Tower cameras

[ndbprr]

I had planned to make a tower at North Pjiladelphia station for the operator to sit in and have a forced perspective view of the railroad during operation. i would move it out of the way at other times. Now I am wondering if it wouldn't be just as good to mount a couple of those small video cameras looking east and west and he could watch it all on a couple of monitors. Anybody know the depth of field I could expect doing that?

[MisterBeasley]

Three options - I think you're looking at the inexpensive "Web Cams". These generally are USB devices, and must plug into a computer.

You might be able to find broken camcorders at video repair shops. If the only problem is the tape mechanism, you could probably get a reasonably good video camera for a fraction of the cost of a working recorder.

The very small "engine cams" that can be mounted in a locomotive could also be mounted inside of a scale-model tower to give a terrific perspective view. You could build a small "turntable" inside the tower, and mount it on a synchro motor, with the other synchro motor used to control the rotation.

You should get pretty good depth-of-field with all of these. The camcorder would give the most realistic perspective, because it has the biggest and best lens. The others all have very small wide-angle lenses, generally, so you will get good depth-of-field but they all suffer from "fisheye" perspective up close.

[mcouvillion]

ndbprr,

What a neat idea! I think the pinhole lens cameras would do great, as the pinhole allows you to stay in focus to within a fraction of an inch of the front of the camera, and the depth of field is great. I have used the TC-9 cameras from RF-System Lab in Japan and have been very pleased. Use more than 10 volts DC to power it, and with good room lighting, you'll be fixed up. Your tower operator will have a neat view of the railroad.

Mark C.

[gmpullman]

I use 3 small video cameras (color) that I got from one of the surplus electronics catalogs (I forget which one) They were about $25 ea and another 10 for the 12 v. power bug. They work beautifully. I plugged them into a video switch and then into monitor so I can view each end or the center of my staging yard. I can see when a train is clear of the yard ladder. The cameras were enclosed and have a heavy rubber base so I just set them in the benchwork and aim them as needed! Do a web search for video security camera and see what comes up

[DigitalGriffin]

for small cameras try:
http://www.smarthome.com/securmap.html (bottom half of page)

Logitech also has a web cam that can be panned l/r u/d from the computer
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2204,CONTENTID=7172

[MisterBeasley]

After thinking about this for a while, I think a better way to drive a rotating camera platform would be with a small electric motor, geared way down. You could then attach a DCC decoder to the motor, and control the tower camera's position from your cab.

[ndbprr]

The way I am leaning is to make the vertical height adjustment a manual one and possibly look at something like a tortise to control the side to side movement. Two factors that need to be considered are the size of the tower and the rotational speed. North Philadelphia is a fairly large tower but I doubt there would be much more room then the camera would take up inside particularly if it going to rotate. 180 degree rotation may not be possible. I don't see the need to put it on DCC. I think it will be a separate circuit entirely with the tower operator having a joystick of some kind to rotate it. The camera would have to be mounted a couple of inches above the tortise which would be below the railroad. Should be doable with some trial and error engineering.

[MisterBeasley]

For a first cut, I guess I would use some kind of belt or chain drive connected to a small turning wheel at the edge of the layout.

You never said how big this tower is. Are you planning to replace an existing scale model tower with the camera structure, or build the camera into the tower?

[ndbprr]

N. Phl. is about 20' x30' so that would be roughly 2 1/2" x4" in HO. That's not a lot of room to swing a camera or lens with any bulk! I plan to put the camera in the tower since the back nonwindow side will face the aisle and noone will know its there. Another option I just thought of would be a couple of mirrors alligned at opposite 45 degree angles so one camera would look both ways and project a split screen shot. HMMM!