David Nebenzahl wrote:

On 3/12/2010 10:57 PM Michael A. Terrell spake thus:

David Nebenzahl wrote:

To bring this little saga to a close, I built a little AC adapter for my
Fuji Finepix digicam: brought in 5 volts from a little Samsung wall
wart, put the regulator and an electrolytic cap in a film can on a
little piece of perfboard, and brought the power out to a 2.5mm power
mini jack.

The long and short of it is, the camera doesn't work on this supply. It
puts out 3.25 volts alright, even when plugged into the camera, but the
camera just sits there and does nothing. My suspicion is that the power
jack is just not quite the right size to make contact (or else there's
something screwed up inside the camera that makes it not accept external
power, which seems unlikely).

So I'll probably bite the bullet and shell out a little $ to buy the AC
adapter made for this camera (found one on the internets for about $12).

The camera itself (bought for $1 at Oakland's White Elephant sale) works
like a charm; just got the USB cable for it today ($4.75).


What is the current rating of the AC adapter? Fuji recommends a 2
amp, 5 volt supply for my Fuji Finepix S5200 camera.

Yeah, I've seen that too. But the camera says "3V 2.5W", which should be
fine with my 1 amp supply in theory. Besides, I see absolutely no
voltage sag on my VOM when I connect the camera and try to turn it on,
which seems to indicate no connection (if the supply were being
overloaded, I'd expect to see some sag).


You may not see it without using a scope. A lot of regulation
problems don't show up with a meter, when you're right on the edge.


--
Lead free solder is Belgium's version of 'Hold my beer and watch this!'