Home cctv system circuit/conductor size?

Michaelsf90 · 12 Dec 2020

Over the next week or so I'm rewiring my upstairs lighting. I'm a qualified electrician. The upstairs lighting is fed by 1.0mm t+e so I'm doing it in 1.5mm. I was also planning on throwing another 1.5 up for the burglar alarm. Currently the burglar alarm is fed off the upstairs lighting so itll be on it's own circuit on a 6A RCBO

But in the future I plan on installing a home cctv system. One with four cameras and a DVR. Il have it all running in the loft. Would I get away with adding this to the burglar alarm or will 6A be too small and 1.5 be too small? I cant see any wattages for these kits anywhere. Or should I make the burglar alarm circuit 2.5 and stick it on a 16A? I have a spare 6A RCBO as the board come with so many and I had one left over so would be cheaper and easier to do it all in 1.5 if possible

DetlefSchmitz · 12 Dec 2020

Michaelsf90 said:
I'm a qualified electrician.

Iamchamps · 12 Dec 2020

Michaelsf90 said:
I'm a qualified electrician.

That can’t be true?

sparxxxx · 12 Dec 2020

Well at least his spellin was ok.

flameport · 12 Dec 2020

Michaelsf90 said:
will 6A be too small

Will the lighting, alarm and DVR be more than 1.3kW ?

Michaelsf90 said:
I cant see any wattages for these kits anywhere

They will be stated somewhere - unless you are looking at cheapo imported firestarters on ebay/amazon.

Even if not - do you think it's likely that a DVR uses hundreds of watts or more?

Something that uses 1W switched on 24/7 will use about £1 of electricity per year.
Is it likely that a home DVR will use £100s of electricity per year?

Michaelsf90 · 12 Dec 2020

No its not. My guess was it would be fine on a 1.5 and a 6A RCBO but I honestly know nothing about home cctv so I thought I'd ask the question. Haha my spelling is ok and I am qualified. Just a total novice with cctv and what it uses and how it works!

sparkwright · 12 Dec 2020

It won't use much power, but a lot of this domestic CCTV stuff seems to come with 'wall warts' that plug into 13 amp sockets.

EFLImpudence · 13 Dec 2020

Michaelsf90 said:
The upstairs lighting is fed by 1.0mm t+e so I'm doing it in 1.5mm.

Out of interest, would you please explain that sentence - electrically and logically?

oldbutnotdead · 13 Dec 2020

Get IP cameras and DVR and you won't have to worry about wall warts or coax- might need a PoE switch if the DVR doesn't do it itself. Load at most will be about 50w (4 cameras, the IR night vision stuff sucks current) so your lighting circuit will carry it.

Adam_151 · 13 Dec 2020

Personally as you'd suggest, I'd run the supply to the intruder panel in 2.5mm and put a socket on it for the DVR, I wouldn't worry unduly about putting it on a 6A RCBO if thats what I had to hand though, possibly may need to change it out in future if inrush causes an issue after a power failure (possible with a B type device and switch mode power supply)

It never seems quite right to start mixing up power and lighting on the same cirucits from the get-go although in reaity these days it doesn't matter that much as everything is 0/4 disconnection and domestic lighting is on RCD

FrodoOne · 14 Dec 2020

From a recent personal experience installing a Swann DVR CCTV System - with 1TB HDD And 4 x 1080p Cameras (SWDVK-445804BV)
from the 12 V supply each camera draws 51 mA in daylight and the DVR draws (roughly) 850 mA (with peaks of upto 1000 mA, when recording)

(Because of the comment of oldbutnotdead, I will check the "night time" camera draw.)

FrodoOne · 21 Dec 2020

FrodoOne said:
From a recent personal experience installing a Swann DVR CCTV System - with 1TB HDD And 4 x 1080p Cameras (SWDVK-445804BV)
from the 12 V supply each camera draws 51 mA in daylight and the DVR draws (roughly) 850 mA (with peaks of upto 1000 mA, when recording)

(Because of the comment of oldbutnotdead, I will check the "night time" camera draw.)

I have checked the night-time current draw of these cameras and I found that it goes up from 51 mA to 198 mA - say, 200 mA.

Hence, this DVR, with 4 Cameras, will draw peaks of 1800 mA at night.
With 8 cameras, it would draw peaks of 2600 mA at night - about 32 W.

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Home cctv system circuit/conductor size?

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