4xAA Battery plus Raspberry Pi

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rahatmaini
 
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4xAA Battery plus Raspberry Pi

Post by rahatmaini »

I own the 4xAA Battery pack that Adafruit sells in store, and I was wondering if I could just straight up connect the two leads from the pack to the 5V pin and GND pin on the Pi and have a portable power source right there. Or would I need some kind of voltage regulators?

Thanks!

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Re: 4xAA Battery plus Raspberry Pi

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

That's a fast and reliable way to kill your RasPi.

The microprocessor at the heart of the RasPi is built to work on USB votlages: 4.75v to 5.25v. Supply voltages 5.5v or higer will kill it.

The RasPi's on-board power system is a bit fragile.. that was one of the tradeoffs necessary to bring the sale price under 35 pounds. There's no voltage regulator anywhere on the PCB, and only a polyfuse between the mini-USB connector and the main power rails. The GPIO pins are completely unprotected, so anything connected to those has a lot of freedom to damage the microprocessor.

You can connect your own voltage regulator to the RasPi to provide a safe voltage (this one would do a great job: http://www.adafruit.com/products/1065), but raw 6v power just won't work.

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rahatmaini
 
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Re: 4xAA Battery plus Raspberry Pi

Post by rahatmaini »

Glad I didn't try that, but do you guys carry any battery packs or a portable source of power safe for the Pi in the Adafruit Store?

Thanks again

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: 4xAA Battery plus Raspberry Pi

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