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  • Author Author: weiwei2
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Raspberry Pi 3A+ survival guide

weiwei2

Just less than 2 weeks go i did my first try on Raspberry Pi 3A+

I put down these items as part of my experience dealing with it

 

1) Casing with fan

i put my raspi 3A+ into this 9 layers acrylic casing with fan. one can reduce the layers to suit his need. For me i remove 1 layer so that it is easier to

put in my pioneer600 HAT

image

2) USB cable

i have read that the raspi 3A+ need decent power 2A but  i still face problem powering it up. When it doesn't have enough power, it won't boot.

I need to connect to a screen in order to realize this problem. In fact i wasted like a day

to fully narrow down to the root cause --> the USB cable. Although i haven't  known the cable spec, but apparently there

are some USB cables that cannot carry sufficient current. Interestingly, it is not determined by the cable diameter.

in the picture below, the thickest cable of the lower right hand side, in fact, is the culprit that cause raspberry pi failure

image

3) usb keyboard

this mini keyboard with mouse, albeit not very easy to type, does bring a lot of benefit to troubleshooting the raspi

i have faced tremendous problem in the wifi stability, and i have used this keyboard a lot (along with monitor) to view and troubleshoot the network

image

4) the FTDI USB to UART

i use this module ( you can see it in photo in (1) to send data over serial port for troubleshooting, just like how we use serial monitor with Arduino

 

5) i do not have the photo of my small screen right now, but i have use a small LCD screen with HDMI input to view my raspi screen and it

makes troubleshooting easier.

 

It is pure coincident that e14 community host this blog writing drive with Pi Day when i have just spent few weeks dealing with Pi

Although i have used other Pi on and off, what i feature in this short blog is really somewhat new to me and they have caused me quite some time to troubleshoot

I hope it can be of use to some other people experimenting with Raspberry Pi

  • in reply to weiwei2

    I have been using ANKER USB cables for all my high power needs.  They feature 24AWG power lines (30AWG signal lines) and these cables have performed flawlessly with currents in the 2-4 Amp range.  Plus they don't break the bank (3 pack 3ft for $10.99 on Amazon).

  • in reply to weiwei2

    I use 18AWG USB cables when I need to be sure of low losses in the cable. There are very few suppliers and they aren't low cost.

  • in reply to clem57

    yes, actually till now i don't really know how to know whether the power is sufficient. looks like going forward need to over-engineer the power requirement

     

    in my situation, i am able to run it with the same cable and extension plug in my office, but when i reach the demo setup venue, it can't run. The only reason i can think of is the network connectivity (wifi) at the demo event is much weaker and my pi does have lots of network problem. However, this doesn't explain the reason that it can't even boot, until i change to a good cable.

     

    now i start to appreciate all those fancy higher priced data+cable that is sold in local handphone accessories shop, that claims better current carrying capacity and data speed (presumably due to shielded construction

  • in reply to dougw

    The reason for little doc is due to USB power requirements that may vary greatly...

  • Getting enough voltage and current to the RPi seems to be a common issue that isn't well documented. I mean, although many people describe problems, there isn't much data indicating exactly what voltage and current work and what doesn't work and what the power supply transient performance needs to be.