USB - camera cables

I've finally, and recently bought a digital camera, a Lumix TZ70.

A friend heard I was looking for a digital camera and has given me his old Fuji Finepix J10. However the batteries for that are obsolete and no longer available, as are the pre - SD cards, so I'm giving it to a charity shop for recycling.

So I now have a spare USB cable from the Finepix, and the question I have is - are USB cables interchangeable?

The Lumix charges the battery in the camera so it would be handy to have two USB cables; one for charging, and one for downloading

Re: USB - camera cables

The micro USB small end might be different, but the USB2 or USB3 large end will be the same.

2 of small ends showing the difference may well be other end types as well

Re: USB - camera cables

The problem as realspeed has already said is that there are lots of different types of small USB ports, even though the "big" end is common to pooters, car 12 adaptors, and modern household Mains sockets with built in USB ports.

All you can do is check what port the camera has compared to what's on the cable end.

If the spare one you have fits, great, if not you will have to get another.

I have one in the car, one in my travel bag, and one in the house along with the relevant "big" end adaptors so I can always charge the built in camera battery from car, laptop, or mains.

Re: USB - camera cables

Well, the big ends of both cables do fit my computer

The small ends of both cables fit my Lumix camera.

Obviously the Lumix cable & camera are OK together, but as I don't know much about these things I'm concerned that even though the old Fuji cable fits, it might cause damage to the Lumix camera if I try using it to charge the battery

Re: USB - camera cables

If you are using a plug with a USB outlet you need to make sure the output is the same as the thing your plugging into.



The one in the photo has an output of 5 volts and 1.0 amps
So you need to ready the markings on the plug

So the input on the device should be the same

Re: USB - camera cables

OK, thanks

I'll look at the various bits of info printed on the items, and the specs

On the other hand it's only £4 or £5 for a new Lumix cable, so it's hardly worth messing about
In any case I have an SD card reader. I can use that to connect to my computer, and the Lumix USB cable for charging

It just seems a shame to throw out the spare cable

Re: USB - camera cables

never throw away something that might be useful in the future. Put it in a draw or something, it doesn't take up any room

Re: USB - camera cables

USBs... It is a digital signal so any old bit of wire will do (as long as it is not too long), the signal is either on or off. Same as your HDMI cables they will either work or not work there is no such thing as 'snowy' picture in digital.

The USB voltage is ALWAYS 5 volts - bog standard world wide. The only difference is the way the charger tells the chargee that it is a charger and that the chargee can ramp up the current to the maximum it can take. The thing being charged controls this up to the maximum the charger can supply - it is so that something plugged into the USB port of, say, your tablet doesn't suck it dry.

BTW digital data has standards too; '0' is something like 0v to 1.5v and a '1' is 3.5v to 5v - those are not the exactly right figures because I can't remember them off hand but they are doubtless easy enough to google.