Camera Car

[keitaro]

it's a round house thats basically them getting rid of unsold stock of a model for cheaper than under the KATO badge.

 

i would say they are getting rid of it for some new release if were lucky maybe late this year early next.

[Guest Closed Account 1]

Has anyone made a camera car recently?

 

Successfully used a 9 Volt battery eliminator (micromark)?

 

Recommend a car style to use to install a camera? RDC?

 

I found a 10 X 10 X 30mm wireless cam system a while ago and will get one ordered this week. The 9 volt battery eliminator works with DCC tracks.

It would be nice to view the video on a smartphone.

[Davo Dentetsu]

I find a Camsports Nano does the job rather well.

 

 

[KenS]

Cool video, but what's with the giant flying video-camera?  I thought it was dive-bombing the train at one point. 

[Davo Dentetsu]

I accidentally got a bit Discovery Channel for a moment there... :P

[cteno4]

web,

 

i think thats the same one i got a while back. i have not yet started to try to install it into a car. i am planning on using rechargeable small batteries to run it and then do a charging circuit from regular dc track power. this is how the little rm systems work. i think the input power on that 10x10x30 is only needed at 5v to operate. could just have it with batteries and just plug it in every so often to recharge. one jrm member has one camera with a battery pack just a bit to big to fit inside a car (but small enough to run on a flat car) and i think that gets him about 45 min of running.

 

the rm system will run at normal speeds and keep going all the time with regular dc power. so im thinking the little 10x10x30 will to with the batteries as a big capacitor to smooth things out.

 

ken put his rm system in a train (sorry cant remember the specific one right now) that has a large vista sloped front window so the camera got almost full field of view.

 

jeff

[KenS]

ken put his rm system in a train (sorry cant remember the specific one right now) that has a large vista sloped front window so the camera got almost full field of view.

 

That would be the other Ken, not me. 

 

I do actually have a camera (it sounds similar to the one WebSkipper has), but I haven't gotten it installed yet.  My plan is to just put it on a passenger car chassis with no body however, rather than making a hidden camera, because I want a trains-eye view of the layout, rather than to feel like the engineer of a specific train. I picked up an old Amtrack car cheap on a clearance sale, so I can use the lighting pickups to power the DCC/DC power unit. But I've been procrastinating while I work on the (eternal) DCC circuit breaker upgrade project and some scenery improvements (so the camera has something to see).

 

But I must say, that Camsports Nano does a really good job, and probably better than any radio-based camera could. The POV was higher than I'd like (rooftop rather than window-level), but maybe something could be done with a depressed-center flatcar...

[cteno4]

yep your evil twin here in the jrm club!

 

we use the hidden radio camera at the shows to get lots of audience participation! folks love to try and figure out which train the camera is in. it does tempt folks to put hands and faces (and thus hair and clothes) in the path of trains to figure out which train and get on camera so to speak!

 

flicker is really hard to get rid of with the rf, but no worries for the show set up, actually the signal flicker is kind of nice to give it the "live" feel. its funny how a little effect like that can make something much more real to the viewer than if we had a perfect transmission for this use.

 

the little spy recorders do a much nicer job if you want to film the layout, but no live element. also dont have to worry about hiding the cameras really!

 

jeff

[Davo Dentetsu]

ken put his rm system in a train (sorry cant remember the specific one right now) that has a large vista sloped front window so the camera got almost full field of view.

 

That would be the other Ken, not me. 

 

I do actually have a camera (it sounds similar to the one WebSkipper has), but I haven't gotten it installed yet.  My plan is to just put it on a passenger car chassis with no body however, rather than making a hidden camera, because I want a trains-eye view of the layout, rather than to feel like the engineer of a specific train. I picked up an old Amtrack car cheap on a clearance sale, so I can use the lighting pickups to power the DCC/DC power unit. But I've been procrastinating while I work on the (eternal) DCC circuit breaker upgrade project and some scenery improvements (so the camera has something to see).

 

But I must say, that Camsports Nano does a really good job, and probably better than any radio-based camera could. The POV was higher than I'd like (rooftop rather than window-level), but maybe something could be done with a depressed-center flatcar...

