Power supply questions

[clarkss12]

Thanks for all of this valuable information about the power supplies.  I have a lot of different 5volt power supplies with different amperage ratings, but only a couple of short 20 gauge USB cable, so I thought I would order this USB cable prior to receiving my 2 gig board (that is another story). 

This is the one I just purchased online, hope it will work.

Kopi USB cable

[tkaiser]

This is the one I just purchased online, hope it will work.

Kopi USB cable

Sure, it's rated AWG 20 and if you're able to combine it with a 5.1V PSU everything will be fine. And fortunately Pine64 can also be powered through Euler pins (I really like most of Pine64's hardware details -- Micro USB for DC-IN and no user programmable led being the two main exceptions)

http://linux-sunxi.org/File:Pine64_Power...nector.jpg (using two pins is sufficient, it's unlikely you can increase consumption that much to need 4 wires. But back at that time we made reliability testings and I got sick of sudden power-offs so I decided to use 'best DC-IN possible')

[rahlquist]

Spent a few mins and threw together a video, I apologize for the production quality and the vertical video. It should get the point across though. 

[montero65]

Man, you guys know a ton about this stuff! Your sharing of knowledge is greatly appreciated for us newcomers to the SBC world.

Regarding power through the Euler connector, how would you do that? Does that require a bench supply? Or is that using something like the DC-DC converter mentioned? Also, you mention only needing 2 pins, but could go to more. I assume 4 pins could flow more current? This may be a topic somewhere else already, so if it is, I apologize.

My goal to start with is use this thing for a media server, and I was going to plug in an external hard drive via the USB port. My concern is providing enough power that the hard drive could be powered as well. It doesn't have an option for external power, just gets it via USB, so that's why I'm so curious on this stuff.

Thanks again!

[Ghost]

Man, you guys know a ton about this stuff!  Your sharing of knowledge is greatly appreciated for us newcomers to the SBC world.

Regarding power through the Euler connector, how would you do that?  Does that require a bench supply?  Or is that using something like the DC-DC converter mentioned?  Also, you mention only needing 2 pins, but could go to more.  I assume 4 pins could flow more current?  This may be a topic somewhere else already, so if it is, I apologize.

My goal to start with is use this thing for a media server, and I was going to plug in an external hard drive via the USB port.  My concern is providing enough power that the hard drive could be powered as well.  It doesn't have an option for external power, just gets it via USB, so that's why I'm so curious on this stuff.

Thanks again!

You could use a powered USB hub for your external hard drive.

You can attach to the pins on the Euler connector using DuPont cables/wires, using an appropriate 5 volt power supply. I'm using an old JAMMA arcade power supply as this not only provides 5 volts, but also features a potentiometer for adjusting the exact value of the 5 volt line. You could also theoretically power an external hard drive off this PSU, (either 12v or 5v HDD since a JAMMA PSU has both volatges).

This Power Pine64 via GPIO thread may be of some interest to you.

[tkaiser]

Regarding power through the Euler connector, how would you do that?

I used simple jumper wires and a dual voltage PSU I normally use for SBC + 3.5" HDD:

https://github.com/longsleep/build-pine6...-195927887

Any 5.1V@2.5A PSU should do well if you are able to avoid crappy USB cables and the crappy Micro USB connector.

[montero65]

Ok, thanks for the links and suggestions. I think for the moment, I'll look at either getting a powered external hard drive, or a powered USB hub. I did try plugging in my hard drive over the weekend, and while its light came on, it was making a clicking sound every few seconds, which I assume was from not enough power being available when it was trying to spin. It didn't crash the board at least, so that was nice.

[tkaiser]

I did try plugging in my hard drive over the weekend, and while its light came on, it was making a clicking sound every few seconds, which I assume was from not enough power being available when it was trying to spin.  It didn't crash the board at least, so that was nice.

Expected behaviour. Maximum amperage when USB ports are fed through the PMU (power management unit) are 650mA. Most 2.5" disks need slightly more when they try to spin up. On the 2GB board you can use a jumper to power USB peripherals directly from DC-IN and not the PMU instead (only drawback: when you want to use a battery in such cases PMU + step-up converter won't provide power to the USB ports when running on battery) so on the 2GB board you won't have the problem if  you power Pine64+ through Euler pins (since Micro USB is simply crap to provide power to such a setup)

BTW: http://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?t...45#pid7945

[clamum]

Do you guys think it would be possible, or not too difficult, to get the Pine64 running in a car (by plugging it in through the cigarette lighter)? How would I go about doing this? Thank you for any help or resources.

[montero65]

Hadn't even seen that other thread. Ties in nicely with what I've been dealing with. Thanks for the heads up!