I am going to be shooting this event in the desert for 3 days so I wont be able to charge my camera. My camera doesn’t have an external battery pack so I cant bring extra batteries. Right now I’m talking to this guy on eBay about buying a portable solar panel off of him. The solar panel comes with many charging connectors but there are only 3 that fit the port on my camera and there voltage output is 5.5V / 8.4V / 12V. My camera requires a 9.6V. . .
So my question is wether or not it is ok to charge a device with a different voltage output? Will it work, is it safe, which one should I use out of the three provided?
Thanks!
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4 Comments
wires
on 11th Aug, 10 11:08pm
No, the selection of your chargers isn’t close enough to charge the 9.6 volts correctly. The 5.5 volt and 8.4 volt won’t fully charge the camera and the 12 volt will overcharge and damage the battery in the camera.
Jenn
on 11th Aug, 10 11:08pm
i wouldnt but you can by other adaptors that should be able to convert it to the volts that you need
asylumescapee69
on 12th Aug, 10 12:08am
Firstly, when a charger is used to recharge a battery cell, the voltage is usually higher than the actual output voltage of the battery. It’s not good to bypass the charger and hook dc volts straight to the battery,
Charging cycles on and off to prevent overheating.
Your charger probably requires input voltage of 120 volts, unless it’s a car adapter for 12 volts.
So you need to work out the correct input voltage for the charger meant for the batteries your are using.
Use car batteries or those jumpstart battery packs. Figure out the consumption of your camera in watts per hour.
Then figure out the total capacity of the batteries.
Or get a cheap alternator, mount it on an exercise bike, and connect it to the battery to charge it. Then you get exercise and power.
Or you can buy one of those external battery packs that use normal AA or C cell batteries, to plug into your camera from your back pocket. If your handy with basic electronics you can make one with parts from radio shack and then buy enough batteries to last 3 days. In the short run it would be much cheaper than buying a bunch of back up camera batteries, we know how much those cost.
Home depot sells a simple 10 watt solar panel meant for a small output attic fan for 100 dollars.
A few of those linked together might be enough, though you have to keep them from overheating from too much sunlight.
That would probably be cheaper than whatever solar panel set-up the guy wants to sell you.
You just need an external battery to “filter” the power coming from the panels into stable 12 volt source and then attach a car cigarette outlet (3 dollars at a auto store) to the battery and use a car charger adapter for your battery charger.
anyways, good luck, hope it works out. You might need a back-up camera because of heat in direct sunlight. At the very least bring cleaning tools for the sand that may blow into your camera.
Bad bus driving wolf
on 12th Aug, 10 12:08am
Basically there are three options with your current charger: 1) use the 12 V setting for a short period of time; or 2) use the 8.4 v setting for a long period of time; or 3) biff the charger and use the correct one.
1) Any voltage above the current voltage setting of the batteries will charge them, the higher the voltage the higher the input current. Hence, the 12v setting is quite a high input voltage, so the batteries will charge very quickly.
2) If the battery voltage is below 8.4, then the battery will charge. Depending on the design of the charger, the 8.4 v dc output could be “flat” or it could have a ripple. If there is a ripple, then it will mean it is possible for the charger to charge the batteries to a higher voltage than the charger should allow, hence the need for a longer period of time to charge the battery.
3) Since neither charger seems to be the right one for the job, you should throw both away and use one which has an output voltage of around 10 – 10.5 vdc.