WG 1000 question

Does anyone here have a Pentax WG 1000 ultra basic all weather point and shoot? I bought it for knockaround fun rather than underwater, but I thought someone here might have one.

I was disappointed to find, that although it charges internally via USB-C, there are all kinds of dire warnings in the paperwork about charging it except with the provided mini plug in charger or from the USB port on a computer. Is this true, and I cannot charge it from a wall charger, a power bank or the little thing you plug into the accessory port in a car?

Are the "dire warnings" coming from Pentax who want you to buy their charger ? I assume that the warnings are about supplying too much current to the device/battery ?

I thought that most newer USB-C devices had to have the smarts to tell the cable and charger what their "limits" were and the (assuming decent) charger is supposed to limit it's output accordingly. Of course, there are cheap knock-off chargers and cables that probably don't do this properly. For example using a high powered 200W PD charger with a cheap $1 cable (that probably lacks the circuitry to recognise the device specs) might not be a recipe for success.

I would imagine that if in doubt, simply use an older or smaller USB charger with limited output so that you can't "cook" the device. Look online to see what the output spec of the genuine Pentax USB charger is and match that.

Got it in one. This is a newish camera and I was assuming it would behave itself when charging. I will stick to the recommendations for now and do more research. Thank you for your reply

it's not a very common camera for UW use. The TG series from Olympus dominates that market segment, with the occasional Nikon.

The warning does seem to be about charging too fast. You could feel the camera for warmth. Hot probably means too fast. Easiest though may be to use a USB-A --> USB-C cable to charge- that nearly guarantees a slow charging rate.

Now does it really matter? It might if you're taking it underwater- perhaps with too much heat you could get some expansion and potential for leakage. If you're just using it in the mist or rain, seems unlikely to matter.