Raspberry Pi Accessories and Power Questions

Most charger power packs state the current capacity either on a silver label near the power point plugs or by the DC power lead. Sometimes it is just imprinted in the plastic case itself so hard to see, but if it is there, it will normally have a symbol showing th epolarity of the CD connector and for example 5v @ 1A.

Colin

Thanks for the replies many of my concerns have been put to rest. You guys are mainly in the UK (I'm in the US) but I'm assuming the power ratings are all the same. Only thing I have a question about now is I have an HTC charger that works for all Droid phones and it gives the power rating on the back..

Input: 100-240V ~ 200 mA 50-60Hz

Output: 5V--1A

Does the input have to be 700 mA or just the output has to be 5V -- 1A? Hopefully the one I have works. If not theres another one lying around somewhere that I gotta go find to check if that will work.

I'm definitely going to get a powered USB hub though so I can plug in the stuff I want without coming across any power issues. Will post the parts I decide to go with when I make the orders.

Edit: Found three more (family has a bunch of battery chargers with USB ports), two are rated at 5V- 800MA and the third is just a non battery charging Verizon Wireless one with these specs

Input: 100V-240V ~ 0.2A 50/60Hz

Output: 5.0V - 1000mA

Going over the 700 mA isn't a bad thing right? The Pi will only take what it needs I'm assuming.

Thanks for the replies many of my concerns have been put to rest. You guys are mainly in the UK (I'm in the US) but I'm assuming the power ratings are all the same. Only thing I have a question about now is I have an HTC charger that works for all Droid phones and it gives the power rating on the back..

Input: 100-240V ~ 200 mA 50-60Hz

Output: 5V--1A

Does the input have to be 700 mA or just the output has to be 5V -- 1A? Hopefully the one I have works. If not theres another one lying around somewhere that I gotta go find to check if that will work.

I'm definitely going to get a powered USB hub though so I can plug in the stuff I want without coming across any power issues. Will post the parts I decide to go with when I make the orders.

Edit: Found three more (family has a bunch of battery chargers with USB ports), two are rated at 5V- 800MA and the third is just a non battery charging Verizon Wireless one with these specs

Input: 100V-240V ~ 0.2A 50/60Hz

Output: 5.0V - 1000mA

Going over the 700 mA isn't a bad thing right? The Pi will only take what it needs I'm assuming.

Its the output that needs to be above 700mA at 5v so that is fine.

I use the HTC adapter rated at 1000mA 5V and its giving me no problems.

Sounds good thank you for the quick replies.

Ordered these things...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823219009

http://www.ebay.com/itm/802-11n-802-11g-802-11b-USB-Mini-Wireless-Adapter-WiFi-Network-WLAN-card-150Mbps-/400297035447?pt=US_USB_Wi_Fi_Adapters_Dongles&hash=item5d339006b7#ht_2153wt_1325

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208293

Thinking about this but do I really need a powered one if I'm only going to be plugging in one nano USB adapater wireless keyboard/mouse, 8 gb flash drive, and the nano wifi adapter to connect to my network?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817111976

Seems like I'm just wasting money if I buy that when I can just get a USB powered one for cheap. My current external hard drive has the power adapter so I'm not really worried about overloading it that way unless I get a new portable drive later.

These are the accessories I am using and any issues I am having with them:

Keyboard/Mouse - occasionally I have to uplug the dongle and re-insert it for the mouse to work properly

HDMI Cable - Had to add the line 'config_hdmi_boost=5' to 'config.txt' to give clear picture as its a longish lead

HDMI - DVI Adapter - No Issues

Wifi Adapter - Have got the drivers installed but cannot make it connect to router yet, simply hangs waiting to connect.

Havent tried it with external USB hard drive as yet but dont think there would be any issues there.

I would ALWAYS go for a powered USB hub on the Raspberry Pi as the devices you are likely to plug into it will more than

likely overload the PSU you are using, so using a powered hub would remove this issue.

Message was edited by: Mr P from his Ras-Pi

Got it set up..sorta. I'm having an issue trying to login, I'm using the recommended Debian Squeeze with username: pi and password: raspberry but it won't accept any input for the password. I can put in the username "pi" but it won't let me type anything in the password section. I tried looking around the forums for the problem but I can't seem to find this answer unless it's adding a line to the command, which idk how to do anyway so if that's the case can anyone help me out here? Thanks.

Edit : Nvm password is invisible...

Got it running and all was browsing the internet for a while...kinda slow in my opinion. Even though it was connected with ethernet rather than USB dongle. I think I'd attribute the slowness to the SD card I was using which is an old old card, most likely with slow transfer rates compared to the SD cards nowadays. Waiting til I get the rest of my parts including new SD card but not bad for playing with it for only a couple hours.

Mr P have you gotten the wireless adapter working yet? What steps did you take to get the drivers installed? I figure we have very similar wireless adapters so the methods should be the same.

Hi Andrew,

i followed the instructions in this post, i have the RTL8188 chipset on my wireless thingy but unfortunately i cannot make it work yet..........

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=6256

hope you have more success than me

To Andrew Morey:

I am also in the US and was looking at the same hub you purchased when I came across this thread; the hub has good reviews and is cheap. Does it work properly with the raspberry Pi, in particular with the wifi and keyboard/mouse both attached to the hub, because that is my plan as well? That combination seems to be a problem for a lot of people.

My other parts are different. I have a Microsoft Desktop 3000 wireless setup that someone gave me last year. I have a TP-Link TL-WN722N wifi adapter (really like it) and plan on ordering a Medialink MWN-USB150N adapter as well; I plan on testing each with the pi (Although the TL-WN722N) is already listed on the wiki as a working model and the Medialink appears to have the same chipset as another tested wifi device. One wifi dongel will go on my desktop and the other one on the pi. I am also leaning towards a Transcend card as well, maybe a class 8gb or 16gb class10 as I see others have successfully used these.

My pi arrived yesterday, but I will probably wait until I get a case before I hook it up. My years of working as an engineer with electronics in production lines just won't allow me to lay the circuit board on a table.  I am thinking about the modmypi case which I really like, but I would not see it until the end of June.

Thanks.

I never actually purchased it, I thought about it but in my original post I mentioned that I was thinking about buying that USB hub. But I figured I was using a single USB to power the wireless keyboard and mouse, and the other onboard USB from the Pi would be used for the Wifi dongle. I know that there may be a limitation to the Pi's power especially when trying to connect the USB wifi adapter over a distance. But the USB hub may come at a later date when I've got the Pi working and demand more from it.

Mr P I'm sad to see you've given up on the RTL8188 based adapter, I haven't gotten around to working on it yet I've been busy the past few days. Glad your other adapter works nicely though. How are the internet speeds over wireless?

I've had no ends of problems with Realtek based wifi adapters. Every time i get the realtekfirmware loaded I get continuous series of NYET/NACK/ACK (or something like it) debug message that cripple the Pi. This only happens when the firmware is loaded.

I've ordered a Netgear wna1100 from eBay as the wiki says it works and it doesn't use Realtek.

Andrew, I havent actually done any speetests as such but it seems very useable, obviously the heavier the page content the less the pi likes to load it quickly.

also I havent totally given up on the realtek adapter, just needed to get some wireless working as the RPI is sat in a room far away from the router.

All in All for a board and OS thats still being developed I am more than happy with its performance so far.