A Tale of Two Power Supplies - why good is good and better is best

[MarkHaysHarris777]

btw, I think you meant  18-20 above where you were talking about wire gauge... not  18-25 (i.e.  A range of 18-20 AWG is satisfactory).

doh !   You are absolutely correct... corrected.

Just wanted to add the I purchased a Woonoo 5v 2.5a power supply on eBay for $13.  The product shipped with two Heat Sinks, one for the CPU and one for the GPU. Also the cord has an on, off button so the provided switch is not necessary.

Punkyclown,

First, you posted so that your comments looked like mine... please don't put words in my mouth that way (no worries, I edited the post).  Thanks.

Second, the GPU is the CPU.  Actually, its a GPU with a CPU bolted on , so to speak  (it only requires ONE heatsink)

(the second heatsink you got is for the memory as it was intended for the Raspberry PI).

The switch for the PineA64 is absolutely required !  The switch on the PSU cable you bought is NOT the same thing. The switch on the PineA64 is attached to the PMIC (power management integrated circuit).  The Raspberry PI does not have a PMIC, and does not therefore need a power on button.  The power on button of the PineA64 is a multi-function switch for suspend|sleep, and power down.  The switch on your power cord will eventually destroy your SD card.  The power ON button of the PineA64 will cause the PMIC to signal the OS (interrupt event) to prompt for the power OFF dialogue.  In fact, this is the ONLY way to correctly power OFF Android... without the power ON button you cannot power OFF Android correctly;  and without the power ON button you cannot power OFF debian either without manually issuing the sudo poweroff command.

The electrical characteristics of the PSU you purchased are fine (assuming quality parts, and a good power cord, see above) but you paid too much for it.  The PSU I recommend in my post (above) is less expensive; leaving you a little money left over to buy the correct heatsinks for the PineA64 (and you need four of those) one for the GPU, two for the memory chips, and one for the PMIC.