Need to Network a 300'x350' outdoor area?

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paradoxblue

Gawd
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Jan 4, 2006
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We are in the process of launching a new paintball field. and part of this plan will eventually include area wide security cameras, HD preferebly, for security as well as for people not playing to view on screens. And a PA/music system throughout the field.

This will be all out doors. and the area is roughly 300'x350' I will be running 120ac power to many area's so I can power repeaters or switches where needed, but will need access to network plugs pretty much 100% of the square footage.

I believe I could safely run CAT6 cable up to 150' ?? ((someone confirm the max range on cat6 outdoors please?) so I was thinking of mapping the field in a 150'x150' grid. putting switches at every location which I could than spider out from.

I'm looking for help, and confirmation if something like this would work? we are definetly not rich so would be working on a DIY budget. I had thought of Fibre but don't believe it would be cost effective.

Also looking for help picking reliable 12 port switch. These would all be in water proof housings, and would prefer gigabit. As I'd be running a few HD camera's etc.

At the same time, does anyone know of a decent IP based PA/speaker system I could run?

Thank you for any help/opinions on this.

Shawn

EDIT:
I should mention I'm looking at a camera similair to this
http://www.ipcam-central.com/IPCC-MPO720W-p/ipcc-mpo720w.htm
and although all the switch locations would have power. I'd prefer to run all the Camera's off POE. If I could get a switch able to support this internally?

thanks
 
For switches, wireless, and IP cameras, check out Ubiquiti. They have all the gear on their site that you would need for this project. Also, try asking on their forums. They will have lots of guys with experience with grounding outdoor gear and protecting it from the elements.
 
Thanks.

Can anyone confirm the distance I can make cat6 travel outdoors? I'm hearing 150' others are saying 600'.... if it's 600' for real, than It saves me a crap load. I can run everything off one central location.

Thank you
 
Jesus, this site that you pasted is VERY EXPENSIVE.

You can safely run cat5-6 up to 100 meters (consider from the switch to the ip camera).

Buy a normal cheap POE switch, run the cables and then buy this camera : http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2-0-...-Dome-Camera-1080P-IP-CAMERA-2/538093149.html

It is a true 1080p camera, it does 1080p@30fps, and its picture quality in daylight is superb/awesome.

Also its really small, almost like a CD with a golf ball on it.

It only minus its that it is a only day camera, its performance at night is bad :(

Hope that helps.
 
Day is okay. I plan to have flood lights near the cameras on motion sensors for added effect. may not be a great picture.. but meh.
I will be running a few night vision camera's but those are more for actual night security rather than in play watching.

That camera's nearly the same price as the one I linked :)

Thanks for confirming the 100m thing. I'm starting to find that answer everywhere.
Seeing as how this will be in a wide open field. There will not be much for interference, the POE is the only real big deal. If it's covered I'm set.

Need a 64+ port POE switch now. :)
 
paradoxblue said:
Day is okay. I plan to have flood lights near the cameras on motion sensors for added effect. may not be a great picture.. but meh.
I will be running a few night vision camera's but those are more for actual night security rather than in play watching.

That camera's nearly the same price as the one I linked :)

Thanks for confirming the 100m thing. I'm starting to find that answer everywhere.
Seeing as how this will be in a wide open field. There will not be much for interference, the POE is the only real big deal. If it's covered I'm set.

Need a 64+ port POE switch now. :)
Click to expand...

The original camera you posted is very inferior to the one i linked (its a "720p" up scalonated camera, but you will never get the sharpness nor the detail of a true 720p let alone a 1080p), also, wireless for IPCAM´s sucks big time. Im saying this because i work with many camera vendor and all of them have problems with their wireless skus.

You will need 64+ cameras :eek: ? Or it will be for everything ? (Cameras, ip loudspeaker and etc ?) . It will be VERY expensive too :(

Remember, a true 1080p camera can destroy a network/storage easily every camera uses almost (YMMV) 12mbits of bandwith to show and a lot of space to store.

