Large Scale Central

Cheap Camera Car

Modeling Rolling stock
#1

Late Sat. I was a guest to Joel Harrisons home where we set up for a open house and SVGRS club meeting. Natch …I forgot to bring my Camera Gondola Car to make videos on the tracks. So one of the club members had a frt. truck make up and it pretty neat but my camera is a off set mount. So last night I made one up. I tried a spring loaded frt truck but my camera bunched all over the place and leaned with some trial lighting on it… Ya… I need a cam that i can use at night… Still working on that mount with 4 LED’s yet… Will show when we get it mounted. We are track power so it no biggie for power to light them up… We want at least around 10foot lit up for night runs. We tried it in the room and it works great for my camera. Anyway here is what we made up so far.

It set up with a mounting pad for Kadees or USA to work with Bachmann couplers. Cowcatcher is just to keep the frt truck on the tracks if something is in front of it. Like snail, froggies and etc. lol.

#2

So is it the car that was cheap, or the camera :smiley:

How does it do on curves? We need sample video !!!

#3

Yep, sample videos, please!

Off hand I have two suspicions:

  1. not enough mass to dampen vibrations

  2. wheel base too short to prevent the truck from tilting and skewing

#4

Mounting the camera offset like that on what is essentially a small spring is doing terrible things with moments of inertia and center of gravity. Id make a mount that the whole camera sits on, and use the mounting screw to tighten.

#5
Bob McCown said:
Mounting the camera offset like that on what is essentially a small spring is doing terrible things with moments of inertia and center of gravity. Id make a mount that the whole camera sits on, and use the mounting screw to tighten.
Hi Bob.. The spring problem was spring load frt. truck. Had to find sold or ridged truck due to the lighting bar for the LED's .. My camera mount are located on the bottom left side. ( Not center like most cameras are. ) So the bracket I made is ok and can turn the bar around for either direction that I need to hook on to any coupler.

Seem to work ok and camera has a balancing mode so you don’t see any bumps in the videos. . not less it derails. lol.
Seem to work ok even due to the short wheel base… Kind of wish I had a Bachmann pass truck tho… Just a little long wheel base would be better maybe.
It raining off and on again here so can’t do any testing outside to do a video yet… I don’t run in the rain or when rails are wet. That just me and keeping my stuff clean and no rust.

Anyway the reason of the short wheel base is the camera follows the track better for videos than on a flat car… I seen in the Garden R.R. maz of a guy make an articulated mech. to turn with the trucks so I tried that, but this about as good for what this came out for us.

When I get time will get back to working some of the lighting… Doesn’t look to bad for about 8 to 10 ft. in my puter room but then that’s indoors. Still Need to work out the brightness we need to oper. our camera out in the layout late at night.

Some cameras have a black light on them but mine doesn’t have that on it…

Oh… comment on what cost more… " Rolling camera car… " Ha ha ha ha
I charge by the hr. @ $105.00 an hr. and its not done yet… Camera was less then $300 buck… Me

#6

When you get shaky video off a camera car you could always say: “It shakes at the same frequency as I do when I film handheld.” That should work for about 95% of the stuff that I’ve watched on YouTube. :stuck_out_tongue: :open_mouth: :stuck_out_tongue: Or you live in a earthquake zone, that’s the other perfect excuse. :stuck_out_tongue: :open_mouth: :stuck_out_tongue:

Ducks and returns to playing with the new Panasonic HDC-TM90.

#7
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
When you get shaky video off a camera car you could always say: "It shakes at the same frequency as I do when I film handheld." That should work for about 95% of the stuff that I've watched on YouTube. :P :O :P Or you live in a earthquake zone, that's the other perfect excuse. :P :O :P

Ducks and returns to playing with the new Panasonic HDC-TM90.


That sound good to me… lol…

I forgot I had a video off using Rod H.'s frt. truck with my camera mounted and changing the bracket… I took this last Sat before the open house.
At the beginning of the video it show his cam mounted on the truck to show where we took the video and then mounted my cam on the frt. truck. So video is off of my camera.
It not to bad, but had to shorten up the video due to the run is over 600 ft. but you can get an idea of a over cast day and about to rain.
You can see when down at the bottom of the layout the truck bounced over the frog due to the spring loaded frt. truck… That’s why I went to a ridged truck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PA3UQZuS0w

#8

Actually better than I expected! :open_mouth: :smiley:

#9

I think it looks pretty good.
It will be interesting to see if the rigid truck bounces more, or less.
I’m thinking it might not be as smooth…
Ralph

#10

Tk’s Ralph… Will find out tonight when it gets dark with new truck. We tested the lights on it in the puter room and it works great… Made a small video of it and looks good… Will show a video after i do some testes tonight on the set up area. Here is what it looks like. " Forgot how to put in a photo so will throw in a link.

(http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/noelw/Cheap%20cam%20car/3.jpg)

This is when it lit up.

(http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/noelw/Cheap%20cam%20car/4.jpg)

Darn the photo showed up… Hot dang. It has 5 White LED’s on it with two of the outside LED’s tunned a little to the sides. Got more light than i needed i think… It for now is just running off of a 9 v batt. but I do have the track wiper and wires install if needed… Thinking most videos are only 5 to 10 mins not sure i need to run off of track power with a reg. Anyway that it for now and do some more testing …Later… IT WORKSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

#11

It works… Here is the Link…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxPL0aWI6lg

Came out better than I expected… me

#12

Hey, this is an idea to make note of :slight_smile:
And share.