At first thought, the very idea of drilling holes in the walls of your house to run video and power cables for a security camera system might seem a bit difficult and tedious, but with a little bit of information and planning it can turn into an enjoyable and ultimately rewarding project. At times, it is very easy to install a security camera system in your home.
First you will want to find where your roof meets the walls of your house. This will prove to be a great location for your security cameras because it will shield the cameras from the outside elements, such as rain, snow, wind and the sun. Another good reason to place cameras in a location such as near the roof is that not only will it provide you with a good area view of your new security camera system, but it will also reduce the risk of vandalism.
Another really good advantage of placing cameras near your roof is when you are running video and power cables it makes the job that much easier since there is usually a small gap or hole between the roof and the wall where cables can be run. This in turn will eliminate the need to drill even more holes in to your home.
Once you have your location picked out and your cameras in place you will want to double-check the coverage of each camera for an optimal view. They do have special CCTV design software which can help you choose optimal camera locations. There are demo versions of such software that will enable you to import your site plan, add cameras and different walls, choose the coverage you would like, get an angle view of each camera, find the required lens focal length, and even create 3D mock ups. Good planning of your new security camera system is very important and will ultimately save you a lot of time and headaches.
Cabling is another important factor to consider when choosing your properly placed security camera system. The best idea is to use the industry standard when it comes to cabling, RG59 Siamese cable. It is the type of cable that has been used to install many CCTV systems. The RG59 Siamese cable has one video cable and one 2-wire power cable (positive and negative), thus it’s name, Siamese.
Soon you will need to find a point of entrance from the outside of your home to the inside for the cabling. Most homes have some sort of attic which is an ideal location to run your RG59 cables. From the attic you’ll want to designate one area for the set up of your DVR (digital video recorder) and also for your monitor.
Once you have designated an area or a room for the location of your DVR and monitor you’ll want to bring all of the cables to this room from the attic.
If your RG 59 cables came with BNC connectors already attached to the line then you are ready to connect the cabling to your digital video recorder. If the cables came without the BNC connectors already attached then you will need to crimp each end on to the cabling and then connect it to your DVR.
When it comes to the power options for your new security camera system you have two choices. You can run each power line separately into an outlet using pig tails and an AC adapter. Or you can get a power supply box and plug all of the power lines into the power supply box and at this point you would only have one power line that you would need to go to an outlet. Keep in mind though that your monitor will also need power. So at this point you would have all of your lines ran and the power supply figured out so all you need to do is power your digital video recorder (DVR) and your monitor.
A power supply box is very ideal for many reasons and one of them being that your power to the security camera system is centralized to one outlet, and if there was ever an issue it is more easily diagnosed and corrected versus having the cabling ran to different power outlets.
At this point if all of your cabling has been ran properly and you have connected it to your power supply box or to your power outlets, and you have also powered up your digital video recorder (DVR) and your monitor it’s about time to start playing with your DVR and learning the functions of the unit. You can set it to record continuously or set it up where your cameras start recording when they detect motion, or you can even set them up to continuously record between certain times of the day or night. You can even take your new security camera system to another level and look into installing access controls which can help you take your home system to another level of protection.
Another option you have with your new security camera system is being able to view your cameras remotely either from a smart phone or from any computer or laptop with an internet connection. This function may take a little playing around with your new digital video recorder to get it all set up properly but this too is a task that is well worth the effort.
Think about it for a minute. You just got your brand new security camera system all set up and now you’d like to go away for the weekend and not have to worry about the home front. You have everything all set up and you bring your laptop along which you can get an Internet connection from just about anywhere with it. Now you will be able to log into your digital video recorder and view live footage of your newly secured home and you are even able to play back footage from any particular time that you choose. You are now also able to view footage from a particular camera on a wide screen single format or you can choose to switch views to see multiple cameras at the same time.
So this concludes my opinion on setting up a security camera system for your home.
