So the Raspberry Pi sometimes doesn’t have the juice needed to run power-hungry USB dongles. The most common issue is with WiFi adapters. The solution has long been to use a powered USB hub, but [Mike Worth] didn’t want to take up that much extra space. The solution he worked out injects power directly into the dongle itself.
The red and white wires coming out of the side provide the 5V source. This is coming from the same USB mains power adapter that supplies the RPi board itself. To connect the wires to the dongle he made an adapter out of some strip board and the shielding from the dongle. The end of the strip board pokes out of the shielding far enough for him to solder on some wire, which is then soldered to the traces on the dongle’s PCB.
You can just plug this in and get down to business. But while he was at it [Mike] added an improvised antenna for better reception. It’s the same type of hack we saw him use for a Bluetooth dongle in this links post.
I have also built an adapter:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/115617007365772414442/posts/S5qdvGK63ay
What is this Raspberry Pi thing? I am beginning to think it is rather like Bigfoot. You hear anecdotal tales of its existence. A few grainy pictures exist and that is all… Well that and double priced ones on Amazon and E-Bay.
Or you just order one from Farnell/element14 and get it in 2-3 weeks?
Eventually I am going to break down and buy one as soon as I can think of a cool (inexpensive) project for it, and find a screen. Definitely not going to buy from Amazon or E-Bay.
I know a surprising number of people who did exactly that 6 weeks ago and are still waiting…
Mine took about 15 weeks to come in. I live in Texas.
He may want to add a Cap to that to lessen noise.
I just shorted the polyfuse, use an unpowered hub and run my powersupply into it and up into the pi. Works an absolute treat.
Hi, I like stuff. This is only to save space? Could you just inject power right into the USB port of the pi or was it necessary to inject it into the dongle?
Why not use a 1.5 – 2 amp power supply on the Pi itself? The USB ports 5V comes straight from the 5v in, through a 1A polyfuse. If your device needs more than 500mA what’s it doing being called a USB device?
Ignore above – I read the specs wrong by the looks….
There is a 140mA polyfuse on each of the downstream USB ports. As said above I simply shorted mine. Others have placed another fuse inline (or a resistor) to increase the cut-off point.
Key point folks.. There is a wasted voltage drop over those poly fuses, no? It’s good to short them, like in the newer Pi boards..
im powering my pi with a 3 amp ubec i got for a couple bucks on ebay. i just moved the supply pin down a place in the connector housing and plugged it into the gpio header. works great.
i still havent decided how i want to go about bypassing the usb fuses though. i dont really want to mod the board or my wifi dongle (and its an older one which blocks the other usb port) so i may just make an adapter that also breaks out the 5v line. i can probibly just use the ground plane on the pi since it all goes to the same place anyway (and no fuses!).
A short M-F USB dongle will help you clear the other USB port…
you can stick a wire across the pi’s fuse and remove it if you need to … or even use a switch or a jumper! … or a transistor and a GPIO XP
I thought i’d share this… the Netgear N150 works out of the box with openELEC. It’s listed as iffy in the wikki, but it works great! I built a makeshift box (tried slanted design… never should’ve done that) for mine https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/317727_518055658204907_445858197_n.jpg It has the guts of a powered USB hub, a RasPi and a 2,5” external HDD. All ports are open and i designed it so all the cables would be hidden (minus the jack and video out, but i don’t use them). The box itself is smaller than a wii and looks like crap… but it works :)
damn PTCs .. i ripped mine out and on the pi it self put a separate KA7805 regulator and some filtration in front of the spot there with all that empty space … the PS/2 dongle i use alone with the mouse and keybord tripped the fuse! … the 500mw wifi dongle im using had no chance!
the next pi i get for playing around with im shorting it out and getting a miniature SMPS on it to replace its wittle lenier regulator
..or just short the Pi’s polyfuse. V2 Raspberry PI’s already come in this form (blue audio jack)
Why not juse using a powered USB Hub ?