On board camera anyone tried it?

[ITG]

I almost bought an eBay item of a brake van, with a camera installed on it, to enable filming of a model journey.

I see there’s plenty of micro cameras on eBay but has anyone tried one?

Options include either battery power/rechargeable or presumably drawing power from track? Movie recording on to card, or via WiFi?
 

Only a gimmick I know but I still fancy giving it a go, so would welcome anyone’s experiences, good or bad.

thanks

ian

[Andymsa]

Many years ago I got something similar from japan it was awaful, technology has come a long way since then. I have tried the real time cameras from Roco but found image quality lacking but certainly ok if you want to be the driver on your railway, but certainly not you tube quality. I use a dedicated camera that shoots up to 4K and can stream in real time as well. A quality camera will cost a bit but depends what you want as a end result.

[Bulleidnutter]

Trenholme junction on here has some onboard videos. 

[beast66606]

As WFRM we fitted a camera into the cab of a class 33, this was powered - and on/off controlled - from DCC. At a Hull show back in ... 2005 ? we allowed some younger visitors to drive the train around and obey the signals. The camera was a bit hit and miss but it was certainly a good way of allowing some hands on experience to visitors. The technology will have improved substantially in the 15-20 years since those days.

[melmerby]

I've thought about this on & off.

I've got an old trail cam which I though I could use but unfortunately the sensor is on a PCB and the lens was seperately mounted. I hoped it would be all in one.

 

IIRC there was one at Warley once using wireless and with a largish screen so that all could see the result

[great central]

Does this give you some idea of what's achievable?

The equipment was already a bit dated when this was filmed, it transmitted on the same frequency as BBC 2 apparently. Can't help wondering if any nearby houses wondered what the heck was going on.

 

 

[russ p]

Can you get them that can be controlled from a phone.

I bought one off ebay for about seven pounds which records on an SD card ,haven't used it yet . Just a bit bigger than a  sugar cube 

[Ouroborus]

They're well worth it.  Don't buy an expensive camera until you get the hang of it.  Google spy camera on ebay and you should find some small cheap cameras

 

The problem i found was that they tend to lack buttons that do stuff.  It was a case of press for three seconds to power on, five seconds to start recording.  Then one second to stop recording and three seconds to power off.  It made my brain tired.

 

 

 

 

[Chris M]

The great thing about larger scales is that all you need is a smartphone and you are on the train with the other passengers!

 

 

[KingEdwardII]

I've certainly not tried it, but one of these beasties would form the basis of an interesting project:

 

https://www.arducam.com/product/b006604-arducam-for-raspberry-pi-zero-camera-module-wide-angle-120-1-4-inch-5mp-ov5647-spy-camera-with-flex-cable-for-pi-zero-and-pi-compute-module/

 

Add in a Raspberry Pi Zero W that has WiFi built in plus a suitable power supply (a DCC -> 5V DC module comes to mind) and you could get a real-time video feed from a loco. Possibly a bit power hungry, but that could be sorted out with a suitable DCC controller.

 

It certainly has the size to suit the front end of a loco, while the Pi Zero is like a rather long Decoder.  More likely to be achievable with a diesel loco or D/EMU I suspect.

 

Yours, Mike.

[HLT 0109]

It depends on what you want to achieve.  If you want to be able remotely to watch what the camera sees in real time, you need a tiny CCTV camera.  If you want to be able to save the footage and view it afterwards, there are options but I have not tried anything small enough to fit into a cab of a 00 gauge loco..    Some years ago, i tried the CCTV route and gave up because, as soon as the camera moved, the picture broke up as shown in the video posted by Great Central; I have since tried a number of rechargeable "spy" cameras and found the best footage was from the Mobius, which I sat on a bogie well wagon.  This link shows a video of my loft layout - the on-board bits are as recorded on Mobius whilst the other bits are on other cameras.  The mobius can be seen at the very end of the video (total time about 10 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnb953slGAw&list=PLlmbzWdIMyBmvWSPklGOGnvlRDeAGbmvE&index=7   The mobius is now available as Mobius 2.  

 

More recently, I wanted to do some on-board footage of my 009 layout and struggled to find a camera small enough to cope with the limited clearances with scenic structures - but found that the mobius would cope if stood on its side!  I scratch built a very low well wagon to suit and then rotated the video during editing.

