Axton PoE Illuminator review

[biggen]

I've been running a LPR cam for a few months now and have been extremely happy with it. Daytime plate recognition is damn near 100%. However, night time recognition was much lower. I was getting < 75% plate recognition at night. I shoot out to about ~115 feet using a 5241-Z12. What I've found is that plate reflection quality varies wildly. Even if a plate that reads perfectly well during the daytime it can be nearly invisible at night using the built-in IR illuminators of the camera itself. Even the tag on my vehicle which is in good shape, doesn't show up at night on my cameras for some reason.

So I decided to check around and see what IR illuminators were on the market that may be more powerful than the camera's illuminators. I came across Axton Tech. They have an absolute plethora of IR products that can be powered all kinds of different ways and have small to massive coverage ranges. They are a USA based outfit that builds all their products in the USA. I called them up and spoke to an engineer at length about the issue and explained the distances involved and what I was trying to accomplish. I told him I really only wanted a PoE model illuminator and wanted the smallest one that would be able to do the job. Because I'm nearly fully zoomed with my Z12 at ~110', the width of coverage is also quite narrow. Below is an example of my horizontal FOV which is less than one full car length:



He recommended their AT-11E-S line of illuminators. Specifically the 10 degree version that has a maximum range of nearly 550'. He did warn me that aligning that emitter with my camera may be a bit difficult because the IR beam of that model is so narrow. He said that at ~110 feet, the beam width would be approx 20 feet wide. I didn't think this would be an issue since my HFOV is less than a full car length so that is under the 20' quoted for the beam width at that distance. He also said that normally they wouldn't recommend such a powerful illuminator for such a short range because it could "wash out" the targets because it's so strong. But since I'm using a fast shutter at night (1/1000) he didn't think it would be an issue for this particular use.

So I went ahead and purchased the illuminator recommended via B&H. These illuminators are dropped shipped directly from Axton out of Utah. They actually build them to order and the engineer I was speaking with is the one that actually built mine. A few days later I got it. Here are a few shots of the packaging and product.



First off, its a damn well made piece of equipment. The entire back side is one giant heat sink. Its got some weight to it as well. The only plastic piece is the tinted window (the white sticker covers and protects it for shipping) behind which the three IR emitters are located. The rest of the unit is powder coated metal/aluminum. The PoE version comes with two cables. One is the Cat5 cable that plugs into a PoE switch. It comes with a male RJ45 already terminated. This is a bit of a strange decision on their part if I'm being honest. The pigtail is only 6 feet long. I'd guess than 99.9999% of installed applications have the PoE power source further than 6 feet away. It would have made more sense to terminate it into a female RJ45 like most IPs cams are done. So I had to purchase a female-to-female RJ45 coupler in order to connect my Cat5e cable coming from my switch to the illuminator. The second pigtail controls one of three ways to make the illuminator work: Always on, On/Off with the built-in photocell, or On/Off via an external trigger (e.g. camera trigger). I went with the option to wire it up so that it uses the built-in photocell since that was the easiest.

Here is a shot of it installed along with the overview cam and the dedicated LPR cam as well as a shot that shows the IR at dusk.



So now the results. How does it perform? Well, it performs so well, that I had to step up the shutter speed to 1/2000 and even gain down to 0 - 40 because my first plates that were captured were washed out and waaaay too "hot". I was lucky in that I aimed it right when I installed it so I didn't have to do any tweaking or moving. Here is a plate I got last night (capture in OpenALPR) with the Axton unit, for example, that I've never seen before at night with the built-in 5241-Z12 emitters:



You may be saying "What a minute! That looks like crap! I can't even hardly read it!". Well OpenALPR was able to read it. Lets see what it looks like in the day time and you will understand why the built-in camera emitters never picked it up at night:



It has one of those damn tinted plate covers. I have absolutely no records of this plate at night UNTIL I installed the Axton unit. In fact, I'm showing more of these "first time" plates at night with the Axton unit. And that is what i‘m judging this product on. Making existing plates that my Z12 was picking up on its own a bit clearer is fine, but not worth the purchase. If that’s all it could do, I’d be disappointed. However, if I am now picking up plates that the Z12 couldn't, well then that was the whole reason behind buying it in the first place. I'm am now getting those first time plates with the Axton unit at night that I didn’t before.

