24 volt dc security camera system

goatman

10 MW
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Jun 23, 2019
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Location
Surrey, B.C.
looking for a hardwired motion activated night vision/daytime camera for the inside of an excavator that can save the previous 10 seconds of video before it was activated without draining the battery for atleast 72 to 96 hours or filling up a 256G sd card in 16 hours but the electrical system is 24vdc.
duckduckgo search is flooded with 12vdc-24vac, dashcams and wont return what im searching for.

this company might have have the adapter from 24vdc to 12 vdc (but says not suitable for 24v trucks) and if any of you know dashcams basically im thinking of something that does loop recording but saves the 24hr parking monitor activations

if someone breaks into the machine i just want to have footage of who did it without draining the battery over a long weekend
 
I would just use some kind of adapter to get from 24v (not a common one in most current cheap cams) to whatever you wanted.

Like this

Then you can use any of the off-the-shelf cameras that run off usb power. I have a wyse cam that keeps an eye on my doggo's, it is USB and it has an on-board mem card (might be 256) which it has about 2 weeks of constant film. (it can film by alert event, or all the time. I went with all the time because sneaking puppers trying to get out of the yard are what I am gaurding against)
 
I certainly wish you better luck than I / my company have had.

We put in security cameras due to copper / air conditioner theft and general vandalism. Get great footage of people in hoodies, bandanas and ski masks walking around. On the rare chance we get an identifiable person, the cops hardly care... "OK - we'll look into it if we get time." - then they throw it on the bottom of a stack of 100's of other incidents.

On the doubly rare chance they actually do something, there are really no repercussions. I think out of all our incidents, one time we had several hundred feet of 3/0 copper wire [read: expensive industrial gauge] go missing. They found a vagrant in some local camp with the same hoodie / shirt / appearance and several 2 foot sections of suspiciously identical wire. Said they wrote some citation and called it a day. So I doubt anything more ever came of it. If anything, he probably made a couple hundred bucks selling the scrap, some migrant worker/unhoused defense fund stepped in and paid his citation fine, so the city made a hundred bucks and we're out $5,000+ to run a new electric service.

In a few pointers:

- I certainly wouldn't rely on '10 seconds' being enough video to capture any detail. Around here, tweakers will break in, then spend 5 minutes running in a circle or becoming mystified by some shiny object, before going back to what they were doing. If you can find something that saves last 12 or 24 hours, then just continues to overwrite old with new, that might be better.

- You might look into trail cams, deer cams, game cams, etc. While these are typically geared more toward pictures, they often have night / low light vision, higher resolution photos and can run days/weeks on a set of batteries. Believe some can even solar re-charge.

- Be sure what ever you think might get stolen has clear identification / serial numbers and you have records of that. Even in our cases of finding people in possession of essentially the exact same wire / items we had go missing, in the eyes of the law, 'similar' isn't good enough. You'd ideally have documented/photoed serial numbers to match up.

- You might also consider 'air tags' or similar tracking for things you think might go missing. At least around here, saying "My stuff just got stolen, I'm tracking it with an air tag, and I am going to go get it back!" raises a bit more of a response from the police vs having to tell them that you have some blurry image of some guy in a hoodie walking off with some generic/nondescript items. If nothing else, the police will get involved just to make sure you're not going over to kick in the door of someone who "just bought it off craigslist." (yes, be prepared for that, or similar to be the story.)

There are probably a thousand more pointers in various locations on line. But the overall theme is that it will generally take way more than a simple photograph or video of a person doing something to generate any actionable police response. You are going to need a whole list of documented/factual evidence to even begin to 'press charges' and even at that, the police response may be pretty minimal.


Good luck!
 
lol - that is certainly one way! But, I didn't mean to imply 'dealing with the thief directly'. That will almost always lead to a no-win situation... for you.

Honestly, even if you watch somebody carry something away, put it in their truck and start to drive away, the moment you step in and try to do anything, suddenly their story is going to be that they were just leaving church to go donate some time at an orphanage, then go see their terminally ill grandmother and some random guy just happened to give them the 'allegedly stolen' items which they thought they might sell then send the money to starving kids in Africa. Then you are some big brute who came along and beat them for no reason. At least that will be the likely story to the cops and certainly to any jury involved! ...and that is probably 'best case'. Worst case, they just turn around with a gun and start shooting.

