Lionel Wide Vision Caboose "CSX" w/ Camera

Hi all

Just received my caboose from Charlie Ro and have been able to play with it a little.   I knew nothing about it or how to operate it and I have to say the manual is lacking in this area in my opinion.  It eludes to the fact a certain function exits but fails to tell you how to use it.   I did discover a couple of things in my one hour session with it that may help someone out with theirs.  It was easy to setup without a hitch. I used my iPad to display the image.  The first thing I finally figured out was that mine was set to normal image.   After setting it to HD the image was much better. You can set this by tapping the screen which should give you the settings at top and bottom and then tap the setting at the very top center. It will be either HD, High, Normal or Low definition. When you tap it it will give you the menu to select HD.  The other thing is the focus and pan adjustment.  You can access them by touching the screen with two fingers wide apart and bring them together to center screen.  This will set the focus to distant view.   I find this to be probably the best overall setting for most viewing and the clearest. To focus in closer touch the screen with two fingers together in the center of the screen And slide them apart towards the outer edge of the screen.  This will focus in closer.  You must focus in closer for the pan function to work from what I can see.  Now you can touch the screen with one finger and pan the camera left, right and up, down.  

After an hour or so with it I am very happy overall with the quality of the picture.

Good luck to all. I hope you can easily understand my lame directions.

I will post some pics when I figure out how to get them from the app.

Al

Al, great answer to the wide vision Caboose. Which one did you get. I actually purchased 4 to replace some I plan to sell. My theater car works fine. I look to see Dave with Lionel chime back in this thread. Happy Railroading 

I tested the prototype that I built and I also pulled one from stock to test. Both have clear views. Note though that the image is going to be blurry for anything close - I.E. the roof of the caboose. But anything more than 6 inches away should be clear.

To the O.P. - I recommend calling Service for a RA to see what we can do to fix it.

Thank you, Dave.....appreciate you testing these and getting back to us so quick with your impressions.   I will do just that!

-Pete

Hey Larry

i got the NS.  Its my first and so far really like it.   Here is a pic I took today.

thanks and Happy Railroading

Al

Bub posted:

Hey Larry

i got the NS.  Its my first and so far really like it.   Here is a pic I took today.

thanks and Happy Railroading

Al

That looks perfect...  looking forward to my UP caboose!

Have the Pennsylvania and Union Pacific Camera Cabooses arrived to dealers yet.  Are they in the second shipment?  I found the CSX, NS and SF that I wanted.  I am still looking for the Pennsylvania and Union Pacific. 

Sincerely, John Rowlen

just received my SF caboose; it's a really nicely detailed caboose even without the camera.

I just got my NS Caboose today! Turned out excellent, and came without problems.

My SF arrived today.  Works great.  Clear.   It's very cool

I can not get my PC to find the Camera. I follow the instructions and when I click on the setup tool it does not find the Camera. I do not get the firewall screen just before the search screen. I'm running Win 10 and Norton Security Suite. Any ideas how to fix the problem before I send it back to the dealer as defective.

maxmn_98 posted:

I can not get my PC to find the Camera. I follow the instructions and when I click on the setup tool it does not find the Camera. I do not get the firewall screen just before the search screen. I'm running Win 10 and Norton Security Suite. Any ideas how to fix the problem before I send it back to the dealer as defective.

Did you connect the car's WiFi to the computer's WiFi? If the WiFi on your computer cannot see the car as available to connect to, try resetting the camera in the car. Check the troubleshooting section at the end of the manual on how to do that. And make sure the camera on/off switch on the bottom of the car is in the on position.

The cameras run on WiFi not Bluetooth.

Does your PC have a WiFi adapter?

My PC has a wifi adapter and the PC is hooked into my secure wifi network.  I use the Norton Security Suite and I tried it with the firewall disabled in order to get image 16. When I installed the IPC MultiViewSetup, I do not get the firewall screen.  I've checked the on/off switch a number of times and it is on. Also I tried the reset button with the power on. The power to the track is at least 16+ volts.  I do not have Android device, a Windows smart phone and Amazon Fires which are not true Android devices. If I do not get it working by tomorrow morning its going back to the dealer as being defective.   

One thing to try is turn off and disconnect power from your router (allow to exist in this state for at least 15 seconds).  Also while the router is down, shut down/power down (or turn wifi off) on you laptop/computer and the camera.  Connect power to your router and turn it on.  Allow the router to reboot.  (Watch your phone or other device to see when it has wifi signal again.)  Then power up or turn wifi back on on your laptop/computer and the camera.  Sometimes asynchronous encryption keys mean wifi devices lose touch with each other.  Resets like this usually enable them to find one another again.  Most often with older equipment, but just thought I'd throw this out there in case it helps.  

Sgaugian posted:

One thing to try is turn off and disconnect power from your router (allow to exist in this state for at least 15 seconds).  Also while the router is down, shut down/power down (or turn wifi off) on you laptop/computer and the camera.  Connect power to your router and turn it on.  Allow the router to reboot.  (Watch your phone or other device to see when it has wifi signal again.)  Then power up or turn wifi back on on your laptop/computer and the camera.  Sometimes asynchronous encryption keys mean wifi devices lose touch with each other.  Resets like this usually enable them to find one another again.  Most often with older equipment, but just thought I'd throw++1 this out there in case it helps.  

+1 on this.

Your PC won’t see the camera in the caboose until you connect your PC to the wifi in the caboose.  If your PC’s wifi connection is to your secure home wifi, you won’t see the camera.  I have the CSX Theatre car, and I am pretty sure they setup the same.  How to connect to the caboose wifi should be in the instructions, at least it was for the Theatre Car.

