How much power goes through audio/video lines?

[TJ_Kat]

This sort of fits in this forum. Better than any of the others anyway.

Would an s-video signal and/or stereo signal produce a sufficient electrical current to power an led?

And if such a thing would work, what would the proper sequence be to set it up?

[The Outrider]

I'd wager they do, judging from the weird glitches I'm getting with my lik-sang SCART'o'the nine tails, these being:

• I turn on my Saturn and the Gamecube Power LED lights up
• I turn on the Gamecube and the Dreamcast Power LED lights up, plus the DC fan turns on
• I turn on the PS2 and the DC and GC power LEDs turn on
• The N64 doesn't get video to the TV while the PS2's a/v connector is plugged in
• Turning on any console will trigger the DC VMU's "gimme battery" beep (while the battery does need to be changed, this is wtf)

These even happen when the running console is the only one that's plugged into power (ie. I turn the Saturn on, unplug the Gamecube's PSU, but the GC power LED stays on). Hooray for electrical engineering!

[TJ_Kat]

I'm not so sure about that. I think it more likely that the 12v and/or 5v connections are running from one console back into their corresponding connection on an other and running through led and fan circuits. (correct me if I'm wrong in this thinking).

With luck, I'm wrong and it's all about the a/v signals... =p

[Martin]

I'd wager they do, judging from the weird glitches I'm getting with my lik-sang SCART'o'the nine tails, these being:

[/li]
• I turn on my Saturn and the Gamecube Power LED lights up
  
• I turn on the Gamecube and the Dreamcast Power LED lights up, plus the DC fan turns on
  
• I turn on the PS2 and the DC and GC power LEDs turn on
  
• The N64 doesn't get video to the TV while the PS2's a/v connector is plugged in
  
• Turning on any console will trigger the DC VMU's "gimme battery" beep (while the battery does need to be changed, this is wtf)
  

These even happen when the running console is the only one that's plugged into power (ie. I turn the Saturn on, unplug the Gamecube's PSU, but the GC power LED stays on). Hooray for electrical engineering!

The easiest way to stop the LEDs on all your consoles from turning on when you have them connected up to one SCART socket is to use an Auto switching SCART box, which Isolates the individual SCART sockets as soon as it detects a voltage comming in the FAST BLANKING pin.

[phreak97]

nope, not enough to light an led. you'd need an amp.

[Aidan]

There's very little power available on SVideo/Audio connections. However, SCART is a different matter, as it uses some pins to signal certain options. Some cables just connect those pins to +12V or 5V depending on what they're trying to signal. If you want to make modifications, you can probably add a diode to prevent any back flow.

[NFG]

Almost all consoles have +5v output, and some newer ones - including the DC, XBX and the Euro SNES - output 12v as well.  Note that video cables carrying AV or Svideo tend not to have power lines, where SCART  and RGB leads do have power.  If you need lights with your Svideo cable make a new cable that includes the power as well.

[Hojo_Norem]

This sort of fits in this forum. Better than any of the others anyway.

Would an s-video signal and/or stereo signal produce a sufficient electrical current to power an led?

And if such a thing would work, what would the proper sequence be to set it up?

I can remember an article in a electronics mag a read ages ago about a LED flasher that ran off just a RF antenna and a ground connection.  Maybe the same principal could be applied to av signals?  Unfortunatley I can't remember the mag or the name of the project. T_T

[Aidan]

RF's a little different - you can generate some pretty large voltages from an antenna. Some LEDs require a bit more voltage to run them than the AV signals provide. This isn't a problem with RF though.