Protecting Machinery and Fuel on a Jobsite That Moves Every Fortnight

The short answer: put the camera on the plant, not on the site

An excavator, a generator set and a diesel bowser parked in the open overnight are best watched by a self-powered 4G LTE camera mounted on something that moves with them — a container, a lighting mast, a site fence post or a purpose-made pole set in a ballast block. Because a solar 4G camera needs no mains cable and no site WiFi, redeploying it when the plant compound shifts to the far corner of the site is a 5–10 minute job with a spanner, not a re-wire. That single property — nothing to trench, nothing to re-commission — is what makes temporary construction security workable on a site whose layout changes every fortnight.

The follow-on decision matters just as much: choose a camera that records continuously rather than one that wakes on motion. Fuel theft and plant theft happen slowly and deliberately, and a PIR-triggered camera is the wrong instrument for a slow, deliberate crime.

What actually goes missing on a jobsite overnight

Site losses split into three groups, and they need different camera answers.

The first category is the one most sites underestimate. Fuel does not disappear in a single dramatic event; it disappears in small amounts, repeatedly, often by someone who knows the site routine. You do not find it on a motion clip. You find it by comparing consumption records against a continuous timeline of who was at the bowser.

The fortnightly move problem

On a live construction programme the plant compound is temporary by definition. It sits near the substructure works, then near the frame, then near the fit-out entrance. A fixed camera system installed at the start of the job is pointing at the wrong part of the site by month three, and moving it means a cable route, an electrician, and an isolation on a live board.

A solar 4G unit inverts the problem. Mounting hardware travels with the camera; the camera travels with the plant. Practically:

• Mount on a container corner casting, a rented lighting tower, or a pole in a concrete ballast block that a telehandler can lift.
• Keep two mounting kits per camera so the next position is prepared before the old one comes down.
• Record the SIM's signal reading at each new position before you leave — cellular coverage on a deep site changes as the structure rises.

Why the two obvious options fail

Mains cameras. Power on a jobsite arrives late and moves often. Before the permanent supply is energised you are running off a generator that gets switched off at night, or off a temporary board a hundred metres from where the plant sits. Every relocation is a chargeable electrical job.

PIR motion cameras. A passive infrared sensor fires on a rapid change in heat across its field. It is good at a person walking briskly past a doorway at close range. It is poor at exactly the jobsite cases that cost money:

• A figure moving slowly along a hedge line at the edge of the sensor's reach registers as no change at all.
• Anything happening outside the sensor's cone — the far side of the bowser, the machine cab on the wrong side — never triggers.
• Warm weather narrows the contrast between a human body and the background, so daytime and hot-night sensitivity drops.
• Every clip starts a second or two after the trigger, so the plate on the reversing vehicle is often already past.

The result is a folder of clips that shows aftermath, not sequence. An insurer or a police officer asks a different question — what happened, in order, and who was present before it happened — and a trigger-based archive cannot answer it.

AOV: continuous recording on a battery budget

AOV (Always-On Video) is an industry-generic term for a mode that keeps the sensor recording around the clock at low standby power, using on-camera AI scene analysis to decide what to encode at full quality and what to hold at a low-bitrate baseline. Nothing about it is proprietary to any one brand; it is a class of firmware behaviour you should ask any supplier about by name.

For fuel in particular, continuous recording is the whole game. You know the tank was down 200 litres across a fortnight; you need to scrub back through nights to find the pattern. There is no trigger to search for.

Laying out cameras around a plant compound

A compound with an excavator, a genset and a bowser usually needs two or three positions, not one heroic wide shot.

1. The approach. Point at the only vehicle route into the compound, framed so a plate is readable at the gate line rather than across the whole yard. Identification needs pixels on a small target; a panoramic view gives you presence, not identity.
2. The fuel point. Bowser fill and draw-off side, close enough that hands and containers are visible.
3. The plant line. Machines parked in a row, covering the cab doors and the attachment stack.

Practical mounting notes that decide whether the install survives the job:

• Face the solar panel toward the equator side of the sky — south in Vietnam and most of Asia, north for sites in Peru, Chile or southern Brazil — and tilt it steeply enough that rain sheets the dust off.
• Watch what the site itself will do to the panel: a tower crane jib, a rising frame, or a stack of sheet material that was not there last week will shade it by month four.
• Mount above the reach of someone standing on a truck bed.
• Outdoor SolaGuard models are rated IP66 — sealed against dust and heavy jetting rain, which is the realistic jobsite exposure. Treat any supplier's higher claim as something to see certified, not assumed.

Choosing hardware without over-specifying

SolaGuard's catalogue runs to 150 SKUs, with wholesale prices quoted per order, built by Shenzhen Leksell — TÜV Rheinland certified, founded in 2012, with CE, FCC and RoHS on the range. For jobsite work the specification decisions that actually matter are:

• Resolution. 1080p–2K is the standard range and is sufficient for plate capture if the camera is framed for it. 4K is available as a custom or OEM build; it is rarely the fix for a badly positioned camera.
• Storage. microSD up to 128 GB is standard, larger only on custom orders. Continuous recording consumes card space faster than triggered clips, so agree a retention target with the site team and set the encoder accordingly rather than assuming weeks of history.
• Fixed, PTZ or dual-lens. Fixed units for the fuel point and gate line; a pan-tilt or dual-lens unit where one position has to cover both the plant line and the approach. Ask for the exact model figures on the quote — they vary across the range.
• Connectivity. A 4G SIM per camera, on a network you have actually signal-tested at that spot on that site.

Ordering and lead time

Trial orders start at MOQ 10 units; OEM and private label start at 100. Dealer margin is 20% from around 10 units and 30% from around 50. Samples ship 7–10 days by air, bulk orders 25–40 days by sea, and stock held for the Vietnam market delivers in 7–10 business days from the Ho Chi Minh City office. Plan the sample round against your next site mobilisation rather than the current one.

Browse the range at /en/products/, see volume terms at /en/wholesale/, or read the technical background on continuous recording in the AOV solar camera guide.

Questions site managers ask

Does it work before the permanent supply is energised? Yes — that is the point. There is no commissioning dependency on the electrical programme at all.

What happens over a long holiday shutdown? This is the case the system is bought for. Continuous recording through a two-week shutdown gives you a timeline rather than a set of disconnected alarms, which is what a loss adjuster will ask for.

How long to move one camera? 5–10 minutes per camera once the new mount is in place. Budget the mount, not the camera.

Who signs off the quote? Quantity, price and lead time come from a person, not from a web page. Message +86 188 1869 9870 on WhatsApp or email info@solaguard.net with your site count and mobilisation date.