First, the setup:
I have a DVR/surveillance system at work. There’s a 75 foot VGA cable going from it to a monitor in the main work area. It’s been fine for however long it’s been there. Just recently the boss asked for another monitor to be added in another area. I got a Y-Splitter (not powered, just a splitter) and a 50 foot VGA cable and ran that to the other monitor.
The second I plugged in the Y splitter with the 50 foot cable, with nothing else on it, the display on the first monitor degraded, a lot. At this point, I was just making sure the “new” monitor would work, when I plugged it in, everything was fine. a bit dimmer, as I expected, but not like it was to begin with. I just assumed it was because I had nearly 50 feet of VGA cable coiled up in my hand and probably inducing some kind of signal…or something.
At this point I was also assume I may need to return the passive y-splitter and get powered one. But one problem at a time.
Anyway, I’ve got a 75 foot run to the first monitor, a split then 50 feet to the new one. All is fine for a while. People notice the first monitor is really dim, but I bump up the brightness and it’s fine. That also got me looking at active splitters, but not just that, I’m also curious if I can put a splitter/amp at the end of a 75 foot run, but I figure it’s better than nothing.
Then we notice that the new monitor is doing all kinds of strange stuff, but let’s just call it ‘being really noisy’. My connections are as solid as they’re going to be and, again, I look into a splitter/amp, but I also think about all the EMF in the building. We have (HVAC) compressors, defrosters, motors, LED and florescent lights, PBX and POTS wiring, the list goes on. But on a hunch I flip the switch on a small appliance very close to it and the screen clears right up. Playing with the switch and it’s obvious that’s the cause.
So the question is, is RMF and I need to figure out how to shield it? Is it something electrical backfeeding into the wiring and I need some kind of filter? I’m not sure at this point.
The appliance in question is something very similar to this. This is what’s we/they use to wrap things (like in saran wrap) at a store/deli/meat counter. The brown pad and the metal bar just above it are heated. It probably doesn’t help that ours buzzes from time to time so I know something inside of it needs to be replaced.
So, as I give this more thought, any of you have any thoughts?
And since I assume it’ll be suggested, I’ll have to look and see if the DVR can even output and HDMI signal.