Here is the typical quality of night time plates I'm getting now with the Axton unit.



Just to wrap up. Power draw on this PoE model is listed as 11w. I've found it actually a bit higher according to my switch stats that show it drawing 13.75w when powered and 1w in idle. It does generate some heat which is the reason the heatsink makes up such a major portion of its bulk. I wouldn't want to run this 24x7 with sunlight beating on it. I could see overheating being an issue if so.

Overall I'm extremely happy with the purchase and wouldn't hesitate to buy from them again. I'll update this thread if I ever have any issues in the future.

 

[Teken]

Awesome review, what is the warranty for this product?

 

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Awesome review, what is the warranty for this product?

They say lifetime warranty: AXTON Lifetime warranty - IR Illuminators, White & Hybrid LED Lighting

They are easy to get a hold of and talk to so I have good faith, if an issue arises, they would take care of it. This is polar opposite to the emitters you’d buy on Amazon which are essentially disposable once the Amazon return window closes since they are all Chinese made.

 

[tigerwillow1]

This is a serious piece of equipment compared to the chinese illuminators I use. I have one confusion: From the review I thought you got the 10 degree version, then the box label say 90 degrees. Is the label wrong?

 

[biggen]

This is a serious piece of equipment compared to the chinese illuminators I use. I have one confusion: From the review I thought you got the 10 degree version, then the box label say 90 degrees. Is the label wrong?

Ha! Well I screwed up when I originally ordered it and ordered the wrong version. I had to send it back and do an exchange which was painless. I just didn’t include the screwup in the review. I’ll edit the original post. Thanks for catching that! Just fixed it with the correct image.

 

[Teken]

I was also curious why you decided to mount the IR emitter on the corner vs directly underneath the LPR? Were you hedging your bets that the focused beam to obtain the best FOV of the emitter needed to be backset from a different angle?!?

 

[biggen]

I was also curious why you decided to mount the IR emitter on the corner vs directly underneath the LPR? Were you hedging your bets that the focused beam to obtain the best FOV of the emitter needed to be backset from a different angle?!?

The Axton engineer told me that the IR source should always be mounted away from the camera for best results. He said this increases "scatter" which leads itself to better IR reflectivity. He said it doesn't need to be more than a couple feet at most. I'm not sure it would matter a whole lot for this purpose though since it so powerful anyway at this short distance.

 

[Teken]

The Axton engineer told me that the IR source should always be mounted away from the camera for best results. He said this increases "scatter" which leads itself to better IR reflectivity. He said it doesn't need to be more than a couple feet at most. I'm not sure it would matter a whole lot for this purpose though since it so powerful anyway at this short distance.

Appreciate the insight and agree if it was mounted directly below the LPR camera I don't suspect it would have impacted the performance of the IR emitter. Would it be possible for you to take a picture at night so we can see how the IR LEDS appear at night via its black cover?

 

[biggen]

Appreciate the insight and agree if it was mounted directly below the LPR camera I don't suspect it would have impacted the performance of the IR emitter. Would it be possible for you to take a picture at night so we can see how the IR LEDS appear at night via its black cover?

Sure I can try tonight. It looks basically the same as any IR emitter on any other camera. Just a slight red "glow" from the individual diodes. There are three in this unit. You can't even see them from more than 15 feet away since they blend into the background ambient light.

 

[wittaj]

I would also wonder at the IR power of that thing if you could get IR bleed if you had it directly next to it?

It is interesting how each of us get different responses to the same camera. Here is my plate capture from 175 out with the Z12. My angle is about 40 degrees vertical, 45 degrees horizontal. Camera is 35 feet above street at this location. No additional IR and no ambient street lights. Maybe the angle has much more to do with it than we give credit to because mine is fairly offset.

 

[Teken]

I would also wonder at the IR power of that thing if you could get IR bleed if you had it directly next to it?

It is interesting how each of us get different responses to the same camera. Here is my plate capture from 175 out with the Z12. My angle is about 40 degrees vertical, 45 degrees horizontal. Camera is 35 feet above street at this location. No additional IR and no ambient street lights. Maybe the angle has much more to do with it than we give credit to because mine is fairly offset.

