Need a car cig lighter adaptor for DVX100a?

M

MarcM

Active member
Anyone know where to get an adaptor to plug my DVX into a car cigarette lighter for power. Something that converts the 12V car battery to the 7.6V required by the DVX.
 
Most auto stores sell power inverters. Mine cost about 50 bucks, but it draws far more amps than the DVX requires. I'm sure you can get one for about 20-25 dollars.
 
Yea, I've got a power inverter but thats not what Im looking for.
You know the DC cable that comes with the DVX. Well I need the end that plugs into the charger to plug into a cigarette lighter power supply.
 
..the idea with the inverter is to plug the same cable into the charger like its supposed to, and then simply plug the charger into the inverter which is pluged into the cigarette lighter.

on a side note ..even if you did find a able like the one your asking about,, its a bad idea to plug the camera directly into the lighter socket without any power regulators ir inverters in the way to smooth out the power scource.. youd might be asking for a fried cam. a cars AC isnt constant and definitely spikes and drops with the engine rpms.
 
What I have is a bunch of 12V batteries used on full size Betacam cameras. The ones before the big brick batteries came out. These batteries are about 8 inches long, bout 2 1/2 inches wide and a bit less than an inch thick. Now I have a cable that goes from a Frezzi light to these type of batteries. What I want to do is not actually plug the camera into the car. I want to utilize these batteries to run the DVX. Now the Frezzi cable connects to these batteries to run the light. Instead of running the lite I want to run the DVX. Which brings me to my problem. I need a DC adaptor to downconvert the 12v to 7.6v
NRG makes all kinds of battery adaptors for camcorders to run off bigger batteries. I just can't find one for the DVX.
http://www.nrgresearch.com
 
Yea, I've considered that but I don't want to have to carry around that brick inverter.
I looked through B&H and they6 have these for just about all Canons and Sony's but not the DVX
 
in the light that your already carrying around a huge battery.. i wouldnt have thought you would minded, but its always an option if you have to use those batteries.
anyhow, i would actually suggest looking into just buying some 5000mah batts from DVXuser here if you need big batts. IMHO i dont see that lugging around the other ones you have would be worth the hasele. ..is this for something special?
 
I've already bought a couple 5500mAh batteries. It's just that I already own ten of these NP series batteries. Thought I'd just put em to good use.
 
I too was looking for a solution to powering DVX from battery and I also have a load of NP1 Sony batteries. What I did was get a used Np1b battery case from ebay and wired a female cigerette lighter plug to it. I've never been comfortable with stepdown dc converters especially because of the possibility of overpowering my camera. We already have the proper utility ( the charger). I simply went to Walmart and bought a small 75 watt continous 100 watt surge inverter. It's about the size of a cigerette lighter plug with a small ac female on the end. It's regulated and will shut down when the voltage gets too low. I can put the whole thing in my back pocket and pop in a new battery when needed.
You can basically power any low draw ac accessory that you own.
 
That sounds close to what I want but doesn't that mean you still have to carry the DVX battery charger with you? Where do you put it. Doesn't it get in the way?
 
Since I rarely shoot without a tripod, I attach the charger to the battery case and hang it on the tripod. There is some sacrifice that we must adjust to. It's seems to me much safer than trying to gamble with voltage variations of power step downs.
 
Gary said:
Since I rarely shoot without a tripod, I attach the charger to the battery case and hang it on the tripod. There is some sacrifice that we must adjust to. It's seems to me much safer than trying to gamble with voltage variations of power step downs.
Click to expand...

And yet that is exactly what the AC power supply does...except it's going from 220/120 down to 7.2 volts. If you're worried about supplying too much voltage to the camera, which do you think would do more harm? Hitting it with 12 volts or 100+? :evil:

Dan
 
Hmmm...just what IS the voltage?

My charger says 7.8 vdc. The camera says 7.9 vdc. The batteries say 7.2 vdc.

Are the specs really just 7.(mumble mumble)?

Dan
 
GenJerDan,
I'm not sure what you mean by hitting with 100 volts or 12. If you read the other post I use a small 75watt inverter in a 12volt battery to create household current to plug my charger/adaptor into. The inverter is designed to create and maintain 120volts ac. It's not anymore unsafe than plugging into your wall in your studio or home.

Secondly, the variation of 1/10 of a volt @7.8, 7.9volts isn't a concern either, the charger will always put out more voltage than the battery. That's the only way a battery can be charged.
 
Gary said:
I too was looking for a solution to powering DVX from battery and I also have a load of NP1 Sony batteries. What I did was get a used Np1b battery case from ebay and wired a female cigerette lighter plug to it. I've never been comfortable with stepdown dc converters especially because of the possibility of overpowering my camera. We already have the proper utility ( the charger). I simply went to Walmart and bought a small 75 watt continous 100 watt surge inverter. It's about the size of a cigerette lighter plug with a small ac female on the end. It's regulated and will shut down when the voltage gets too low. I can put the whole thing in my back pocket and pop in a new battery when needed.
You can basically power any low draw ac accessory that you own.
Click to expand...

Actually, a properly bult converter will have the output voltage tightly regulated, so it can not "overpower" the camera. The method that you are using, Gary is OK for using car power, or any other high capacity power source. It is not so good for using an NP1 or any other smaller batteries. The reason is not so immediately obvious; the inverter has inherent power losses due to its efficiency of may be 60-70%. The charger has similar losses. When you daisy chain them, the total efficiency is a product of both. Multiplying .7 * .7 = .49 or in other words, half of the NP1 battery charge is wasted as heat. If NP1 has nominal capacity of 30wh, the actual delivered capacity to the camera is about 15 wh, which would translate into only 1.5 - 2 h run time on one charge.
 
GenJerDan said:
Hmmm...just what IS the voltage?

My charger says 7.8 vdc. The camera says 7.9 vdc. The batteries say 7.2 vdc.

Are the specs really just 7.(mumble mumble)?

Dan
Click to expand...
A Li-Ion battery freshly charged will have 8V on its terminals. As it is being drained, it drops down to about 6.5V. The camera is designed to accept any voltage in this range, as it has internal voltage regulation. Even a bit over 8V is not going to kill it, as there is always some design margin to handle short term overvoltage.
HTH
Alex
 
The point here is that it appears that most of these guys are not willing to buy a high quality converter that you are describing. What I use (and have for about a year) is in fact an Np1b but its a nimh and it's 4000ma. I have run the camera for hours and never has it crapped out or shut down with a low voltage alarm. The efficiency of the inverter is 90% with a noload draw that's miniscule.
 
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