This is neat. If no one else in the club has one yet, it will be sure to be a hit. I ran it around my layout three times, once behind the loco, once in front, and once behind the caboose. I have to edit the videos, the train was facing the wrong way to see the iPhone screen so I had to pick it up to start and stop recording each time - so there’s a giant hand droppign the car and pickign it up. ALso since it films through a mirror it’s backwards. ANd I need more light in my train room. But once I get these edited a bit I will post the links. This is really too cool. Not a live feed (although I bet htere’s an app for that) but far better quality than those train cams.
Once I fixed the part I put together backwards, it only took an hour or so to build it, not counting wait time for glue to dry. Pretty easy, and this is the biggest, most complex laser cut wood kit I’ve assembled to date.
OK, here’s the video of the iCar behind the caboose. Also there are giant humans in this wierd land of flat pink and brown land forms and strange tanks of materials strewn along the tracks.
No need to apologise for having a layout under construction![bow] I haven’t started yet so I am more than a little envious that you can run trains.
The video is neat if a little out of focus. Is there anything that can be done about that? In other words, is it possible to adjust the focal depth (if that is the right term) so that the caboose and the engine can both be in focus?
Yes, you cna lock the focus, but the screen was facing the wall so I couldn’t see it to set it. I edited out the beginnign and end of the video where a giant hand closes in to pick the car up to turn the recording on and off.
Plus it’s not too bright in there, that doesn’t help. The next one, where I put the camera car in front of the loco, is focused a bit better, but after I put the car ont he track I realized I never put the front coupler back on the F7, so it just pushed the car along. ANd while the layotu is SUPPOSED ot be level, there’s a section where it dips down (floor’s not very level) - and it takes off like a roller coaster. Then stops and drifts back slightly, then you hear the loco come up behind it and start pushign again.
I’ll be running it at the club show next week, there’s PLENTY of light there, and lots of scenery.
Nope, after I finished the car I cleaned the mirror and lens before using it. Can’t help fingerprinting the mirror gluing it to the support.
It’s grainy from low light, while the camera in the iPhone is pretty darn impressive, better than point and shoot digital cams from not that long ago, it still has limitations. Not so great low light performance is one of them. When I get home I’ll upload the still I just took of the iCar, it’s nice and bright with sunlight coming in my windows and the difference in image quality it huge. I expect to get some really nice shots on the club layout next week, there is PLENTY of lighting in the museum, plus, well, everything is sceniced.
Actually, after taking a second look at the video in 720p and in the larger window, I think the real problem isn’t the camera, but the video encoding. The smaller and easier the file is to upload, the poorer quality.
There’s that, too. I just uploaded directly from the iPhone camera app, I didn’t copy it to my computer first. I did select the best quality option, but based on the file size it said it was going to upload, I can tell it highly compressed it. When I get back fromt he trains how I will be editing any video, because with real scenery including industries with signs, not to mention all the control point markers ont he layout, I need to flip it back to normal so you can read them. Not so horrible when my 'scenery; is bottles of glue, ballast, and lohoclA lyporposI.
It is somewhat grainy viewed directly on the phoen screen as well, The low light plus fast enough speed to capture motion endsup grainy, hich I suppose is better than the alternative, a slower speed to compensate for the low light but then blurred images.
Here is a link to the car site. Just an ingenious design by the folks at MinuteMan to run the phone at an angle to it doesn;t exceed standard clearance width, The phone just slips in a pocket, and the mirror redirects the lens forward. Car comes with a pair of Kadee sprung trucks with metal wheels and a pair of #148 couplers with draft gear.