I wish i could go to you paintball arena :(
 
no no won't need that many. I'm expecting 16 max camera's over time.
I'll probably need too setup two switch locations evenly space over the field.
 
Run everything back to the center of the field. 100m is over 300 feet. Then you only have one central location to troubleshoot if there's issues.
 
paradoxblue said:
That would be the plan. just trying to think of the best switch options.
Click to expand...

If you are only planning on having 16 cameras then you only need to get a 24 port POE switch. It can be 10 / 100 to the cameras but you will need a gig port to hook the switch into your server. If you figure 10mbits per camera 16 cameras is still only 160mbits total, but you have to remember that means your storage solution needs to handle 20MBps without interruptions. Hardware RAID would obviously be advised just to make sure all goes well.

For the other switches if you don't need POE then you can just pick up any unmanaged 24 port gig-e switch. I would probably have the cameras wired directly to server using one of the uplink ports on the switch.

As for distances yes 100M aka ~330 feet is the maximum distance that Cat6 is specified to run at full gigabit speeds. I know you can go over well over that limit and still maintain connectivity. Runs in the 400 - 500 foot range will likely still work although they might not be able to reach full speeds. After a certain point there are two scenarios. The current becomes too weak to reach the destination or the time it takes for data to travel down the wire becomes too great causing mirroring, collisions, and other oddities. If you follow PCPer at all Ryan proved that you can take a 500' box of regular old cat 5e, run the cord across the ground and put ends on the entire length and use that for your internet connection. He did that temporarily while they were moving into their new building.

You could definitely put one box kiddie corner to another box and have enough room, but if you have a method to make it easy to wire from the center that would work as well. The only issue with using the center is that you would likely still end up running a lot of the wires to the sides of the field then across to their destination.

You might be able to get away with a switch like this... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2#scrollFullInfo

It has 12 POE ports and 12 non POE ports, plus 2 GIG-E uplinks. I would probably run one of the GIG-E ports right into my server (probably even overkill) or just hook the uplink into another gig-e switch where all of your main gear comes back to. The other 12 non poe would be perfect for that PA system as they aren't going to require a lot of bandwidth and likely wouldn't need POE either.
 
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Thank you for the link.
Cable lengthis an issue, I was wondering if multiple 8 or 12 port switches spread evenly would be a better option. As a single central switch would result in a CRAP load of wires being run all over the place.

Seeing as the server would be in one of the corners. I could spider out. to multiple switches.
I had it spaced to 9 switches, would leave no single point more than 75 feet from a switch. leaving less cables. and I could do multiple, 8 port hubs.

I'm new to the uplink idea.
If I have Server >>> Switch >>> switch >>>
would I go server to uplinkA on Switch1 than from uplinkB on Switch1 go to UplinkA on Switch2?

Running from Switch to switch to server via, the gigabit uplinks?
this would allow simple Cat5 cable for all the camera's etc over POE.

Finding an affordable 8port POE switch... May be a different story.
 
I don't know if you would want to go that crazy with switches. It becomes a very complex mess very quickly if you having stuff plugged in all over the place. (One wrong plug and you create a big loop that brings everything down in a hurry)

The reason for suggesting putting your server directly onto the switches gigabit port is for bandwidth constraints. Whenever you connect one switch to another, all of the traffic has to be funneled down the one connection. So if you have a dozen cameras running off one one switch and connect that to another switch, that one port is going to be handling all of the camera traffic plus whatever else is plugged into it. When you have the server plugged directly into the same switch the backplane of the switch handles the traffic between the ports and you don't use any of your uplink bandwidth. In reality you still aren't going to be too constrained with a gig uplink but it doesn't hurt to limit the bandwidth especially if you have real time needs like a PA system.

You could do 3 switches in a triangle pattern and get the coverage you need without the complexity.

Here is a simple drawing I made to give you an idea of what I mean. The Yellow is the two cable runs for your switches from one of the corners. The farthest run to the opposite corner would still be like 200 feet or less.

2ilnguo.jpg



If you even centered the room on like the "50 yard line" if it were a football field and went diagonally out from there you would have plenty of places to pull wires back to and keep the runs short.

