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- Bought a new digital camera today.
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- One of the things they tried to sell me was a “speed charger” that only takes an hour to charge the batteries. The camera comes with a regular 12-hour charger, but the speed-charger works in only an hour. And costs $50.
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And AC adaptors too, while we’re here: So I get home, put the (included) batteries in, the camera comes on for a couple seconds, gives a low battery warning and shuts off. So I’m bummed, then I see there’s a cover for a “DC Adaptor”. So I open it, and there’s a totally oddball plug. They make a special DC adaptor also, it’s $50 too. There’s no markings or specs at all of how much voltage the camera needs, or which contact is which pole.
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Call me cynical, but I’m suspecting neither of these was any accident. What’s the difference between a regular nickel-hydride battery charger and a nickel-hydride speed-charger? And why would they need a special AC/DC adaptor, when the DC plug has only got two metal contacts in it anyway?
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The AC adapter is A Real Good Idea for saving batteries. Repeat, A Real Good Idea.
The “Speed Charger” is a clever scheme to get you to buy more rechargable batteries. Using them reduces the lifetimes of the batteries significantly. Never use them unless you have money to throw away.
You seem to be seriously confused about adapters and therefore I can’t make sense of the last part of your post.
(I have made AC adapters for 2 digital cameras given the specs of voltage and current from $2 thrift store wallwarts. But I also know what to look for in such things as well as soldering, etc. that goes with it.)
Are these standard AA rechargable batts or a special batt pack??
If they are standard AA’s you can get a good quality charger (apx 4 hrs for recharging) and Nimh cells (2 sets) for about $30.
Rechargeable batteries are delivered without a charge. so it’s not at all surprising the batteries didn’t work out of the box.
Batteries are best charged slowly so I would recommend slow charging and having an extra set rather than fast charging. And a slow charger is much simpler and cheaper as it just puts a small current through the batteries. A good fast charger needs to monitor time, voltage and temperature or it can ruin the batteries fast. Even then fast charging is not the best thing. Patience is a virtue.
Also, I recommend getting an aftermarket adapter & charger. Radio Shack is a good place to look. The digital camera manufacturers whine that you’ll void the warrenty blah blah blah if you don’t use their stuff. It’s total BS. They just want to sock you $50 for their adapter when you can get one for $18 aftermarket.
The first digital camera I bought even went so far as to print ‘5V’ on the adapter socket to try and make me buy their expensive one (I found that nobody carried a 5 volt adapter). But nothing is 5 volts! It used 4 AA at 1.5V each = 6 volts. Jerks.
I’m not so sure that a “speed charger” reduces battery life. It’s true in theory, but in practice most “slow” chargers have simple timers that charges the battery for a set amount of time (12 hours). So if you charge a partially used battery it gets over-charged, which is more damaging than a fast charge. Most “speed chargers” detect when the battery is full and shut off automatically.
New batteries need to be charged before they can be used. Even if they are shipped charged, they lose charge over time.
As for the DC adapter, they use a propriatory plug because they don’t want you to plug in just any cheap DC adapter. Some devices need more stable voltages than others. One of my digital cameras has a standard plug, and when I used a Radio Shack adapter on it there was an unacceptable amount of noise on the screen.
I don’t see why you’d want a DC adapter anyway - even if you use the camera at home, it’s more convenient to have spare batteries than to be tetherd to the wall socket. It may be useful if you transfer images to the PC with a serial or USB cable, but it’s usually faster and more convenient to use a card reader connected to the PC. The only reason I used a DC adapter was to use the camera as a webcam.
I have a Fuji Finepix 1400 which uses 4xAA batteries = 6V and I bought a generic 6V adapter rather than the 5V adapter Fuji sells. You have to be careful though and know what you are doing. A 6 V unregulated adapter may put out up to 8 or 9 volts at low or no charge and may damage certain items. The voltage is nominal, not actual.
NiMH batteries will withstand a trickle charge indefinitely without damage. I just have one set on a charger and another in the camera. The charger is just a a DC adapter with a resistor to limit the current.
Hail Ants and Sailor seem to be saying that the DC adapter input takes the same voltage range as the battery voltage. Is this really the case? The battery is presumably connected to the circuit via a voltage regulator, but are you sure the same is true for the DC input?
THere are basically 3 types of chargers.
One is slow/trickle charger. The charge rate is low enough that it will not damage the batt no matter how long you leave it on.
2nd is the timed fast charger which wants fully drained batts. put partially charged batts in and you will overcharge them (shorten their life)
3rd is the regulated fast charger. It has the best of both worlds, quick charge and will go to a non-damaging trickle when the batts are fully charged.
