I am not an engineer and have minimal understanding of electronics other than common sense. I was trying to rig SX500IS with external power and ran into couple of issues. The camera uses the thin flat 3.7V battery and works fine on batteries. However I am trying to get longer duration of uninterrupted use. I got the ACK-DC40 equivalent. It comes with the DC coupler (Dummy battery) and AC converter of 4.3 Volt output (the original battery is 3.7V). This external power works fine with the camera. However I am wanting to use a high MAH battery instead of the AC converter, since there is no AC power available in the field. I have connected a battery through a step down buck regulator to reduce the voltage down to 4-4.5 volt. I have tried several different power sources 12 volt 7AH alarm system battery, 6 volt 5AH Lead acid battery, older NiCD / NiMh camcorder battery rated at 6 Volt 3000MAH. I run into same problem with all of them. The camera turns on and off immediately as if there is not enough power. I assume there is not enough "driving amps", if my terminology is correct? The same set up works fine with my other camera SX400IS which also uses 3.7 volt battery.
Any suggestions on how I can make it work? Thanks for the help.
Any suggestions on how I can make it work? Thanks for the help.