Camcorder Power Supply
Approx construction cost US$56
Battery replacement with a lot more bottle!
Many camcorder users manage perfectly well with the battery supplied with their machine. If they need to extend the operating time, they simply buy another battery and carry them both around. A typical camcorder battery provides an operating time of 45 minutes, including using the zoom lens and rewinding the tape every so often to review the results. Two batteries would still only give 90 minutes of operation. However, “serious” users often need much more than this between charges, possibly even up to 12 hours. Although high-capacity batteries are available, they are an expensive option.
The project described here is a high-capacity supply with integral charger. The unit may be used to power camcorders having an operating voltage between 6V and 9·6V d.c. With the author’s camcorder it provides over 11 hours of operation. Charging may be effected either from the mains or a 12V d.c. source, such as plugging it into the car cigar lighter socket. The author’s unit is housed in a camera bag, large enough to accommodate the connecting leads and various pieces of camcorder equipment.
More details on this construction project can be found in the October 2001 issue of EPE Online, the world's first web-delivered electronics and computing hobbyist magazine.
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