A6300 USB power not working

[abcd-abcd]

Hello

In the past I have successfully powered my Sony A6300 with a large phone battery via it's micro USB socket for long periods of time (several hours).

The other day I was filming an interview with my camera and realised that it was actually running off the internal battery, not the phone battery and it ran out. Yes, the option to power the camera via USB was enabled in the menu ("USB Power Supply ON").

When the external battery is connected, on the LCD screen the battery icon has a small inverted triangle beside it rather than the percentage.

I simply could not get the camera to power itself from the USB.

However, when I switched off the camera, bingo! the charging light came on - charging itself from the same phone battery that could not power it. Subsequently, I was able to continue shooting using the internal battery when it had enough charge to continue.

Please can anybody shed any light on this? I need to get to the bottom of it.

Thanks.

[Mick_D]

HI @abcd-abcd, welcome to the Community.

Most Cybershot cameras are not designed to shoot and charge simultaneously. While it will not prevent charging (or shooting) I'm fairly sure most will deactivate charging while the camera is in use, evidenced by the charge light coming on when you switch the camera off, as you have noticed. 

Is it possible your past use of the external battery only supported the internal battery while it was switched off, rather than while it was in use? That would be the likeliest explanation. 

I will check this out for you, just to be sure! 

Cheers

Mick 

[abcd-abcd]

Thanks Mick_D for your reply.

The A6300 can indeed be run from an external power source using the USB socket.

Page 10 of the user manual states in section 220:

"USB Power Supply - Sets whether to supply power via the micro USB cable when the product is connected to a computer or an USB device.
1. MENU → (Setup) → [USB Power Supply] → desired setting. Menu item details
On:
Power is supplied to the product via a micro USB cable when the product is connected to a computer, etc.
Off:
Power is not supplied to the product via a micro USB cable when the product is connected to a computer, etc. If you use the supplied AC Adaptor, power will be supplied even when [Off] is selected."

Is anyone from Sony available to answer this? Thanks.

[batee5]

Hi abcd-abcd,

Welcome to our community!

On this page of the user manual it states that "Under certain conditions, power may be supplied from the battery pack supplementarily even if you are using the AC adaptor." So even if it's connecting to a power source the battery will still be discharged and once it's about to die the camera will need to be turned off in order for the battery to be charged sufficiently before it can be used again.

Regards,

Batee5

[abcd-abcd]

Thanks batee5

Do you know what those 'certain conditions' are?

[Almou_10]

Hi abcd-abcd,

I guess you can try to charge the internal battery to full charge before using it, this should help to avoid any unneeded pause for battery charging.

As for the conditions I guess there are many, one might be power fluctuation on the electrical network.

Hope this helps,

Almou_10

[abcd-abcd]

Thanks Almou_10 but as I said in the original post, I was shooting a video on location using a large USB battery pack.

[abcd-abcd]

Sony - are you even reading this stuff? Disappointed! I asked this question 3 weeks ago!

Well, it might be the case that even when using MAINS POWER into the A6300 USB socket, some of the battery is consumed, which seems pretty nuts to me. Sony feel free to chip in - I would like to know.

If Sony do not read or contribute to this 'Community', I would grateful if someone could point me in the direction of  a site where Sony does respond to queries (or a contact point of any kind). Thank you.

[abcd-abcd]

Well, it's now 12th Feb 2021, so no, I don't think Sony is going to answer this!