At 08:46 AM 10/23/2005, Mark Roberts wrote:
Pentax specifies 6.5V DC. I expect you might get away with 6V as that's equivalent to four 1.5V batteries and the ist-D certainly has a plethora of internal switching power supply regulators that can make up a little slack, but I wouldn't try a 5V supply.
Actually, four fresh alkaline batteries will give you a little more than 6 volts, at least when they are very fresh.
I wonder if anyone has tried to use a sealed 6 volt lead-acid "gel cell" battery connected to the external power supply connector? I think a fully charged 6 volt gel cell is actually more like 6.25 volts, perhaps as high as 6.5 volts. This might be a potential solution for people wanting a larger battery capacity.
Note: I'm not saying that this would actually work, so if you damage your *ist trying this out, please don't blame me. For one thing, while the voltage might not be too high, the current capacity of lead acid cells might be too high for your *ist camera. I have heard of flash units that had problems with lead acid cells for that very same reason.
take care, Glen
