I have an old HP Deluxe Webcam lying around and I was wondering if I could use it for a camera car if I power it with a juice pack (power bank).

Does anyone know if this will work??

Does anyone have a clue as to how to make this work??

Webcams generally don’t have any recording capability internally; they simply stream to the attached PC. You would need a lot more than a juice pack. Better to find a nice used point and shoot digital camera. Most of them record video. More recent ones in HD.

Just use a cell phone.

Agreed - A cell phone has everything you need. Mounting it to a car may be a challenge - modify a belt clip perhaps. The nice part about a regular camera is that most have a tripod mount hole on the bottom, which is a standard 1/4-20 thread making it just a matter of figuring out where to bolt it on!

WeatherTech make a cell phone holder that fits in a cup holder in your car you might be able to adapt for a rail car.

You might consider a GoPro camera, commonly used for outdoor sports and hobbies. They can be had for $30.00 used and up on eBay with warranties. Removable SD cards allow you to record and upload to your PC. I purchased a Hero 3 several years ago with WIFI, it can used as a live camera with a tablet/laptop.

Michael

Cell phone advantages:

Has its own battery

Mounts can be purchased

Apps are available for making them a webcam.

Even older cell phones can be used when upgrading to a new phone. (0 $$ cost).

Thanks all for your suggestions. Guess the webcam won’t work. It seems like I’d need computer software to run it in the first place.

I like the phone idea, but I think it’ll be too big for what I want to do. Ultimately, I think I’ll go with a small action camera, like the Polaroid Cube.

A lot of my early layout videos from last year were shot with my cell phone while it was riding in various cars AND locomotives. Most smart phones fit nicely on walkways of cabooses, diesel locomotives, or even held by box car doors.