Hi again all, i know i posted on this subject a little while ago but never got an answer to part of my ?, so here goes again, i am looking for a mini video cam system for my N-scale layout and other small stuff to, and i am seeing people talk about the system from SJT, all well and fine so far, what i need to know is has any one had experiance with the system sold by Micro-Mark catalog?, for all i know its the same as the sjt but would like to know for sure, thanks.
Hi tatooguy,
shame you haven’t had any replies.
I’m wondering if any of the electronic gurus have figured a way to use an old Mobile (cellphone) camera for what you want, they are small enough and old ones are everywhere.
I saw videos someone posted using that MM system a while back and weren’t very good. Low res, poor focus and I believe it drew it’s power from the track so it flickered a lot. I was not impressed.
Try looking at some spy gadget companies. They have the smallest, state of the art stuff.
Hi, is this the FBI? Yes, I’d like to know if I could buy a spy camera? No, I just need it for my model railroad. Really! I’m not lying!
[:D]
Hey loathar thanks for the info, do you know where i could see that video, what post its on?, there is one on this site but i think its an sjt system, seems like the guy had it mounted in a subway car, and he had a battery eliminator installed so yeah it flickered, that will not be an issue here as i will just use the 9volt hook up provided, and am not running through any tunnels, at least not yet, thanks.
I don’t know how feasable this would be, but what about a wireless webcam (I believe that they’re marketed as “security” cameras). The optics are usually pretty small, and most of them run at 5-15 VDC.
I’m thinking you’d need to extract it from the plastic shell, and then put all the electronics into a dummy shell on point (especially if we’re talking N scale here). Then you just need a generic comuter and a wireless router that the camera can then ‘talk’ to. Then, you don’t even have to do any work (well, not much) if you wanted to put it online for all of us to admire.
This would probably lend itself to DCC fairly well, if you used a cheap motor-only decoder (or motor and light), you could set the first speed step on the decoder to turn on the camera, and then use the lights (headlights if possible, though I bet ditch lights would work too) to make sure that theres enough light so the camera can see.
Here’s a camera that might work (though I bet there are cheaper ones): $150, uses 5VDC and is 2.5" (L) x 2.5" (W) x 2.75" (H) with the shell still on…
and wireless routers are like $60…
So for a little over $200 and some ingenuity, this might work.
That was probably mine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g82i9arQMyw
I’ve done some experimentation with it, and I’ve decided that the battery-eliminator is NOT the problem. It’s really the wireless transmission path between the camera and the receiver. In fact, the video above was taken with the camera mounted in a gondola, before I put it into the subway car. At the time I made the video, I was using the 9-volt battery. So, a lot of your results will depend on how clear the path from the camera to the receiver is.
Don’t know who made mine, seems to work OK in my minimal test on my module, just had the car with the camera heading in towards the roundhouse and back. Here is all 28 seconds of it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Q6x6nF46E
TattooGuy-Do a Google for “spy cameras”. You’d be surprised how much Big Brother is watching you these days.[X-)]
MisterBeasly-Yep…That was it…(sorry…[:I])
I bought one of those color and sound nanny cams and installed it in an HO box car. I have made movies of my layout with it. Really simple to use and fun too. When using the cam, sometimes the operator gets to only look at the TV while switching his train from signals given by the breakman.
Cool! Shall we make it a working link?
I just looked up spy cam. first one that came up was dynaspy. They have a cam the size of a dime and a not bad price. I hope you post a video with what ever you buy so we see how it works.
glenn
Yeah, I tried to make one with a camera mounted in a gondola, even facing sideways, it hit the trees and looked bad! There’s only enough clearance for a freightcar on most of the layout, not to mention a camera![sigh]
Hi,
had to research into this subject myself not too long ago. So installed a hard wired camera system in the hallway from my apartment building. As I was searching on the web a lot of web sites like this came up:
They have a lot of good cameras that you could certainly use for your railroad as well. If you would like to record everything on your computer right away as well then go to your computer stores and ask for a DVR card. Then the signal receiver from the camera can directly send the signal to the card and record the scenery/information on your hard drive. It is actually quite interesting what is out there.
If you would like more information just send an email to me and I will reply.
Frank
N scale is pretty small for cab ride videos. I opted to go with a camcorder on a flat car for my cab ride video…of course this was for G scale. I haven’t tried anything for our O or HO layouts, but mini spy cams are likely the best option. Sound may be a problem though with such small cameras, if they even have microphones.
As a side note, I’m not pleased with YouTube’s compression of my video. I just wish there was a free website that could host my original 52MB .wmv file. I tired other sites mentioned to me, but they badly compressed the file as well [:(]
I don’t think I could even email my video to anyone if I wanted to.
If you have windows movie maker and edit through that program there is a setting to send in email that compresses to a smaller file. I have used it and it works very well.
glenn