Question: Question for contractors and others. Help mounting security cameras.

AUDub

Hall of Fame
Dec 4, 2013
16,258
5,930
187
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
I managed to get a bit done before the rain slammed me again.

Measured carefully to avoid hitting any studs as I drilled.



Drilled a 1 inch hole with a 6 inch spade bit. Couldn't find my 14. Luckily the 6 was long enough. Put a 1 foot piece of conduit in and hammed it in far enough that the LB body will be almost flush. This is before I had it hammered in all the way. Also ringed it with silicon caulk.



No picture yet, but the LB body is cemented into place with solvent. Got chased in by the rain right on time to watch UF. Will get back to it in a minute and attach my 7 foot run to the eaves, an LR body up top with a 1 foot piece of conduit to the camera. Then I'll mount the camera, fish cable, point and call it a day.
 

AUDub

Hall of Fame
Dec 4, 2013
16,258
5,930
187
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
So one camera is done. Not bad looking and I didn't jack up my house in the process. Three to go.

Here was the LB body after I cemented it onto the conduit going into my basement.



And here it is as I'm letting the cement harden after attaching the 7 foot run.



Here's the run itself.



Time to go fishing. One out.




Didn't bother to fish tape the last foot of conduit.



Mounted my camera, connected the cable and stuffed them back into the conduit. Capped the conduit off with some duct seal (every tool box needs it, along with WD40 and duct tape).



And we're done. I still need to adjust the aim a tad, and for some odd reason it's an hour fast.. (It's a full color 720p camera but it's in IR mode, for those thinking it is a black/white camera.)



I think I've earned a break and a beer.
 

seebell

Hall of Fame
Mar 12, 2012
11,919
5,105
187
Gurley, Al
Last edited:

AUDub

Hall of Fame
Dec 4, 2013
16,258
5,930
187
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
Looks like you're doing a darn good job!! Thanks for the pictures.

If you're drilling through alot of framing members an auger bit beats a spade bit. Once started it pulls itself through the wood and is long enough to drill multiple pieces. Usually what electricians use for rough in. Will break your arm if you're not careful.

https://www.lowes.com/pl/Auger-bits-Augers-Outdoor-tools-equipment-Outdoors/4294612602

Thank you. That's the kind of advice I need. First real project going through the exterior walls of the house. Luckily, the spade bit went through well and resulted in a nice clean hole, but I'll probably go snag one before I move on to the next camera.

Three to go. One will be simple and basically a duplicate of this install. One will be semi difficult but I think I can pull it off without a hitch. The last will be trouble. Whatever idjit installed my dish put it in a spot that will make things very difficult. Already makes replacing my floodlights pretty frightening.
 

AUDub

Hall of Fame
Dec 4, 2013
16,258
5,930
187
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
I managed to get the server to play nice. Couldn't key it off my door lock, but I can key it off of motion. Still some fine tuning to do as the occasional car still sets off an alert, but I'm now texted a screen grab. Here are my kids getting home from school this afternoon.




(my neighbors and I are apparently having a battle of wills to see who can leave decorations up the longest)
 

bama_wayne1

All-American
Jun 15, 2007
2,700
16
57
Looks good. I have a auger type drill bit with a 4 foot fiber shaft that bends and can be used as a fish once you are through. I know it's hindsight but did you consider converting the coax to cat 5 and using your home's Ethernet to take the signal to your DVR?
 

AUDub

Hall of Fame
Dec 4, 2013
16,258
5,930
187
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
Looks good. I have a auger type drill bit with a 4 foot fiber shaft that bends and can be used as a fish once you are through. I know it's hindsight but did you consider converting the coax to cat 5 and using your home's Ethernet to take the signal to your DVR?
The thought had occurred to me, but either way new runs would have been required and rather than drop the money on a Siamese to Cat5 balun I decided to simply stick with the cable provided. Even if I do need to switch in the future, fishing it will be a cinch thanks to the conduit.
 

seebell

Hall of Fame
Mar 12, 2012
11,919
5,105
187
Gurley, Al
do you plan on spying when your daughter's date walks her up to the front door late at night?:eek:
 
Last edited:

CrimsonForce

Hall of Fame
Dec 20, 2012
12,757
94
67
I bought a standalone home security device called Canary. Very simple to set up and use. Streams live video and you can also go back and look at any time in the past. I think it was around $150. Nothing fancy like AUDubs setup but it meets my basic needs..
 

cbi1972

Hall of Fame
Nov 8, 2005
18,139
1,295
182
51
Birmingham, AL
I managed to get the server to play nice. Couldn't key it off my door lock, but I can key it off of motion. Still some fine tuning to do as the occasional car still sets off an alert, but I'm now texted a screen grab. Here are my kids getting home from school this afternoon.
Does your software let you define regions of your field of view to ignore?
 

CrimsonForce

Hall of Fame
Dec 20, 2012
12,757
94
67
I have a friend that uses Arlo. Sounds similar. Where does it store it? In the cloud?
Yea. It supposedly has a strong encryption but you know how that is. If someone really wants to hack into I'm sure they could..
 
Last edited:

AUDub

Hall of Fame
Dec 4, 2013
16,258
5,930
187
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
So I'm still noodling with the project. One camera, the most difficult, remains to be installed. I've busied myself by trying to better interface it with my home automation system. I have a Mi Casa Verde Vera that uses ZWave to operate my lights, thermostats and door locks. I want to key my floods to come on during the evening when the cameras detected motion and have them go off after about 15 minutes. Easily done but for one thing: the Lorex system does not play nice with a home automation system. It will not spit out those motion alerts except as an email. So I had to get creative.

Now, in my first pick, there's a server to the right of the TV. I receive e-mails from the Lorex upon motion detection, and the Vera can activate scenes or devices in response to HTTP calls. What I ended up doing was setting up a Thunderbird mail client on that server, and had the Lorex also send those emails to it. There are certain add-ones for Thunderbird that will filter the body of an email for certain characters. If the filter catches them, it can be set up to run a script. I created a simple script for each camera with curl, the Linux equivalent of wget, and they send an HTTP call to the Vera. On Vera I simulated motion sensors for each of the cameras and set up a scene to have the floods come on for 15 minutes when they're tripped.

Seems to work like a charm but I'm having to mess with the sensitivity and threshold values again.
 

Bazza

TideFans Legend
Oct 1, 2011
35,577
21,205
187
New Smyrna Beach, Florida
Thanks for the update, AUDub.....I wouldn't have the knowledge to do what you are doing but appreciate all the same your creativity and resourcefulness.

Quick question......wouldn't having a motion detector for each flood also make them come on when needed? Perhaps even in conjunction with your cameras, providing sensitivity and range settings are dialed in?
 

AUDub

Hall of Fame
Dec 4, 2013
16,258
5,930
187
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
Thanks for the update, AUDub.....I wouldn't have the knowledge to do what you are doing but appreciate all the same your creativity and resourcefulness.

Quick question......wouldn't having a motion detector for each flood also make them come on when needed? Perhaps even in conjunction with your cameras, providing sensitivity and range settings are dialed in?
I have a few wireless PIR sensors set up on the interior of my home so lights don't get left on. PIR would be a good option for the floods, but there's no way to get it to demand a record event and I'd have to purchase a few more anyway. The cameras can be more easily zoned too.
 

New Posts

Latest threads

TideFans.shop : 2024 Madness!

TideFans.shop - Get YOUR Bama Gear HERE!”></a>
<br />

<!--/ END TideFans.shop & item link \-->
<p style= Purchases made through our TideFans.shop and Amazon.com links may result in a commission being paid to TideFans.