I’ve been browsing cameras on ebay since finally getting my video rack put together, and grabbed an old hitachi vk-c350 for a good price yesterday.
Now I’m just trying to figure out how to power it. So many of the older units seen on ebay have a seemingly identical 4 pin connector for power: not sure if its XLR or mini DIN or what, but google keeps giving me all kinda nonsense.
Can anyone please shed some light on what sort of power supply & connector are needed here?
Generally, all of the items that a consumer company puts out in its consumer division will use the same power supply in order to achieve economies of scale. The same likely holds true for professional divisions but not across pro and consumer; not likely at least.
I looked for the service manual for the VK-C350 but didn’t find it in the course of 10 mins and I need to run.
See if you can find a picture of the adapter on ebay or other sale site. You could post the sticker, if any, that is on the power supply and we could help decode it.
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yeah its sposed to get here later this week. hopefully i can figure it out then; i think its the mini xlr in the bottom left, once i get it in my hands i suppose ill figure out more.
id seen a similar connector on a few other cameras of approx the same vintage, guess i was thinking maybe theyd used a standardized power connector like euro or guitar pedals. ida looked in the manual if id found one either! thanks for checkin tho. too bad i got kicked outa film school before they let us play with anything fancier than mini dv 
3 pin Mini DIN socket
this might’ve been taken from the same ebay listing, found a pic which show it requiring 12V DC
If that’s the case, such power supplies are very common - now we have to figure out the connection. Are you brave enough to open up the case, and look at which pin is connected to where?
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yeah thats mine , showed 
right after i posted earlier. it is a mini din, 3-180 i think.
now as for taking it apart & looking , i think i can. what would i be looking for? see which way the closest diodes on the power traces are oriented? or check the chips & look for the power pins on he datasheet?
then match the power pins to a 12V adapter with at least half an ampere, is that it?
im kindly a noob but im no more than half stupid once my 
gets in gear
You should be able to find that power supply. I was thinking it was a consumer camera. You can probably look up the power supply manual and/or pinout online.
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youre right, i should be able to find some information online, but i can barely find a single word about this model. & im usually p 
with searches. i found one site that claims to offer a service manual for $18 but out of stock, naturally
this is all kinda discouraging , startin to wonder if maybe this things just an eight dollar brick
ive tried tweeting at hitachi , maybe ill find an email address that works or something , 
I just spent a ton of time looking into this mystery and came up with nothing! I didn’t expect that.
It should be pretty straightforward to open it and trace where the pins go. That is likely your best bet outside of discovering a service manual or power supply.
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Now I gotta know. Did you get anywhere with this?
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thanks for the interest , its been a wild goose chase so far & i got discouraged tbh. not really sure what step to take next,
its a mini DIN, looks just like S Video with one fewer pin, but idk how to find an adaptor. im wondering if i shdnt just make /order something to feed it juice from my euro video case