Just got mine today and really no issues with the directions.  Haven't tried using it with my PC but with my android phone very simple.  About 5 minutes to set everything up.  Here are some pictures from the caboose camera.

Got my CSX caboose today and the cam is very blurring. distorted and really not unsaleable I am using the program on my I-pad. I guess going to have  to contact Lionel in the morning

QC still about the same I see.

I have a similar issue. My Santa Fe caboose is clear and focused, but my Chessie caboose is blurry. Will also have to contact Lionel. 

Just got my Sante Fe Caboose - put it on track - camera worked fine - clear picture  had a little delay in finding camera but when it picked it up it works fine

Guessing CSX cabooses only having the problem?      Still waiting for my Union Pacific. 

It appears that the caboose is putting out a signal according to an app on my fire (WIFI Signals). How ever it appears that a my secure network will not let it connect. I turned off the Norton protection for both the fire wall and the auto protection. I also tried SGAUGIAN method twice. Note: to everyone I fellowed the instructions in 78-4231-250 3/18 (Lionel WiFi Camera App Owner's Manual) step by step every time I tried hooking up the Camera. Anyone have anything else that I could try?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

QC still about the same I see.

What does that mean?... That forum members  just so happen to end up with ALL of the defective models making things seem worse than they really are?

Received my Burlington Northern today and everything checks out fine.

@maxmn_98 You are connecting to the Access Point on the Caboose correct? Meaning instead of using your home WiFi you would connect to the access point on the caboose to set it up.

Has anyone asked Dave/Lionel if the Caboose/Theater Car camera are the

identical product? I have caboose version on order and sure would like to

know!! UnclePeteRR

Matt, How do you set up an access point.  I do not detect any  other WIFI signals on my computer.

I started another thread on this. My CSX cam caboose comes up on my pc wifi, but when I open the app, the cam has a 0.0.0.0.80 IP address. And no amount of fiddling on the configuration helps. What causes this and how can I fix it? My pc has a wired ethernet connection to the house wifi router, but I am trying to wifi to the wifi card in the pc with the CAM. Is that an issue? I am successful using the LCS system with wifi this way and also use the Legacy Utility with wifi this way...just not the CAM

Further, I guess the WiFi does hook up, but the IP address is that bunch of zeros on the pc app. Also, I changed the password on the iPad but what is the username and password on the pc app? Are they connected or completely separate?

I finally got it working and what is missing from the instructions for PC or they assume we would know what to do is that the caboose and the theater car are their own WiFi network and you need to first connect to that network before you do anything else. Then load the software and everything works. It worked for me. The only thing that I do not like it is a non secure network.

maxmn_98 posted:

I finally got it working and what is missing from the instructions for PC or they assume we would know what to do is that the caboose and the theater car are their own WiFi network and you need to first connect to that network before you do anything else. Then load the software and everything works. It worked for me. The only thing that I do not like it is a non secure network.

Glad to see you got it working.

Please forgive this question (I haven't received mine yet, so haven't got a set of instructions to read).

Are you saying the App is included in the caboose itself, and that is where you get it for your device?

I was considering trying to get the app on my iPod ahead of time before I actually pick up my caboose so I can fully check it out before leaving the store to check the picture quality.  If the App is on the caboose, obviously that won't be easy to do.

-Dave

Once you connect to it you can go into the camera settings and put it on your own WiFi network which is what I did.

OK...I went to the PC wifi and found this...

CM4CC8-860DEF97142F-29D1CC

which I connected successfully to. Then I brought up the app

IP Camera Search Tool v3.0

and ended up with this when I clicked on "search" and ticked the box for "Configure camera's network settings"

My questions are:

1. How to I get the right IP address into the search results so that when I click "Open" it takes me to a valid web page?

2. What is the username and password here for? And how do I change it? when I try, it doesn't change to what I typed in when I close the app and reopen it.

3. What am I supposed to do with the statement "Please check if the camera's IPO address, blah blah blah...". When I try to edit the "Camera's IP address...etc" panel in configure, nothing changes in the IP Camera search window where the 0.0.0.0:80 IP address appears and no good results from the editing.

NOW on the iPhone, everything is seamless. The camera comes up on the iPhone or/and iPad app, I get a recommendation to reset the password which defaults to "8888", which I did set to CSX. And everything works just fine.

This doesn't help either...

clicking apply after setting all the Camera Network Information does nothing, still wondering about Username and Password, etc.

I have mine on my internal WiFi which I suggest you do. I have it working on my phone and PC, however this thing performs better on phones and tablets. 

After you get it on your WiFi, run the search tool and just click the open button. If you are presented with a login use admin as the username and leave the password blank. See if that works for you. 

What do you mean by internal WiFi. The WiFi configuration on the pc and not the house WiFi? That’s what I did, but when I click on open with that bad IP address, I get a “nothing found” web page...naturally.

Your house WiFi access point. You can put the caboose on your internal WiFi instead of connecting to it so it will exist in your network with a reachable IP Address. It’s much easier in my opinion to use it this way. Best way to do this is via the phone app. Click on the gear icon on the camera list and choose device settings, then WiFi and you can then add it to your house AP. 

That works well for all the devices. Thank you so much! I had thought that I was supposed to connect to the device WiFi since that worked for the iPad. However connected to the house WiFi now works for iPad, phone, and pc windows computer. 

Thanks again,

No problem Chuck, I’m a Network Admin, and I have to say the instuctions could use a bit more detail when it come to connecting it to your own network which really isn’t explained. On a positive note the device itself is fantastic and I’m glad Lionel is making these.