Does anyone know either of the following?

1. Where the heck can you find the AC adaptor for the 400Z. (not on the Olympus site as far as I have searched.)

2. The specs for the AC adaptor for making a custom battery pack.

Thanks, Matt

-- Matt P (matt@isoproductions.com), November 28, 1998

Answers

No promises, and if it doesn't work, you didn't hear it from me, but most of these cameras will run from a 6V external source. They're designed to run from AA alkalines, which start a bit higher than 6v, and die around 1.1v or so. Thus, even if there's a protection diode in series, you should run fine from a nice beefy 6V external battery. From personal experience though, they're very finicky about ripple or HF noise on the power supply, so you'll need to a) filter the voltage well, and b) (most importantly) run a few loops of the power wires through a ferrite core just ahead of the power plug (at the camera end). Hope this helps, pray that it doesn't hurt! - Dave E.

-- Dave Etchells (web@imaging-resource.com), November 30, 1998.

I asked Olympus about the AC adapter for the 400 zoom, and was told that it does use the same adapter as all their other cameras. (I saw it listed separately on one of the price-comparison sites, but that was a mistake. It's the same Oly AC adapter.) You have to use their adapter, unless you can find a 6.5v 2a adapter somewhere else (Radio Shack doesn't have any such thing. They were kind enough to actually laugh at me when I asked. :) ) In theory, I would think 6v would be okay, on account of the 4 AA battery thing, but that's out of my realm of expertise.

-- Paul Toms (KidMin@aol.com), December 11, 1998.