Handling Firewire Cables

How to burn your camera

You have probably never read the manual for your camera because you prefer to find out things your way. That's an intelligent decision most of the time, but there is a way to burn out the firewire port of your camera under certain conditions. Here is the explanation of the safe way and the technical details.

The Safe Way to Handle Firewire Cables

1. Turn off your camera and computer.
2. Plug cable into computer.
3. Plug cable into camera.
4. Turn on computer
5. Wait until the computer boots up.
6. Turn on the camera.
7. Use the firewire connection.
8. When you are done, turn off the camera.
9. Unplug the cable from the computer.
10. Turn off the computer.

Sometimes people forget the last part and restart their computer with the camera on and the cable attached. If you cannot see the camera after the resart, even if you try the safe way, and everything worked before, you need to get a new camera.

How to Burn You Camera Firewire Port

You have to use a "6 pin" firewire cable instead of a "4 pin" firewire cables. Most firewire cables on the market are 6 pin ones. The two extra pins deliver the power to devices that can be powered via a firewire cables. They also deliver electricity to devices that cannot be powered via firewire cables, which is a problem. Your camera most probably falls into this second category (you need to plug it directly into a socket, it will not feed off a firewire cable). When you restart your computer, a burst of energy flashes through your computer, into your camera, and it can burn the firewire port. Sorry, but no flames and smoke, it just dies.