 

Harold.

 

 

[melmerby]

If you want to see cab views of Model railways try Pilentum's series of Videos on You Tube

Such as this monster:

 

[Mick Bonwick]

Pendon Museum have tried it:

 

 

[JZ]

This was using an SQ11 cube camera mounted on a flat car. Did this to try the camera, so the layout wasn't tidied.

 

[HLT 0109]

There is a range of SQ cameras which are small and very cheap, but reviews of some of them report overheating or other problems.  I bought the SQ13 in the hope that it would suit my 009 layout but, as one of the larger ones at 29mm cube, it was too big - which was why I experimented with the Mobius.  The SQ13 has "real time transmission" which is accessible wirelessly via an app - not tried it yet but it coould be interesting.

[ITG]

Thanks all. I’ve ordered a £22 one from eBay, approx 35mm across and 25mm deep. It’s a WiFi to app version, rather than memory card, and rechargeable. Not ruinous if it doesn’t work out, and I could always go into the espionage business! I will report back in due course.

[HLT 0109]

Well done - hope it pleases.

[Dodgydruid]

I'm a watch collector and in some of my joblots I managed to acquire a "spy watch" which had on it a very efficient 720p camera using the tiniest of fish eye lenses too and it sat atop the watch timekeeping works so I have finagled that for fitting to my GWR Toad brakevan and have found another for a few quid which I intend to mount into my class 73 as the lens only needs a 2mm aperture and the 73 is very easy to open or failing that I have a spare 73 body to work with, I could just switch it on by a small hole and a toothpick to activate the camera.

[ITG]

Reporting back on my purchase. I bought this....

 

A9 Wireless WI-FI Mini HD Camera Security Camera Spy Cam 1080P *UK Seller*

 

from eBay, £22.99. It transmits to a phone-based app. The instructions are not the best, but with them, and finding YouTube video guidance, I got it working. Works fine, with a quick test run. I’ll post a trial run soon. Only two slight drawbacks are:  The camera is circular, which means it doesn’t sit neatly on a flat wagon, so I used blue tack in a low-sided wagon which stopped it rolling side-to-side, but it sits slightly high for one very short section of limited height under an upper baseboard. I can probably overcome both of these issues with a little thinking or modifications.

[ITG]

Here's the test video, on my part-completed first layout (well, maybe second after a dummy run) after returning to the hobby after far too many years. Very much still learning, and this camera is very unforgiving being so close to the track. Its given me a whole new list of jobs to do, but at least the quest to show friends and family what a train journey on the Carrow Line (wife's name Caroline) is like.

 

 

https://youtu.be/3wukpFMZhpQ

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by ITG

[melmerby]

Nice steady recording. Have you tried it in HD?

The video is only 240 lines which these days is very low resolution.

It would be nice to see it at 720p or 1080p.

[ITG]

17 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Nice steady recording. Have you tried it in HD?

The video is only 240 lines which these days is very low resolution.

It would be nice to see it at 720p or 1080p.

Still working out controls - watch this space.

[young37215]

18 hours ago, ITG said:

A9 Wireless WI-FI Mini HD Camera Security Camera Spy Cam 1080P *UK Seller*

 

Does it have sound? I ask because I bought a cheaper one which produces acceptable video but is silent. To be fair for the £15 it cost I think I have a bargain, it outputs via wifi to my Iphone on an app that was easy to download. The video below purports to be HD although I would question the accuracy of the statement. Overall I am pleased with it

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402712734214

 

 

 

 

[ITG]

4 minutes ago, young37215 said:

Does it have sound?

Yes it does. There’s a choice of either recording to a memory card (not supplied with camera) or via WiFi link to app (in my case on iPhone). The spec says 1080 p but Melmerby thought it wasn’t so. Maybe my inexperience with instructions, so we’ll see.

With benefit of hindsight, if I could find something similar which was cube shaped, rather than circular/cylindrical, it would sit better on a wagon, but still working on best way to mount it.

[young37215]

Mine is a cube and sits neatly in a wagon but without sound; we need a hybrid of the two!

 

My uploads to Youtube are showing as 480 p, quality is OK but nothing special. Given I model the 1980's, the quality actually contributes to the feel I am trying to create.