I did kind of cut back for brevity when I mentioned saying, "My stuff just got stolen, I'm tracking it with an air tag, and I am going to go get it back!" raises a bit more of a response from the police." Though I did say, " If nothing else, the police will get involved just to make sure you're not going over to kick in the door of someone who "just bought it off craigslist." (yes, be prepared for that, or similar to be the story.)"

The idea is that the police will 'generally' respond to that, take your statement, then they would go to the address in question and make contact. (possibly with you a couple blocks away to make any positive IDs on items or people if you were a direct witness.)
 
I have worked with managing security and as security ::thinks about it:: heck, my adoptive father was an insurance adjuster. My brother a criminal... I have been around this problem for ages...

Best advice, get good insurance, adding camera's will reduce the cost, but insurance generally is less costly than other things.

Get camera's they are not all that expensive and there are options that can be applied. Hit me in a pm if you want more specific instruction on that side.

Lastly. Believe it or not, once insurance agents have been contacted and you are looking at the risk analysis they should have available for you. You have some questions to answer.

Steady state surveillance is a no brainer. Camera's are always going to pay for themselves in a year, more often the cost reduction will cover the cost of the camera' s in your first payment. This is a newish statement, when I first installed security cameras (good ones) the ROI was about 14 months, because camera's were bloody expensive. and that was with vhs tapes that are a whole other kettle of fish. I have security on my shop that is not expensive, I put up a set of webcams and paid for a policy bi-annual first payment covered the full 3 cams I had installed (It was a 3 pack found out sale for 20 bucks) and I am getting that discount over and over.

For a job site that has between 10k and 100k of easily stolen materials you are in a much higher bracket than I am (I have a 12x12 shop and a wee office that has room for a short desk and a chair. ) So your policy will cost more, and since I see you have already filed complaints with law enforcement, you are in a high risk area for destructive materials gathering (stealing wire) so your bracket is like, empire state building hire than mine.

Look into a security company. Not a 24x7 place, local companies will drive by x/hr and punch a clock. They have radio's not firearms and the entire job is "Observe and report" This service will deter theft more than cams, but probably honestly less than a dog, but less likely to poop in the walkways. That service will drop your bracket quit a bit, if you get a company that will take motion/id alerts from the camera's it will drop your cost even more.

Now you have simple math to deal with.

Loss from theft=x

Loss of business/work from theft=y

cost of theft is xy (bugger I can't get a delta) T so x times Y and the modifier of delta T (not gonna explain the math, but the more that is stolen the bigger the business and loss of work impact is)

You have theft events 1-Z times per annum. Resulting in Theft events x number of times per year in losses.

Lets call that outcome Arseholes

Do arseholes cost more than insurance? it is we, you can figure out how much the arseholes bother you...

::blinks:: holy hot smoking damn batman, i could hear my old man talking to a client on the phone in my head, He had a less funny way of putting things, but he had the same patter from when I was first adopted until he left sales and went into adjusting in '86... Serious flashbacks.

Camera's will stop people just about as effectively as hanging signs from a security company will. If it "protected by bullshit digital presence company" that is slightly more effective than an unlocked door, if you hang a sign saying that you have on-site people, it will actually dissuade most the amateurs. More effective is to put in a dog, but.. again, poop, and in most states is a higher liability than the thefts. So you are left either finding the most potent local criminal group and bribing them. Or adding low level deterrents up to the point of it costing as much as the thefts.