The one thing to keep in mind is that having switches on the outside edges isn't really effective unless you're planning on mounting cameras a long ways from the field. You would be better off with even just 4 switches in a square pattern in each of the 4 sectors of the field. (Centered in each square if you cut the field into 4 squares) That would make the longest runs like 115 feet from the switch to the corner.
 
the 4 in a square would be ideal. after thinking of it. I believe that patter would be best!
I'd have less camera's around the outside anyway.

How would the 4 be connected? better to have 4 nics on the pc and run all in? Or one main switch feeding the 3 others than back into the server? Would I want a gigabit switch at the server end (no poe) maybe an 8 port running out to the 4 switches in the field?

Thanks

Thanks for the info!
 
You could use switches with fiber uplinks and easily run fiber that distance or longer..
 
Paradoxblue, can you post a drawing of your field? It would help us see what you need. A simple sketch like bman did would be enough. Just show us the overall area and the position of your paintball field(s).
 
Not sure what you'd like me to draw? the over all field is 300x350'
the entire area will be playable with an admin area in the bottom left corner, which woul dbe where my pc/control/server would be.

The idea of having 4 switches evenly throughout the field seems the best solution.
Now to find a cost effective 12 port POE swich I can buy 4 of, with a gigabit uplink so I can tie them all back to a gigabit router in the main area.

Now I'm on the look out for a cheap method to send sound over a network. as well as a few cheap Network controlled 120v relay boards.
Lot's of options out there. just looking for the most cost effective method.
 
Thinking of using something like this. since I will be running LED flood lamps, I won't have any high draw's. So a few of these may work nicely :)
http://www.controlanything.com/Relay/Relay/ethernet_relay_controllers

Edit:

Here's the rough field layout, the top is 250+ feet, with no end wall so I guesstimated 300' just for expansion sake.

I'll have multiple roads intersecting with alley ways and plenty of buildings.

Should be fun!
ruff_field.png


The Stars denote a rough guess of where I could place the boxe's with the switches.
 
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show on the picture where you are putting network devices.

you have 100 meter with Cat5, that is a standard. we have one client that has building 500-600ft away from the main and it works fine.

so you may want to see how far those devices actually are.

It doesn't seem like you would need so many switches.

I would have a main gigabit switch, and then have a POE switch off of that on the main location, and then run to another POE switch for the field devices. Or maybe you wont need them.
 
Potentially. But I have to weigh the costs of another switch and shorter runs. vice running say a thousand or more extra feet of cat6, plus the labour of running more cable Over having 4 hubs and spinning off that.

Plus I could do them one at a time for cost wise.
 
paradoxblue said:
the 4 in a square would be ideal. after thinking of it. I believe that patter would be best!
I'd have less camera's around the outside anyway.

How would the 4 be connected? better to have 4 nics on the pc and run all in? Or one main switch feeding the 3 others than back into the server? Would I want a gigabit switch at the server end (no poe) maybe an 8 port running out to the 4 switches in the field?

Thanks

Thanks for the info!
Click to expand...

It depends upon what switches you end up using. The simplest method would be just to daisy chain the two left switches and the two right switches to each other, then connect the closest switch on the left side to your main switch, and the closest right side switch also to the main switch. You can probably just use 10 / 100 switches for the farthest ones but you might not have enough bandwidth for the ones that are chained. If you tried to run the all back the farthest switch might be a bit too long for the cabling. I wouldn't worry about wiring all of your switches directly to the server as they should have plenty of bandwidth if they are wired back to a main switch. (If you use a gig uplink then you have plenty of extra bandwidth for other stuff like a PA system or other servers)

You might not even need that switch in the lower left corner if your main switch is going to be close by in the lower left corner. You can use the lower right switch to wire in the bunkers, and chances are any cameras in the lower left would be right by the opening to the field anyway.
 
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I was thinking the same thing. using the bottom left corner as my main switch, and running out to the other's.
I'm thinking the switch listed on the last page is my best choice, has gig uplink.
 
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