Commercial solutions
Power and Cabling
Server racks, structured cabling, power supplies and UPS for the infrastructure behind your camera, access control and network install.
What we supply
- Server racks, structured cabling, power supplies and UPS
- PoE switches and power budgets sized to your install
- Specified and quoted to your installation's requirements
Power budgets, cable and racks
Security systems fail at the boring end far more often than at the clever end. Most of the boring end is power and cable.
Power and Cabling by type
Racks, cabling, power supplies and UPS for security and network installs. See the guide
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Power and Cabling by brand
Talk to us about the brand and specification you need.
Getting the infrastructure right the first time
Ethernet is specified to 100 metres including patch leads at both ends, and that limit is not negotiable by using better cable. Runs that need to go further need a switch, a fibre link or a media converter in between, and it is considerably cheaper to discover this while planning than while pulling cable.Power over Ethernet has two budgets, and only one of them gets checked. The per-port class determines whether a given camera will run; the switch total determines whether all of them will run at once. A switch that is comfortable in mild weather can trip when every camera turns on its heater on the same cold morning.
Cat6 is sufficient for the great majority of camera work. Cat6A earns its cost where 10 gigabit uplinks, very long runs or dense bundles are involved, particularly in warm ceiling spaces where cables heat each other.
Two things repay their cost quietly. Surge protection on anything with an external run, because a lightning strike near a car park camera can travel back into the recorder. And a UPS sized in minutes rather than hours - long enough to ride out the brief interruptions that make up most outages, and to shut a recorder down cleanly rather than corrupting its file system.
Questions we are asked about Power and Cabling
How far can we run a network cable?
100 metres, including the patch leads at both ends, and better cable does not extend it. Longer runs need a switch, a fibre link or a media converter in between - much cheaper to discover while planning than while pulling cable.
Do we need surge protection?
On anything with an external run, it is cheap insurance. A strike near a car park camera can travel back down the cable into the recorder, and replacing one protector costs far less than replacing a recorder and losing the footage on it.
What size UPS do we need?
Usually minutes rather than hours. Most outages are brief, and the job of the UPS is to ride those out and, for anything longer, shut a recorder down cleanly instead of corrupting its file system. Sizing for hours is a different and much more expensive requirement.