 

 

Ah, well, then you would be in luck.  You'll notice I still use the proper camera mount for it (a throwback to the days when I would attach it to the dragster), but I plan to remove the mount and have it "strapped in" similar to an oversize load in the wagon bed.  That should lower it to a decent height, I hope.

 

All I need is time.  Bleh... :P

[KenS]

I got inspired to pick up a small memory-based camera (for under US$100).  The Camsports Nano seems to be out of production (I couldn't find a supplier), but I found a similar one in the POV MAC-10, or at least I thought I did.  With built in memory and recharging from USB, it seemed ideal, and Amazon would overnight it for a reasonable fee. Here's a warning for others: cameras designed for thrill-seekers may not be the best choice for trains.

 

My camera has a permanent date/time-stamp in the corner, which I can't turn off (or at least, I haven't found a way to do so yet).  It's also fairly poor quality video (I think it's highly compressed to get the longest storage time out of its memory).  And audio isn't well-synced to video (although that's not a major issue for me). And the flat base is not in the right place for an on-car mount (it's designed for side-of-the-helment mounting, but it's not quite 90-degrees from vertical).  On the plus side, it is 18mm in diameter and fits inside the bounds of a Kato clearance gauge.

 

I'll probably make a video or two of my layout with it if I can work out how to mount it, but I'm really not satisfied.

 

Looking around, there are some other, pricier, choices.  I can't find HD that will fit (the best seems to be the Replay XD1080, but at US$300 it's expensive, and at 28mm it won't fit in the 25mm Kato clearance gauge and I think that means it won't fit through my big station. HD units also seem to have a very wide angle of view (often 130-degrees or larger) compared to SD (usually 90-degress or less), but that's probably in part due to the letterbox aspect ratio of HD; I haven't decided if wide would be a plus or minus for an "Engineer's eye view", but it seems like a minus. There are several SD cameras smaller than the clearance gauge (including a model by Replay, currently out of stock and still US$160 and a bit large at 21.4mm, but likely usable).

 

The nice thing about the Replay XD is that per the manual you can customize the bit rate, low-light sensitivity/exposure, and white-balance, among other things.  That's the kind of configurability I appreciate in a camera. And online videos from one (outdoors, to be fair) look very good. I think I'm going to build a clearange gauge and run it around the track to see if one will fit through my structures.

[KenS]

Well, it's not my week for cameras.

 

I bought the Replay, knowing it would be a tight fit, but thinking I had a plan.  I did, but I'd neglected to check a few things. So it works, but only on my outermost track. On the next one in, it bumps a bridge and the lineside catenary poles.  It also has some clearance issues with the Overhead Station. Still, it takes some pretty nice video when it works, and I can't really say I regret buying it.

 

 

I've attached a couple of photos showing the well car I made to carry the camera.  There's a write-up on my blog with more details.

[Guest Closed Account 1]

You guys bring up a good point.

 

The camera does not need to fit inside the car.

 

Which are the better cameras for streaming?

[KenS]

Which are the better cameras for streaming?

 

Do you mean wireless?

 

Googling about, you can find a number of wireless mini cameras with very similar camera units, about 3/4" (18mm) or 7/8" (22mm) wide/high that broadcast on 2.4 GHz or 5.8 GHz.  The latter may have less interference, but tend to be harder to find and more expensive.  These all seem to be about the same resolution, 330 or 380 lines (a VCR is 240, a standard def TV is 480). I expect they're all really the same, and just the listings are just approximate, but there could be differences and I'd recommend choosing one of the 18mm ones to be safe on clearance, although 22mm should fit the usual Kato clearances.

 

I don't have experience of these (I bought one last year, but I've never used it; I really need to find some time to get it working).  Here's a typical one (this isn't the company I bought from, but it looks like the same camera; beware, some have the wire or antenna on the side, rather than the back, which would be a problem).

 

http://www.spyville.com/mini-wireless-spy-cam.html

 

In flash-memory cameras, I think I've proved I don't know what I'm doing. 

[Guest Closed Account 1]

Sorry, meant wireless.

 

I found a 5.8GHZ thats 10X10mm but thinking a larger lens like you have is better over all.

 

Pin hole is a pin hole.