houses 200ft apart using a couple of Ubiquiti NanoStations for my internet and it takes only a tiny fraction out of alignment to lose signal so could be quite vulnerable to tampering, they also have many flashing lights... so not very subtle.

It does work through glass though as both "dishes" are indoors pointing at each other. Setting up the software was an absolute nightmare, I almost gave up with it even after watching several Youtube vids.

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yeah I left them inside looking through the glass as they don't look particularly waterproof and it's very windy too, I get 50mb/s with them so fast enough. I suppose some tape would be all it takes to hide the lights and some black or camouflage spray paint to hide them. They have been 100% reliable despite always being on.

What a great forum this is. No matter what the question, somebody on here has the relevant experience and can provide the answers. I am grateful to all of you who have taken the time to offer help. Thank you.

So far, all is going well, the Nano stations are set up in the house and the cameras sending images back to the video recorder. There are no lights on the Nano stations and in any case the one on the workshop will be mounted covertly and unlikely to be spotted..

I realise that nothing is impregnable but anything to make life a bit more difficult for the crooks might encourage them to try their luck somewhere else.

quote:

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Originally posted by mangogrooveworkshop
I have an existing multiple channel cctv
However I wanted a front door camera to see couriers from my workshop. I was wondering if I could get Ethernet camera to work with some conversation box to my existing coaxial system via some black box that was stable.

Idea on a postcard

I already have the cat 6 cable runs built in to the walls from the rebuild hence the reason I want Ethernet

Help

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