I don't think it really matters because you literally have the Money Shot

 

[biggen]

I would also wonder at the IR power of that thing if you could get IR bleed if you had it directly next to it?

It is interesting how each of us get different responses to the same camera. Here is my plate capture from 175 out with the Z12. My angle is about 40 degrees vertical, 45 degrees horizontal. Camera is 35 feet above street at this location. No additional IR and no ambient street lights. Maybe the angle has much more to do with it than we give credit to because mine is fairly offset.

You may be right. I'd have to take it down and mount it directly under the camera and see how that effected the images but I'm not terrible inclined to do that since it works perfectly as is. I'd hate to fix what isn't broken at this point.

To be fair, the camera IR does a spectacular job on its own. It's just those plates that have those tinted covers or are extremely mangled or dirty that I'd miss at night with the on-board camera emitters. I've yet to miss a plate now since I've been using this Axton emitter for two weeks or so. Every morning I go back through all the cars that passed by the house during the night and, if they have plates on them, I get them all now. Its quite the difference maker.

 

[Teken]

You may be right. I'd have to take it down and mount it directly under the camera and see how that effected the images but I'm not terrible inclined to do that since it works perfectly as is. I'd hate to fix what isn't broken at this point.

To be fair, the camera IR does a spectacular job on its own. It's just those plates that have those tinted covers or are extremely mangled or dirty that I'd miss at night with the on-board camera emitters. I've yet to miss a plate now since I've been using this Axton emitter for two weeks or so. Every morning I go back through all the cars that passed by the house during the night and, if they have plates on them, I get them all now. Its quite the difference maker.

Does your area see those paper plates?? If so what has been the results of capturing those types of license plates??

 

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Does your area see those paper plates?? If so what has been the results of capturing those types of license plates??

Now that’s a good question. We do have them but I don’t recall seeing any at night. I’ll go back and take a look...

 

[wittaj]

You may be right. I'd have to take it down and mount it directly under the camera and see how that effected the images but I'm not terrible inclined to do that since it works perfectly as is. I'd hate to fix what isn't broken at this point.

To be fair, the camera IR does a spectacular job on its own. It's just those plates that have those tinted covers or are extremely mangled or dirty that I'd miss at night with the on-board camera emitters. I've yet to miss a plate now since I've been using this Axton emitter for two weeks or so. Every morning I go back through all the cars that passed by the house during the night and, if they have plates on them, I get them all now. Its quite the difference maker.

Yeah, I am not saying to try it, I am saying that I think not having it right on the camera is what makes it work!

It is fascinating that you get plates at night with those covers on now - I would have thought IR light would have reflected too much. But that is awesome!

Was wondering about the temp paper plates as well.

 

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Quickly browsing my plate records I only see one paper plate on a truck for the entire month of February. I only saw it pass twice and both were in the daytime. I’d guess id probably miss a paper plate if it came by at night since it’s not reflective. I’ve been checking every morning and matching up my BI recordings at night in front of my house with my OpenALPR records and so far they match which tells me I haven’t seen a paper plate at night yet.

 

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I added a night time shot (20 minutes or so after sunset). I'm not sure how representative it is though. My cellphone camera see the IR as purple where in real life to the human eye they are red. They also show those weird "halos" around the emitters both on the camera IR and the Axton IR. Those aren't there either to the human eye.

I could probably tilt the emitter to the left just a bit (looking at it from the front like I took the picture) judging from how the 3 emitters aren’t totally in line with the emitters from the camera. But it all works now as is...

 

[sebastiantombs]

If it ain't broke, don't fixt it!

 

[wittaj]

If it ain't broke, don't fixt it!

Yep....I am guilty of oh I think I can improve this...and nope. If it works, don't mess with it LOL.

A month ago or so I thought - hey if I stretch this Z12 to 210 feet I could lessen my angle and be more straight on. Looked GREAT during the day. Nighttime got very few plates...

Then I had to re-adjust back to where it was pointing and these things can be a pain to fine tune point them at the zoom we run LOL.

 

[wittaj]

@biggen - does that other camera next to the LPR or maybe another camera show how tight the IR is coming off that unit. I would be curious to see how pinpointed it is compared to some of the consumer junk we have all bought and is too scattered.