Auto Power-down for XL1

Often, I have the need to capture an entire 60-minute dv tape to my NLE - and many times it's late when I'd rather sleep than wait for the end of the 1-hour capture. I'd like to just let the camera and PC do their thing while I sleep, but hate the thought of my camera being powered up all night - after the capture is complete.
My initial idea to remedy this inefficiency is to supply power to the camera via the AC power supply - and have the AC power supply plugged into an adjustable time switch. Set the timer for an hour, and sixty minutes later when the capture process is complete, the timer cuts power to the XL1 while I'm sawing logs.

My question to other users is... will killing the ac power do any harm to the camera?

Thanks,

Ray Cumpton

[Ken Tanaka]

As long as the tape transport is idle I don't think that there's too much hazard. But my gut tells me that it's not a completely safe idea. What if you ran the camera on a low-capacity battery? That way the battery will drain overnight and the camera will automatically safely shut down by itself. Also, are you sure that the XL1 won't just automatically shut itself down after a certain amount of idle time anyway? I know that it normally does so when running in camera mode from a battery.

Ken,

You are right! When the camera's battery gets low, the unit shuts itself down. Your comments gave me another idea. I wonder how the XL1 senses a "low battery" - perhaps by sensing the battery voltage? It would be easy enough to emulate a "low battery" condition by building an electronic timer which ramps down the voltage from the ac power supply, thus tricking the camera into thinking its battery is low.

Anyone have an extra XL1 I can experiment with? I'd hate to fry mine.

Unfortunately, the XL1 does not auto shut down while in VTR mode.

Thanks for the reply!

[Ken Tanaka]

Whether the camera gets it power-down cue from voltage or current, it will probably be much simpler and less expensive to just use a small battery. Also, I wouldn't be surprised to discover that the camera doesn't get the same power-down cues when it detects that it's connected to an a.c. source.