Compact flash to IDE adaptor for digital camera!!!!!!

[paulcotto]

I just saw this on ebay. Just the ticket for you guys who use a SLR digital camera to grab your pictures to a compact flash card. Now you can grab them directly onto a hard drive!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 30449&rd=1

Skip the expensive microdives by connecting a hard drive directly to your camera. Your camera must support FAT32 to go over 4 gigs so check the owners manual to see if it supports the microdive. If it does there is a good chance you can do it. I don't have the camera to test this out myself so let me know if it works.

Regards,
Paul Cotto

[Cranium]

Wish I could use FAT32 on my camera.
Stuff like this really turns me on. I don't know why, considering I can't really think of a single use I'd have for it! Even for timelapses, it would become such a cumbersome rig, since you'd need a power supply for the HD as well.
Cool as hell though.

I like the bootable IDE-CF thing he's got as well. THAT could come in handy.

[MovieStuff]

I just saw this on ebay. Just the ticket for you guys who use a SLR digital camera to grab your pictures to a compact flash card. Now you can grab them directly onto a hard drive! ....... I don't have the camera to test this out myself so let me know if it works.

Talk about synchronicity. I just saw it and bought it and then saw your post! I'll let you know how it works!

Roger

[paulcotto]

You know what they say about great minds thinking alike
Paul Cotto

I just saw this on ebay. Just the ticket for you guys who use a SLR digital camera to grab your pictures to a compact flash card. Now you can grab them directly onto a hard drive! ....... I don't have the camera to test this out myself so let me know if it works.

Talk about synchronicity. I just saw it and bought it and then saw your post! I'll let you know how it works!

Roger

[Scotness]

Stuff like this really turns me on. I don't know why, considering I can't really think of a single use I'd have for it!

Mate that's the quintessential nerd statement! Don't worry - I'm like that too....


Scot

[Scotness]

Hi Roger - just wondering if you've given it a go yet - how does it look? Could be the key to DIY HD scans.

Scot

[MovieStuff]

Hi Roger - just wondering if you've given it a go yet

Wellllllll. I dunno.

The item arrived. HOWEVER- right after I won the item I got an email from Dave Anderson (who sometimes posts here) that he had once won one of these babies and was then contacted by the seller afterwards and told that, upon inspection, the item did not work as advertised. The seller then refunded Dave's money voluntarily. I won the same item from the same seller later but he did not contact me about the same issue. One would think that, perhaps, they had worked out the bugs. The only problem is they provided zero documentation. It just came in a small tupperware container (literally!). It is not quite what I expected, in configuration. I thought this was going to be a flashcard to USB kind of affair. Now it does have a flashcard-looking-thingy that plugs into the camera, which I expected. But instead of a USB plug, it has a VERY short ribbon cable with a rather large multi pin connector, like you would find on a hard drive. I am not a computer geek (I say that with envy) but I would assume/hope that there is an extension that could be used to lengthen this cable, which is only about 5 inches or less. Othewise, even if it works, I will have to have my computer sitting up-close-and-personal to the digital camera, which would be a drag in a big way. I am on vacation so I don't have this doo-dad with me or I would post pics. Will do after I get back to Houston. Right now I am in Utopia (that's really the name of our town). Anyone want to see pics of Utopia, instead? Much more interesting.....

Roger

[Dave Anderson]

I ordered one too from the same company. They responded back with a refund and an explaination that they had done some testing and were very dissapointed with the results. It sounded like they purchased them from another source and hadn't really looked at them. So, they decided to pull them from eBay and said that they would let me know if they got them working satisfactorily. Seems like they would have tested them *before* posting to eBay. I'm really greatful for their honesty. It speaks well of them.


I too would be curious to know what you find out, Roger.

Dave

[super8man]

From what I understand of most of that guy's ebay postings is this:

THe items are meant to attach via an extension IDE cable to your pc IDE plug (slave or master, not sure).

Then, your computer would recognize the IDE device as a drive with say 40GB storage space as in movietuffs case. The point being your camera is now connected to a PC and then you can easily take a picture and then copy it from the ribbon-cabled CF card to your normal HD in that same attached pc.

Again, it was not meant to be a bypass for your camera to pass pictures directly to a HD but more or less to allow you to actively keep the camera rolling while you simply copy files from one drive to another to keep the 40gb CF card from filling up.

Limited use from what I can see.

Cheers,
m

[aj]

Was it not supposed to allow the use of a 2.5" laptop harddisk through a CompactFlash bay in a digital camera/PDA? As in the title of the OP eBay item. From the picture one would guess that the cable is only suitable for regular IDE drives 3.5" and not the compact 2.5"

Connecting it to PC IDE controller using a 5"cable doesn't make sense. BTW How could a storage device have two controllers. In simple PC or camera applications that is. It is not IBM SSA or such. Although that would allow for much more and thinner cablelength. Even there the drives themselves are in a chassis which has one controller per drive.

[mattias]

It just came in a small tupperware container (literally!).

that's standard for oem components, which is what you'll get if you buy the cheapest. i'm sure this card is sold branded with stickers, instructions and insane amounts of cardboard, foam and plastic too. as for the prtoduct being revolutionary, they've been around for years. you can get scsi cards, usb controllers, ethernet and wireless cards and so on in the compact flash form factor too (compact flash is just another name for "reduced size pcmcia"), but you'd probably have to install linux or netbsd on your camera to access them in any meaningful way since the original firmware is only likely to support the ata protocol.

/matt

[Scotness]

Hi Roger

I imagine if you go to a PC shop you could get a normal ide cable with a male and female end which should extend the length a bit - you could probably get them to just over a foot long

this link might help too -

http://www.mittoni.com.au/catalog/produ ... ts_id/1186


this might be part of getting the principal to work - though you'll need a way to run from the camera to the adaptor

Scot