An AC adapter takes wall power, converts it to DC, then changes the voltage to the correct level. This should come with the camera.
A DC adapter takes power from a DC source, such as a car cigarette lighter, and changes the voltage to the correct level. They are mostly (only?) useful if you plan to use the device or charge batteries inside a vehicle, and are usually sold seperately.
Several posts assumed all AA cells are 1.5 volts. This just could not be more wrong! Carbon-zinc (heavy duty) and alkaline cells are 1.5 volts, and are not rechargable (except for a new breed of semi-rechargable alkalines, but that’s another story).
The NiMH (and older NiCd) cells are 1.2 volts. Thus, the device that specified 5 volts for four cells was right on, not coded wrong to fool gullible suckers!
Every case is different. My laptop has diffrent voltages from the battery pack and from the AC adapter but my digital camera has the AC adapter connected where the batteries are. I checked that. The camera is rated for rechargeables or for alkalines so it would work over a range of voltages but you have to be careful not to exceed the max and that max is not stated anywhere.
As I said before, a regulated AC adapter will output a pretty constant voltage but a plain old wall wart is generally not regulated and can output a voltage well above the nominal output voltage. It the device can handle it then fine but if not you can be in trouble. I have a switching, regulated, AC adapter with output selectable to 3, 4.5, 6, 7.5 and 9 Volts but I measured it and the actual output voltages are higher than the nominal so I select 4.5 and get about 5.2 which works fine. If I select 6 I get about 7 which may be too high.
k2dave is right there are 3 types of chargers
- trickle
- fast
- fast/regulated to be trickle.
I bought my Maha-c204f regulated fast charger from
http://www.thomasdistributing.com/
was a bit expensive 40 dollars for the charger and 4 aa powerex(industry’s best brand) batteries. But I must admit all my batteries are charged in an hour or two, and they last forever. I have NEVER run out of batteries using these with my fujifilm 2800, and I even use it as a webcam. heck the maha-c204f will even condition batteries(but thats more for older ni-cad batteries).
It’s not top of the line anymore, but it’s still a great charger as it’s served me.
The Maha c204F is the gold standard in a geocaching forumn which frequently asks about rechargable batts.
I got my c204f from ebay with 8 1550mAh batts for $36 (when 1600mAh was the top). I have been very pleased with it and it saves me a buttload of alks.
They are rated at 1.2 V but alks when in use will drop to about 1.2v anyway. This is due to high internal resistance and lower energy density (or power density - what ever means that you can’t pull that much out of a cell in a given time). Also Alks and NiMH both end their useful life at about 1V/cell so at the low end they are the same.
Nimh has to be charged at greater then 1.2v - more like 1.5V (Actually I think it’s 1.8v) so the 5V adapter was a scam.
I am not sure what 5V scam you are talking about. My camera can work with a range of voltages between about 4.2 Volts and an undetermined upper limit above 6.8. The FUJI AC adaptor is nominally 5 V and works fine but it just powers the camera and does not charge the batteries which need to be charged on a separate charger. I just bought a commercial AC adapter and saved some money.
The ‘scam’ is by using a batt charger that makes people think it is the only one on earth that will work with your camera. I was under the impression that it is really a 6V charger that the manu. labled 5V to prevent people from just running down to radio shack and buying a $6 adapter instead of the (most likely) $50 5V adapter.
My gps will opperate with something like 4.2 to 24 volts - how do they do that?
Most likely by a switching power supply as is used in PCs and lots of hand held devices. Input voltage may be drastically higher than the device reqluires so it’s switched on and off at extremly high speed. The resulting output pulses average out to the DC voltage you want and a capacitive filter makes it nice and smooth. Very small and light as it doesn’t require a transformer and very efficient.
Switching power supplies can more easily be designed to accept a wider input margin. That is why many computer and monitor power supplies can be plugged into 110 or 220 volts without need to switch anything. My razor is also like that as is the AC adapter for the camera. A good feature if you travel a lot, like I do. Also, switching power supplies are lighter as the do not have the bulky mains frequency transformer.
I am not sure I would call the manufacturer telling you to use their stuff a “scam”. Pretty much they all do it and you do get a guarantee that you do not get otherwise. Most of the time I buy my own stuff but I understand why people who are not knowlegeable would prefer to play it safe.
I am in the process of replacing the high voltage rectifier in a GE mircrowave oven. GE wants $36 for the part when I can find a generic one for a couple of bucks.
You do have to be careful with battery chargers. Some types of the various rechargeable batteries can explode if not charged properly. I have heard of cases of people being injured when the batteries in their phones have exploded. The cases I heard about the cause was attributed to after market chargers that did not work correctly.