Hi everyone,
I've seen a number of posts discussing what voltage input will/won't power a particular camera, so I was thinking it might be useful to have one post where anyone who has tested their camera can record their experiences to help folks figure out what they can get away with for a particular camera. I looked through old posts and didn't see anything like this, but if this has been done already someone please post a link here. In particular, if anyone has had experience powering (or damaging) their camera by running it at at non-standard voltages that would be great to know.
Here's what I know for my
Powershot SD950 ISIf the camera is on, it turns off when the voltage is below 2.7v
If the camera is off, it can't turn on unless the battery voltage is above 3.1v
On the high end, it seems to do fine at 5v input, but I didn't run it for long since I was afraid of damaging.
Curiously, when I hit 5.5v input a new icon appeared on the screen that looked just like the func/set/ISO/Flash/Macro button on the back of the camera. I didn't go past 5.55v
Applicability: The NB-5L and NB-4L batteries at least both are rated 3.7v, so it might be reasonable to think that other Powershots that use 3.7v batteries might have a similar tolerance range.
--> Anyone had any experience running any of the Powershots that take the NB series 3.7v batteries at 5v or higher? This would be helpful to know since there are so many different USB based battery and charging systems out there and it might be possible to hack some of them to run the camera.
[Although as noted in a related post (
http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php/topic,3087.0.html), the normal USB standard is only 0.5A output at 5v. But remember, watts = amps*volts, so if you step the 5v from the USB down to 3.5 volt or so, you should be able to pull around 0.7A which might be enough. I haven't had a chance to test the power usage of my camera under different circumstances. I'll post the results when I get them.]
So has anyone out there turned the voltage up high enough on their camera to break it, or run it at 5v for a long time to see what happens? When I turned the power on my Rebel T1i up past 8.2v, I just got an "battery error" message and the camera didn't appear to be harmed, but I was afraid to go much higher than 5.5v on the SD950 so I don't know what happens next.
Disclaimer... I'm just reporting my experience, your experience may be otherwise. If you are going to start messing with the input voltage on your camera, you should be OK with the fact that you might break it. That's half the fun of playing ain't it?
