I bought a minicam to use to create videos of my layout from a train’s eye view. I purchased the camera that has an analog receiver, so I could record them to my VCR. Hindsight being what it is, I should have gotten the digital receiver with USB to record directly to my PC.
Because I’m using DC, I installed a 9 volt battery. The top photo shows the original configuration without an on/off switch. If using DCC, you can power the camera with track voltage with a regulated DC circuit. I then added the mini-switch for convenience. Both the battery and the switch box are attached using velcro. The reverse side of the switch box is cutout for switch replacement. I made the switch box from styrene scrap pieces.
I saw something like this cam on Ebay and realy thought about getting one. Glad you pointed out the digital reciever part for the PC. Hope you post video, Think it will be great.
A friend of our RR group at Boothbay RR Village loaned us a similar camera a couple of summers ago. An older model, no sound.He put it in a box in a gondola to hide it. It had a transmitter that connected to a receiver on a TV set. Very popular with the museum guests!
Hey it came out pretty good anyway. And I love the comment about the gracity defying layout - maybe you’re actually using a variation on that electrostatic layout support they had in MR a few years ago? My boys both do crazy creative things with video cameras, unfortunately neither one has the slightest interest in model railroading.
I’ve got a similar setup on my layout with the wireless camera I got from MicroMark.
The video cable from the receiver in the basement goes up to one of the aux imputs on my VCR upstairs in my living room. The coax out from the VCR goes through a splitter between my two TVs. Haven’t used the cam lately, but it’s fun to see an engineer’s view of the layout and works at getting an up close look at my trackwork, especially when viewing the camera on my big screen TV.
These are great ideas and I can only see installations like this getting better as cameras become smaller and cheaper. My video camera is disc, so can’t do anything like this. Loved the sideways video. It felt like I’d had a few too many last night.
I installed my camera in the front of a subway car, so I could have a “real” car on my layout all the time"
This installation uses a DCC supply, so I don’t have to take it apart to swap batteries. The supply itself is inside the plastic center section of the car, which houses the motor in the powered subway cars, but is empty in unpowered cars. The camera is at the left end, and there’s a big capacitor on the right. The light board came with the car. Here’s the shell-on picture:
I also have a similar setup, but I use an el cheapo minicam bought off of Ebay. I also use a highly sophisticated custom-made mounting to get the lens closer to cab-level view:
I later found that everything behaved nicer with the battery set in a trailing gondola. My advice for good minicam use is to use more lighting than you think you’ll need. Here’s a video shot with my cam under normal lighting conditions:
Definitely need lots of light - there’s a reason those cameras are inexpensive - the sensors are not very sensitive. I like MrBeasley’s idea of putting the LEDs on the front so whatever’s in front of the camera is well illuminated.
On a slightly different note I have several small CCTV cameras located throughout the layout for those hard to see places like hidden staging and inside tunnels etc. These things sell for $59.99 which isn’t too bad considering what your getting. The one’s that I purchased are similar but no longer available and were a few dollars less. We put some of these around spots at the club and they work very well and the sound is a neat option especially during open houses. I may have to see if I can adapt one to a flat car
Ken, I got it on Ebay. Just do a search for minicam/spycam/nannycam. There are buckets and buckets of them available. Yes, mine does have an internal microphone, though I’m not sure it’s of much real use on a model railroad. Even if you pushed it with a sound-equipped loco, it would pick up so much track noise that I’m not sure you’d get the desired effect. Would make an interesting experiment, though.
I’ve pushed mine around with a sound equipped steam locomotive, and although you DO hear track noise, you can still hear the loco sounds quite well. One video I took from the cam-car was of another train that was about 12 feet away, and you can quite clearly hear the horn from that train. Like I mentioned earlier, I should have gotten one that had a USB receiver, so I could record directly to the computer, instead of to the VCR.
