mojomonkee

So I bought a Powerstick to give extra battery life to my MD-80... and it won't work! It functions the same as when it is plugged into the ESB on your 'puter. I have tried the MD-80 with the power cord to the 110 outlet and it works fine, but I don't always have that option and the 1 hour 20 mins with the camera's battery isn't enough. I was hoping with the Powerstick and MD-80 internal battery I would be good for 5-6 hours with an 8GB card.

Anyone else have this problem, and any suggested fixes?

Here is the Powerstick link:

http://www.powerstick.com/catalog/index.php

Attached Images

powerstick.jpg (1.8 KB, 32 views)

Alchemist

Provided you have charged the Powerstick correctly (test it on another device) I would have put money on it working with the Fatcam.. as far as I can tell there is no reason why it shouldn't.

Anybody else getting problems with external power supplies with the MD80.. Powermonkey etc??

cococonut

Ok, I think what you want to say is that it won't record while charging the device with the Powerstick, right? That's a known issue and there is a reason for that and fortunately a solution
Here's the pin-out of the mini-usb plug with your Powerstick (only a guess, but should be corrct):
Pin 1 should be +5V
Pin 5 should be GND
To record during charging you have to put GND also on PIN 4 and that's what your usb-adapter won't do. You have 2 possibilities:
1. Buy a mini-usb plug and build your own adapter
2. Find a usb-cable which provides the given pin combination

Hope you find a proper solution...
I have to mention: I did not try this before.

mojomonkee

[quote=cococonut;83300]Ok, I think what you want to say is that it won't record while charging the device with the Powerstick, right? That's a known issue and there is a reason for that and fortunately a solution

Yep, that is the issue - when using the powerstick, I cannot record. I'm not too sure about your suggested fix. Do you mean to take the powerstick apart and change the ground? Or if I were to look for the other cable, what woud I be looking for?

At this point, I am thinking of going with another MD-80, or two. In most circumstances, it would be pretty easy to swap out the camera every hour and a half. The MD-80 recharges after 2 hours, so you can just keep swapping them out.

cococonut

You've got an adapter/cable usb-A -> mini-usb-B, i guess... You have to modify this adapter and connect pin 4 to pin 5 (on the side of the mini-usb jack), see wikipedia for the pin-out. But I've got no guess where to buy such a cable/adapter. Maybe the easiest way is to build your own adapter.
Your idea of buying 2 additional MD-80 is also great But I prefer using all of them in parallel to get the optimal result
I also mentioned another idea in two other threads. You could use an external li-ion battery instead of the internal. But you have to open the MD-80 then.Then you're able to connect it to an external 1xAA battery holder and use trustfire 14500 batteries (size AA, but li-ion! 3,6V) you only have to replace the battery every 3 or 3,5h (maybe SD-Card too). It's much cheaper then buying several MD-80s, but you have to open the MD-80 and solder a little bit.
I've tested my MD-80 with another external battery (from my digital camera) and it worked for almost 14 hours. The only problem is you have to replace the SD-card every 5h