I recently purchased a Canon Elura 40MC through ebay and unfortunately it did not come with the battery charger.

Can I charge the battery with just plugging the power adapter into the camcorder? If so, how long would it take to charge and do I need the camcorder to be turned on in order for it to charge properly?

It doesn't seem like it is charging the battery so I purchased a replacement to see if it's the battery's that gone bad or if it's the camcorder.

You may want to go to this page at Canon's website and download the manuals for the camcorder.

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/c...wnloadDetailAct

I did. It mentions nothing of being able to charge via the power adapter.

Looks like I'll have to purchase a separate charger.

Yuck.

It will not charge through the AC power, you need the wall charger for the batteries.

Also don't use the AC power if purchased separately for extended amounts of time. I did and blew through 2 Elura 40mc's in the span of 2 weeks. I picked up the charger for my Canon Powershot and it said it also works with Elura's. Yeah, it fries them to a crisp.