Illuminator questions

C

Chapin

Getting comfortable
Oct 5, 2017
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I'm helping a friend set up some cameras. We have a couple that are going to be high and cover a large area. I have a couple of questions about illuminators.

What cable should I run for illuminators? DC cable looks like it get prohibitively large with length (up to 150').

Is 120vac recommended? Are there POE illuminators that are any good? We could run a second cat6 cable for an illuminator.

Are there any favorite IR illuminators with a wide (120ish degree) field of view? We need need to cover about 80'-100' from the cameras.

Thanks.
 
Thanks, I’ll check these out.
can Poe deliver enough power for larger illuminations?
 
Chapin said:
Are there any favorite IR illuminators with a wide (120ish degree) field of view?
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I'm running a few different illuminators, not enough to be an expert on them. Based on my experience, the specs for angle of coverage are balony, and they all have center hotspots, some more than others. Whatever total wattage you decide on, I suggest you get 2 illuminators, each for half the power. You are then able to cover a wider illumination angle and distribute the hotspots at the same time. Hard to give a power recommendation as it depends a lot on the sensitivity of the camera. I'd guess 8 watts as an absolute minimum, likely more with the distance and coverage angle you want.. I posted some test info a few years ago here 4 watt IR illuminator comparison. Since then, only the CMVision IR-40 and Tendelux AI4 have held up. The Jchengs all failed. I also use a Univivi U6R, 6 watts, that has held up well for a few years. You will probably need to use POE+ to supply enough power for the lights. Another thought, to cover the length you're looking for, you could place one or two illuminations halfway down that 80' to 100' stretch. I'm doing that with one camera.
 
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Thanks. It sounds like cat6 is the cable to run. I can do Poe+ over it or even Poe ++ if needed.

Thats a great idea to use a par of illuminations.
 
Perhaps my recent experience might help you. In this thread Finished my off camera IR lighting (part 1) - no more 'White Walkers' you can see my plastic junction box on the side of the tree. Protruding out of that is a 48 volt to 12 volt converter (apparently used in golf carts). A review of Ohm's law made me change my plans to run a 14ga 12 volt line to feed my IR illuminators. I may be using far more illuminators in my plans than you but the principle holds no matter what - and you can't get by MR. Ohm.
My total load was projected to be 8 amps at 12 volts. !4 ga copper wire has a resistance of approximately .5 ohms per 100 foot of run. That would result in a 4 volt drop in the wire :( Totally unacceptable.. Running 115 volts out there was out of the question for me - too big a project to do it correctly. Instead I bought a 48 volt supply on Amazon and that 48 to 12 volt converter (actually it will put out 12 volts with as little as 36 volts input).
By quadrupling the voltage being delivered out there you cut the current by almost 75% (the converter device isn't 100% efficient, but close enough). So now you have approximately 2 amps going through that same wire yielding a 1 volt drop in the 48 volt supply. No problem for the converter to deliver 12 volts with 47 volt on the input. 48 volts is still considered low voltage and is a whole lot safer than running 115.

I Don't think running Cat6 wire to power the (if I understand what you are proposing to do) 2 4 watt illuminators is possible. They would draw .67 amps and the resistance of 300' (150' X 2 conductors) 23 gauge copper wire is approximately 6 ohms giving you a 4 volt drop in the wire. . . Of course you couldn't add anything else out there if you wanted to.
 
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If it's done using PoE remember that we're talking about 48VDC on those 23 gauge conductor, not 12VDC. A camera typically draws about 7 watts with the IR on and can easily be run at 330 feet, 660 is you consider both conductors. ePoE will go to 800 feet, 1600 with both conductors counted, and the only difference is the network speed drops to 10Mbps versus 100Mbps. The DC powered portion runs just fine.
 
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AHHH, that changes everything - I guess you could live with a 1 volt drop. How do you convert to 12 volts or are the illuminators 48 volt devices?
 
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Thanks again. I think I will run a 22awg cat6. This should allow up to 60watt (type 3) or 100 watt (type 4) Poe++. Hopefully a 25 watt illumination will suit my needs with Poe+.

This seems more elegant than running 120vac or a suitable 12dc cable, which seems to get large very quickly with length.
 
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With POE, each side of the DC supply is sent over 2 conductors. About the equivalent of single-conductor 20 gauge for DC purposes.
 
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Those look nice. I don't see the spec for how much current they require. How many watts are they?
 
if i recall, they put out about 4000mw of IR, so figure they draw at most twice that or 6-8w (0.5-.75A @ 12v)
 
sebastiantombs said:
Use a PoE splitter like this Amazon.com: USG PoE Splitter to Power Non-PoE Cameras: Splits Incoming PoE Signal to 12V DC Power + RJ45 Ethernet Video, 10/100Mbps, 2A, 24W, IEEE 802.3af/at, True Plug-&-Play, for HD IP Video Surveillance: Computers & Accessories
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That seems to be out of stock on amazon. I'll look around for one.

Does anyone know it there is a splitter that takes POE+ (30w at) and splits it to RJ45 poe (15w af) network and 15w 12v, to power an illuminator and a poe camera on a single cat cable?
 
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Chapin said:
That seems to be out of stock on amazon. I'll look around for one.

Does anyone know it there is a splitter that takes POE+ (30w at) and splits it to RJ45 poe (15w af) network and 15w 12v, to power an illuminator and a poe camera on a single cat cable?
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Not exactly what you're asking but I use these currently to take take one gigabit line and split it into two 100mb ones. In my case I'm sending POE+ & reg POE down the line and spitting it off to power my power hungry PTZ and a reg cam at the other end. You still need two sufficient POE ports at the originating end though to start off.

tldr: using one physical RJ45 line run to power two cams

edit: not only power them but data transfer too
 
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bradner said:
Not exactly what you're asking but I use these currently to take take one gigabit line and split it into two 100mb ones. In my case I'm sending POE+ & reg POE down the line and spitting it off to power my power hungry PTZ and a reg cam at the other end. You still need two sufficient POE ports at the originating end though to start off.

tldr: using one physical RJ45 line run to power two cams
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That's a cool set of devices.
 
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Discussing resistance of wire and voltage drop especially with DC power is a reminder why AC power is utilized for long distances as it's much more efficient. Regarding voltage drop the POE Line Loss Calculator will also show you there's a difference in the quality of your Cat wire (CCA vs copper). Also, remember it's better to have your active POE splitter near the IR illuminator instead of near your POE switch if you have a choice.
 
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Sybertiger said:
Discussing resistance of wire and voltage drop especially with DC power is a reminder why AC power is utilized for long distances as it's much more efficient. Regarding voltage drop the POE Line Loss Calculator will also show you there's a difference in the quality of your Cat wire (CCA vs copper). Also, remember it's better to have your active POE splitter near the IR illuminator instead of near your POE switch if you have a choice.
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Thanks for that link, very useful!
 
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