Best of luck,
 
i dont think insurance is worth it and calling police is a complete waste of time. theres no parking at this site so i ride my euc to work and i keep about $1500 worth of tools in my cab, the shoring crew has a bunch of ex addicts working for them, nice guys but i just want people to think theres a camera in there as a deterrent and i can mention the footage goes right into cloud storage.
i use to keep campers on my mining claims and id lock the camper door with a tiny $1 lock from the dollar store to keep the honest people out and thieves could break in easy without ripping the door off

Hey Nic, big election this year:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
Oh, if you want a deterrent, get a hang from the rearview dashcam, and glue some lil camera-looking bits and bobs to it, make a cluster wire and shove it in the back, and put a blinky light on it. Bob's yer uncle.. you have re-created the "deterrent" camera that I have seen in a bajillion lil quicky stops... fwiw, it doesn't deter people.

I did security for a bit, it is not about securing the wall, it is not about keeping the huns out, it is abour risk mitigation. Interior contents policy's can be had for up to a million dollars for about 10-15/month.

So, 120/year ish and that is if you just go grab a policy, hang it with a bipolicy package (like I have home/office/car with one company, and made them bid up against a company, The company was making an offer for like 90/year, my new million dollar interior contents got hung off the existing policy and it like $3/month. paid annually.

If you look real hard there are some third tier insurance companies that will make a cheaper package for ya, but they will fight against paying you and then if you get a payout, it is time for a new policy.

Like I said, you can't stop a junkie from needing a fix, you can't stop a tweaker from breaking into your whatever to see what is in there. You can make it so that when they steal shit you can afford to get it back without killing yourself and with minimal work down-time.

I had a high coverage because I had a suburban that I moved other peoples servers in on a near weekly basis. I have not had a ticket in like 30 years, have not even bumped a bumper. But, Cali freeways are what they are.

I have had like 6 windows broken out. I think the most they ever got was a couple of battery backups and I am hear to tell you, if someone walked away carrying both of them I would hold the door. Both were heading off to the office to see if I could make em work again, and between the 2 they were easily 300 pounds. Window got replaced and they bought new battery backup units for my client... with a 100$ deductible. No hassle, client loved me for the new hardware, Glass guy loved me because I keep coming back. I never worried about it, because I don't care if they break the window, just don't jack up the steering console, that is a pain in the arse to get fixed.
 
biden
the blink is nfg for this
i didnt understand fully that when they say you dont need a subscription in order for it to work that you have to have an internet connection in order for the sync2 module to communicate to the doorbell camera. they dont communicate directly with each other, if the power goes at your house and you lose internet connection, Blink quits working. i could go throw it in the boat and wire it to the 12v system but again, power goes out and i lose the marina wifi, it will quit working even though it is still being powered by the 12v system
 
So, camera didn't work... What are you hoping for? if you get vid you said the cops won't do anything.

If you are in a rough enough area, figure out which gangs territory you are in and offer them a few bucks a week to make sure your shit don't get taken.

I know it is distasteful to most, but I hate shopping, I have happily paid off locals to reduce the crime rate.. or at least aim it at someone elses ride...

Failing that, here is a suggestion if you do *NOT* want a deterrent camera.

It runs off usb, does not have an on-board battery. Cross plug that wire feed to a battery bank that supports charging while service is in use, I can bang out a parts list to make a small project box that you can stash somewhere in your truck, it will monitor the battery bank and when that is getting low it will charge it off your truck feed. Over a long period you will have a flat battery , but I have used one of these stashed in a chunk of wood with a 4200mAh battery bank, Lasted about 4 days. I later set up a small solar charger on another location and that was responsive a month later because it was just barely enough solar panel to charge up the 15-20% usage overnight.

If you want a detterent you will want one that responds to movement and allows programming. at a quick look this should do that job.

I don't know if that one has the audible alert that recording has started. I have seen a few that actually read out what they are doing.

Some support sim chips, and there are a couple companies that do low-volume data access (not for viewing but for communication back to base that the alarm has gone off)

The board I use to manage little battery banks costs like 5 bucks, I have a couple around my bench because I am a giant nerd. Only thing I know I am out of is project boxes to put these into. I do however have an empty Milwaukee branded box, originally held drill bits, I have set those up with a fairly large capacitor and bare copper tape across the part you grip to slid the lock open... It was a bit of a trickle I imagine. I did not shock myself...

So, if you want a circuit diagram I will provide, including where you can pick up the components, all in should be less than a cnote
 
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