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Alternative Power for the Raspberry Pi

One has a rich assortment of power supplies with USB connectors, USB-A, USB-B, Mini-USB, Micro-USB, still none of them fits into the Pi's Pwr In header. At least not on a Pi 3 Model B.

Too bad. Let's have a look how else we can get juice into this device.

Voltage Injection via GPIO Pins

The 26 pin connector, common to all Pi models. Source: raspberrypi.org

The 26 pin connector, common to all Pi models. Source: raspberrypi.org

According to the eLinux wiki, one can apply 5 V to one or both of the red pins and GND to one of the black pins (see diagram to the right) to get a Raspberry Pi running.

Drawback of this approach is, this goes around the Pi's power in protections, like the overload fuse. So, take care to have a reasonable stable voltage supply. Another obvious drawback is, one can no longer plug in a typical extension board.

alternative_power_for_the_raspberry_pi.1521588011.txt.gz ยท Last modified: 2018/05/27 16:10 (external edit)