A480 power supply?

[TomHorsley]

I know why everyone likes the A480: They are the only cameras actually obtainable that have the necessary specs. Mine should be coming in this week, direct from canon (refurb units).

What I'm wondering is this: Can I power the cameras and the USB trigger all from a single power supply? What voltage should it be? (I'm guessing that since the A480 takes two batteries it will be 3 volts, but I thought I should ask to make sure). Anyone ever put a voltmeter on an official Canon power adapter?

[steve1066d]

You need two seperate supplies.

For the 5 volt usb trigger, the easiest way to do that is just use a powered USB hub. Just plug the cameras into the hub and add a switch on the 5volt line going into the hub. (don't hook the hub up to a computer).

For the cameras, I tried this item from amazon.. Its an aftermarket unit, much cheaper than the official one

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000XQ ... ss_product

However, I didn't have the best of luck with them. One of them worked, but the other didn't.. They sent a replacement but that didn't work any better. I ended up taking the end off the one that didn't work and soldered it to the good one. It appeared that the voltage was too high. The OEM one is rated at 3.2 v. The aftermarket one seemed to be putting out 3.7 v. (though it was rated 3 volts).

[TomHorsley]

I was just thinking: I've got a few old ATX computer power supplies laying around. I wonder how many different voltages are available on the different connectors? Might be able to get 5 and 3 volts from one of them. I'll have to lookup what all the different connectors are supposed to provide. (Of course it might not operate correctly without the expected load on all the connectors).

Yea, just found this:

http://www.playtool.com/pages/psunonpc/nonpc.html

Looks like PC power supplies are way to temperamental to bother fooling with.

[benjamin]

We found our generic power supply seller on eBay, but ordered direct from their website. I can probably track down the contact info if anyone wants it, though I don't know you can't find a better deal elsewhere. No particular feeling about them one way or another (they work fine, but shipping was a little slow). Did like that they had a phone number with a real human on the other end, who assured me it was OK that the voltage was slightly out of spec (she was right).

[Gerard]

i've got my ACK800 compatible power supply from hear
http://www.elektronik-video.de/products ... K-800.html

i bought 4 pieces, one made a lot of noise (on the lcd and in the image) and on other a small amount which can be seen in dark image areas

[sa30gr]

if you have old computer power units you can use the 3.5 (3.3 nominal, but 3.5 when measured) volt output , after jumpstarting the unit by connecting the green wire to one of the grounds

i am using a 250W unit for 2 a590 cameras and 2 12v tft automobile screens (7'') all from the same unit and they work very well...

i tried to drop the voltage to 3.2 using a diode, but even though i succeeded droping he nominal value, when the cameras powerup there is a big drop in voltage so they shut down. So i returned to the 3.5 v output and using it for 2 months now,over 10.000 pages scaned...

[ahmad]

ATX PSUs output 3.3V, 5V and 12V. You can also get 7V by shorting 12V to 5V instead of ground.

Be careful, though - more modern (Pentium 4 era +) power supplys are horrendously unstable and unreliable unless you have a not-insignificant load on the 12V Line. P3-era and earlier PSUs are probably best because in those days CPUs took power from the 3.3V line and hence that's the one which needs a load...

[Softy Squirrel]

This link seems worth looking at

http://diybookscanner.org/forum/viewtop ... &t=545/url

As it is about powering A590s from a computer PSU.