We were called in by one of our very first customers from nearly 15 years ago to look at a range of issues, the biggest of which was their IP CCTV issue.
ADT had sold them a maintenance agreement on their system, but realised they couldn’t get it working. They then tried to sell them a whole replacement system, but thankfully they called us before agreeing to it.
As size of problems go, this one was huge for a domestic installation, witch 9 cameras spread over hundreds of meters. This one took all our experience for mains electrics to low voltage DC, to IP networking, to wireless.
The list of problems we worked through was extensive. The first challenge was a core switch that would work for 20 seconds after a reboot and then lock up. This was tracked down to 1 network lead that ran off, outside, underground to bridge over a lake, back underground to junction box.
This junction box had clearly suffered from being too close to the ground and had become a nesting spot for ants. We needed to re-terminate some of the RJ45 connectors on the CAT6 as they hadn’t been done brilliantly and too long crammed in a box too small had left them not working.
In the process of doing this, we identified 2 more legs that ran off in opposite directions that when plugged in caused issues.
At the end of one of these legs were 2 more cameras and 2 wireless access points. Only 1 of the access points was needed as the other was for a legacy solution. Some more diagnosis showed that it was this legacy Access Point that was preventing this leg from working. With it disconnected, the leg came up and we had 2 more cameras online.
On to the other leg! Thankfully we found another legacy AP at the end and isolated it to quickly get the final camera back online.
With all cameras now up and working we still had a few issues to work through. All the cameras were PTZ, meaning you can move them about and adjust the zoom. One of these was online but the screen was black. This is not uncommon as the camera gets stuck looking up into its own housing, however in this case the controls were not adjusting the camera.
A quick reboot and we had control of the camera and it back pointing in the right direction. We did find a time switch that had be set to cut the power every 24 hours, which points to a wider issue with the camera, but our customer was happy to leave it as is for the time being.
Lastly, the family wanted to be able to view the cameras on the TV in their kitchen, so we configured one of their old PC’s to act as a viewer.
Our customer was delighted as they now felt safe in their house again, and had avoided a replacement system that was quote at thousands of pounds.
