iscwest
Its a Panasonic PV-GS31 camcorder.
Answer
You need to know what AMPERAGE - milliamps the Camcorder is rated for at the 7.9 listed voltage. Adapters almost NEVER give the voltage that the label indicates - if you have a digital multimeter and look at the voltage, you will usually find that 7.9 volts actually reads 14 or 16 volts with no "load" ( not plugged in ) as the camcorder uses power the
voltage will drop, and the Amperage will increase - different
functions on the camcorder such as rewind, zoom, playback etc. will use different motors and chips, and therefore use different amounts of power. Some adapters use cheap
single diode converters from AC ( Alternating current input of 120 volts, which goes from zero to 167 vots in one direction, back to zero, then to 167 volts in the other direction, and back to Zero ) If there is little or no CAPACITOR value in MicroFarads, then the output is a choppy
jagged pulse. The Output rating of 7.9 volts at xxx milliamps ( one thousand milliamps is one amp ) is an AVERAGE only - at one specific amperage listed !
NOTE - you also need to know the center tip and outer
adapter plug poarity ( Positive and negative ) of the
replacement 7.5 volt adapter ! ! ! make certain that the
positive and negative match the required 7.9 volt inputs.
If you use a 3 AMP ( 3000 milliamp ) 7.5 volt adapter,
it may work much better than a 1100 milliamp 7.9 volt
adapter, since when the Camcorder uses a lot of power, the
7.9 volt may drop to 7.3 volts under heavy load, but the
7.5 volt ( "RATED" ) adapter may actually put out
9 raw volts, and NEVER drop below 7.5 volts with the
3000 milliamp ( "power output " ) it is capable of supplying. Unless I find a computer grade switch mode power supply rated a 5.0 volts, xxx amps, I rarely find any
adapter that actually puts out the VOLTAGE that is listed
on the label. Ten different adapters, by ten different
companies, all with the same output label ( 7.5 volts at
1000 milliamps ), will actually give 10 different voltages
at any given load ( Current draw in milliamps ).
Just make certain that the polarity ( Positive and negative ) is correct, and try the 7.5 - if the adapter gets too hot in a few minutes of use, then it is too small in its Amperage output, and you could burn it out. If it has an equal, or higher amperage than the original 7.9 adapter, and it remains cool running, and the camcorder works perfectly, then you are probably ok.
Summary - check the polarity and the amperage required. If your 7.5 volt adapter is labelled 200 or 450 milliamps then you are probably in trouble - the adapter is for a tiny device that uses little power. If the camcorder label states
1.6 amps ( at 7.9, or " 8 " volts ) then you are better off to try to find an adapter with similar or HIGHER amperage output, at, or near 7.5 to 8 volts, for example 2 amps ( 2000 milliamps ). If you had 2 electrical meters, one set to amperage, the other set to votlage, you could see the actual voltage of any adapter drop from, for example, 12 vots raw output, with no load, to 7.9 volts under heavy camcorder load when plugged in.
NOTE 120 Vots is not 120 volts of anything - it is an AVERAGE of the curve going up and down from zero to about 167 vots at the peak of each "hill" in the center. The wave form of 120 volts looks like a bunch of hills, alternating
with identical valleys, so the average "real" power is
about 120. If you look at an oscilloscope you see a sine wave, which looks like the side view of ripples in water.
If you had to say how high the water level was, and there were waves comming in on the beach, you take the average between the tops of the waves and the bottoms, and use that as an average. Similar to "120" volts, or 7.9 volts Direct current ( Direct Current is exactly the same a a battrey output - just a single voltage with no waves - just a straight line, like a water level on a day with no wind - flat ) Most adapters put out some form of ripple or waves caused by the 120 volt input's huge waves.
So, 7.5 and 7.9 "could" be almost identical, depending on
how well the adapters were made, and what electronics were used inside the adapters to change 120 volts down to " 7.9 ".
FINALLY, if I haven't bored you to death already, the CAMCORDER itself usually has a power regulation circuit
built into it as well ... This means that the Camcorder takes in the raw "7.9 volts" and has circuits to change the power to charge the camcorder's batteries ( high current, probably about 6 volts ), to run the motors ( probably
various tiny motors running 6 volts, 5 volts, 3 volts etc
depending on how powerful they need to be ), to run the memory and controller chips, (5.00 volts, 3.3 volts, 1.5 volts, etc. ) and to supply the mini liquid TV viewer screen's backlight... SO... This means that even a 9 volt
power supply with a correct polarity, and similar Amperage rating may work just fine, IFF the power converter circuits in the Camcorder itself can handle dropping a bit of excess voltage from the 9.0 volts ( rated, but putting out 12 vots raw power easily under no load ) to 8.0 ( or 7.9 ) volts rated by the Camcorder manufacturer. Again Amperage rating is a huge factor to consider...
Hope this helps
ROBIN
Which brand mini camcorder is tops for performance/value + very cost effective please?
TuityFruit
Answer
We bought this mini-camcorder for our daughter for Christmas...
http://www.target.com/Aiptek-P-HD-Camcorder/dp/B001G70RRW/sr=1-1/qid=1230548077/ref=sr_1_1/183-0280896-4005658?ie=UTF8&index=target&rh=k%3Aaiptek&page=1
We found it at Target for $120 and bought a 4GB flash card for another $25.
The user interface is a little odd at first, but once you figure out what the designers had in mind, it's pretty simple. It takes stills, varying qualities of video, it has night-vision mode, can be used as a voice recorder, and I think it has an MP3 player built in.
We havn't uploaded anything to the PC yet, so I don't know how that will all go down. It comes with a disk/program but I'm gonna let Windows Media and Picasa have first crack at it.
For the price, all seems well so far.
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