I work in a lab, and I've been trying to replace a lost AC-DC power adapter. I got one recently that has the exact specs that I need, which are apparently pretty rare (15V, 400 mA). However, when I test the power adapter with a voltmeter, it's actually outputting ~22V, despite what it says on the plug.
Now, when I plug in the power adapter, the camera "turns on" because the green LED on it comes on. However, when I try to run the camera software, it behaves exactly as it does if I have the camera unplugged or turned off. So the software is not "seeing" it, even though it's plugged in, and plugged into the firewire port on the PC (yes, it uses firewire... ugh).
So now I don't know why the camera is not actually working. My hypothesis -- is it possible that the camera is not really working because the power adapter is bad, and that the specs are too far off from what it wants? Even though the LED light turns on, maybe the voltage/current is close enough to make something work, but not close enough for it to actually function properly?? Is this stupid?
I'm just not sure if this is a software or hardware problem...