2015-09-04

Man cave: Day 4

Just the electrician today - finalising all of the sockets -  networking, power, lighting, coax, speaker cable, alarm cable, all in place ready for insulation and plasterboard on Monday.

No sign of building inspector today, and bricks not expected until Tuesday at earliest, but I expect that Monday will really start to feel like a proper room at last.

I have also decided to scrap the cheap PAL CCTV system. It was cheap, under £300 for a DVR and 4 cameras, with auto day/night. They are a cheap and cheerful indoor system that is easy to install and available all over the place. What I have gone for is a vivotek IP camera which does 1280x800, and is a proper outdoor IP camera with PoE for a bit over £200 each. It seems pretty good, but I have yet to install them properly. The camera, case, and mounting are all very sturdy and look very good. I'll post more on that over the weekend when I set some up. If they work well here, we may upgrade the main office too.

Today's picture is where I plan to put a TV, so 4 cat6 network points, 8 power sockets, speaker cables and 4 satellite coax cables.

13 comments:

  1. Sounds like it's too late now, but if not then worth looking at the Unifi Video stuff (https://www.ubnt.com/unifi-video/unifi-video-camera/) - the free NVR software is really nice, and in terms of value for money it's hard to beat. Worth noting that after a theft incident at a place I'd set one of these up it was described by a Police person as "one of the best systems they'd ever seen"...

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    1. The unify stuff seems to be quite good, and looks about the same quality as this one. I would say the housing for this one looks better and has better cable routing (can be routes such that you cannot cut it). I'll post more in detail on it, with pictures, once I have one on the wall.

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    2. Ooh, unifi do a full HD one too - interesting.

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    3. Yep, we've got a load of UniFi cameras, mutts nuts... just works as with all Unifi kit.

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  2. I would have said the same... Unifi kit is great, the software and apps are fab.

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  3. From my point of view (author of open protocols CCTV software) the unifi kit is very proprietary, with very little chance of anything else talking to them direct. Makes them useless for streaming video services.
    (full disclosure, my employer supplied the Vivotek cameras)

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    Replies
    1. They support rtsp/H264 type stuff as far as I know - should work fine for most streaming software.... However.... I believe In later versions these streams are generated by their appliance and disabled on the cameras. So you can *kinda* use them with something else too... Kinda.

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  4. Define 'building inspector'. Under what authority? etc. I'd not bother with it. Yes I am a rebel.

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    Replies
    1. Err, man from council to get work meets building regulations!

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    2. Yep, he does need to get it done. If only for when he wants to sell the place...

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  5. I thought there were physical separation requirements for runs of high voltage and low voltage cables?

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    Replies
    1. They're all actually 'low voltage', even the mains cables but yes, I think you're right, and they might not meet the layout requirements for cables inside a wall either, though that's hard to tell without a tape measure...

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    2. I believe the sparky knows what he is doing, and all cables have separate holes in wood and plasterboard for network and power, for example. The floor box has separate trunking as well.

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