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External Power Supply Questions

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Offline whiskey06

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External Power Supply Questions
« on: 16 / March / 2011, 00:23:15 »
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Hi There,

I have a Canon powershot SX100 IS. I need to get as much battery life as possible out of it.

I cooked up a battery pack that will output just over 3 volts using a series of AA batteries hooked up in parallel and series that plugs into the AC adapter slot.

My question is if I hook up the external power pack does it override the internal batteries or do the two team up for maximum battery life?

I'm disabling the screen by plugging in an old pair of headphones that I snipped at the base :)

Thanks for your help!
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Offline Microfunguy

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Re: External Power Supply Questions
« Reply #1 on: 16 / March / 2011, 06:50:01 »
I don't know but it does not seem likely that the battery would be used at all when the external PSU is used.
Note the battery voltage on the CHDK display, run the camera for a number of hours on the PSU, disconnect the PSU and check the battery voltage again.


David
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Offline zeno

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Re: External Power Supply Questions
« Reply #2 on: 16 / March / 2011, 07:42:13 »
I agree with David, the power plug almost certainly disconnects the inbuilt battery. If it did not, you would expect the AC power supply to be able to recharge the inbuilt battery and on all the Canon cameras I've had that is NOT the case.

It's also worth pointing out that the internal battery is not needed (i.e. can be removed) when running off external power.
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Offline whiskey06

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Re: External Power Supply Questions
« Reply #3 on: 16 / March / 2011, 09:37:34 »
Thanks for the input, I do know that when I unplug the external PS the camera stays on. I guess I'll just have to test and run the power down to see what happens. One thing I should have explained is that I won't have physical access to the camera and I need it to run for two hours or so, taking a shot every 15 seconds.

Thanks for the responses!
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Offline NewbieToobie

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Re: External Power Supply Questions
« Reply #4 on: 16 / March / 2011, 14:36:29 »
Quote from: whiskey06 on 16 / March / 2011, 00:23:15
I'm disabling the screen by plugging in an old pair of headphones that I snipped at the base :)

You should not use any metal plug to fit your A/V output plug in your camera, UNLESS it has the very same number of barrel-contacts with the same spacings on it as your A/V plug. Headphones generally only have 3 contacts (1 tip + 2 barrel contacts), A/V plugs generally have 4 (1 tip + 3 barrel contacts). Using the wrong plug with the wrong amount of barrel-contacts, or of the wrong size and spacing, could short out contacts in your A/V plug port. While it may not be detrimental temporarily, it could cause component damage over time. You should always use some strong plastic pin of the same diameter as the plug to turn off your display.

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Offline whiskey06

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Re: External Power Supply Questions
« Reply #5 on: 17 / March / 2011, 00:10:29 »
Quote from: NewbieToobie on 16 / March / 2011, 14:36:29
Quote from: whiskey06 on 16 / March / 2011, 00:23:15
I'm disabling the screen by plugging in an old pair of headphones that I snipped at the base :)

You should not use any metal plug to fit your A/V output plug in your camera, UNLESS it has the very same number of barrel-contacts with the same spacings on it as your A/V plug. Headphones generally only have 3 contacts (1 tip + 2 barrel contacts), A/V plugs generally have 4 (1 tip + 3 barrel contacts). Using the wrong plug with the wrong amount of barrel-contacts, or of the wrong size and spacing, could short out contacts in your A/V plug port. While it may not be detrimental temporarily, it could cause component damage over time. You should always use some strong plastic pin of the same diameter as the plug to turn off your display.



Good call, I just checked, the two plugs were different - the headphone had three pins, the AV cable only two. I snipped the AV cable and will just us that as I never use it anyways.
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Offline whiskey06

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Re: External Power Supply Questions
« Reply #6 on: 23 / March / 2011, 21:41:18 »
As a follow up, if you have an external battery pack plugged in and you have batteries inside the camera the camera will not fail over to the internal power. That and six AA batteries will give you 1205 pictures at 30 second intervals with the screen disabled.
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Offline whiskey06

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Re: External Power Supply Questions
« Reply #7 on: 22 / June / 2011, 17:16:23 »
Sorry to revive an old thread, but a user contacted me asking how I setup the battery pack.

In this case I hooked up 4AA batteries in parallel and then another set of 4AA batteries in parallel using electrical tape and wire. Then I connected them together in series to achieve 3v. I then plugged in an adapter to the DC port on the camera and hooked the power pack up to that. I then plugged in the AV cable to the output port to kill the screen.
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Offline ahull

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Re: External Power Supply Questions
« Reply #8 on: 31 / December / 2011, 08:38:09 »
I know this is an old topic, just thought I would explain why the battery will not fail over.

If you plug in an external source, and the camera has internal batteries, particularly if these are AA cells, then there is no way of knowing if they are rechargeable or not. If we connected the external source to AA alkaline, non rechargable batteries, they would be damaged, leak or explode.  :o

Simple really.
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