Hi y’all. Complete newbee here. Has anyone invented an on-board camera that would allow you to see your layout from the engineer’s point of view? I’d love to watch from my PC. If this is a dumb question, my apologies.
Thanks,
Doug
Look up ‘spy camera’ on Ebay. There are lots and lots of different products available.
David B
http://www.tonystrains.com/technews/traincam.htm
They even have a video to show camera in action
I run trains at Bob Durkin’s layout, and the train cam is great! I have run it on a steam loco, I actually never knew he had one in a LLP2K FA diesel! The one thing is with the steam loco it won’t fit in the cab. It has to be mounted on the pilot.
I myself ordered a “spy” / “nanny cam” from ebay. Cost to my door was $35.00 US funds. One thing to note, you need to know what broadcasting standard you need. IE. the US market uses one different from some parts of the world so do some checking before you buy. And be sure to get a full system.
Spy cam, receiver, power packs for both the cam and receiver along with the battery adaptor for the cam.
You can even buy a battery eliminator that works on a DCC system. It supplies power from the rails to the cam while the DCC system is up and running, no battery needed.
And it is neat as all get out to view your layout from the engineers point of view. I mounted my cam on a flatbed (taped it on with electrical tape) that I pushed it around in front of my loco but the view was great until it rounded a curve and the giant doorway came into view. I was sitting in my living room watching it on my color TV with the train making slow laps around my layout. Now I have a 19inch color TV so just think about how great it would be on a big screen plasma LCD screen TV along with a VCR to record it, some video editing software too and OMG!
Do a search of my posts around about February 1st of this year and you should be able to find my post about this matter.
Edit;
http://cs.trains.com/forums/1323616/ShowPost.aspx
If you luck up on a deal like I did, you’ve spent better money on worst things. So go for it and have some fun.
Sure, how else can I see what’s going on in the subway tunnels?
This is my “camera car,” one of the non-powered units in a LifeLike Proto R-17 subway train.
(Click on the pictures for a larger view.) The camera came from here:
http://www.wirelessmicrocolorcam.com/estore/index.php
This unit is powered from a power supply which accepts the DCC voltage from the tracks, so I don’t have to go with batteries. The camera transmits a radio-frequency signal back to a base receiver, which plugs into the TV. Or, in this case, the video recorder:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g82i9arQMyw
It’s not the greatest video, and the scenery was far from complete when I took it. Mostly, the problem is light. I’ve added more lighting to the subway tunnels, and the big holes in the subway car above now have LEDs mounted in them for even more illumination.
As Johnnny_reb mentioned, you want a camera for the North American NTSC format, not the European PAL format.
Wireless pinhole spy cams work well in this application. Cameras based on CMOS technology will not be as good quality as those based on CCD technology but they will be cheaper. Don’t worry about getting a camera with audio though as the wireless transmitter/receiver only sends/receives video.
Watch it on your TV or if you have a video-in capable video card, a capture card, or a DSR board installed, on your computer.
In the case of hidden staging these cameras could be useful as well. I’m looking at having hidden staging in the future and I thought a few cameras strategically mounted in the area would be a great help. I even have a remote panning unit that I can use to pan a camera around an area. Couple that with a four input DSR board that I have on hand and I’m watching up to four cameras on my computer screen at once. I can select whichever camera I want to view full screen and I can record any or all cameras to my hard drive manually or by motion activation…yeah I know it’s Bells and Whistles but that’s one of the great things about MRR. The bells and whistles!
My [2c]
Mr. B, you just inspired me to detail the inside of my Bergen tunnels when I build them! I am now even thinking of building NY Penn with the tunnels!