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I have a streaming setup which I'd like to power by socket and not on battery packs. The problem is that as soon as I connect any devices to my camera this way (charger) I'm getting a buzz on my external microphone (which is powered by some button cells.)

More on my setup:

setup

The camera is powered by USB through the charger. If I'm just powering the camera by battery, the buzz is still there because the monitor is connected to the camera by HDMI. As soon as I power both devices by battery, the buzz is gone.

I'm in Europe, so my socket looks like this:

socket

The chargers I use all have no earth pin and look like this (might be the cause of the problem)

plug

Sadly I can't find any chargers for my camera or monitor with an earth pin, so I'm wondering if there is anything else that can be done here.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Classic ungrounded Y-cap leakage issue! What happens if you touch the ground pin in an unused socket with one hand and with the other touch each piece of hardware, one at the time. Better, worse? \$\endgroup\$
    – winny
    Dec 16, 2021 at 11:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks @winny! Indeed the buzz gets better, when I touch both the earth pin and conductive materials on the camera! So do I just need to do this with a simple wire now? \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas D.
    Dec 16, 2021 at 12:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ That's how I would do it. Or try a different charger perhaps? Professional gear uses balanced connections for this very reason. There are also in-line audio transformer which could help you in this situation. \$\endgroup\$
    – winny
    Dec 16, 2021 at 15:01

1 Answer 1

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You might check whether there is a possibility to connect the microphone case and the microphone grille to signal ground. That might keep your environment locked out of the signal ground system well enough to stop a discrepancy (caused by your charger's capacitive coupling to power) from mattering.

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