I have an Rpi 5 that I bought earlier this year. It’s been working on and off, but work and health have been getting in the way. I now NEED to get this online.
Power: I’ve had problems running this on EVERY power bank I own. Sometimes it powers up and runs right for a while, mostly not.
I have a pair of new Anker GAN 65W power banks. All outputs are spec’d at 3A. Haven’t been able to try this yet. The PI frequently reports “low voltage” even when I’m not trying to run the Kraken. My plan is to use one brick for the Kraken alone, and one for the Pi. Can anyone point me to a power bank that DEFINITELY works well with this system? I’ve searched Amazon, and while I’m searching for “5V 5A” the results just ignore the 5A part and all I get is 3A.
SD card: I’m downloading the october release now, and I have Sandisk Ultra Plus 256G cards available. Is there something I need to do so that the PI uses the whole card? Is there a better card I could be using?
Cables: My existing cables appear to be high quality, of course every cable on Amazon is “more gooder” than every other cable. I bought 1’ cables so that the voltage drop would be minimal.
Fortunately the antenna array is done and I just need to get the system to boot up properly and be stable.
The Pi5 wants 5V @ 5A according to all the docs I’ve seen though many sources say it “will run” from 3A. So why is mine saying “low voltage” when I have it on 5V 3A supplies, and my USB meter says the pi isn’t even using 3A? Well I went down to Micro Center again looking for some solution, and I decided to look at the Official Rpi 27W power supply…
It’s 5.1V! Not 5V.
Looks to me like not only does it draw a ton of current, but they got something a bit wrong in the power supply design (else why not ask for 15V where you can get almost 30W?) and to avoid a recall they made the power supply output 5.1V. I bet I don’t get “low voltage” warnings anymore.
This means adding a power strip and inverter, and running from the vehicle battery which has other potential problems, but it’s the OFFICIAL power supply and it really better WORK.
I am willing to bet that there isn’t a power bank available that outputs 5.1V at 5A.
The Pi 5 will display low voltage if run from 3A. BUT as long as you are not drawing any power from the USB ports, it will be fine. It’s just warning you that the Pi 5 could crash/reset if you put a high CPU load on it, and have powered USB devices.
The Kraken is not powered by the Pi 5 USB ports. It takes it’s power solely from the power port. So the Kraken places no power load on the Pi 5. As long are you are using a separate supply for the Kraken and Pi 5 you will be fine (or a battery that can support the total current required on two separate ports).
Using a power supply with slightly higher voltage is normal, as they are expecting a 0.1v drop through the power cables. But a standard 5V supply should still be fine.
I bought 1’ cables so that the voltage drop would be minimal.
