Starter Pack availability with B+?

[michaelreed]

Hello,

I was wondering if you have an estimated date when the Starter Pack (1014) will be available with the B+ board and accessories?

Thanks!

[adafruit]

likely in about 30 days or less (we hope!)

[michaelreed]

Thank you!

[jctj]

HS Engineering Teacher here - and I am switching to RPi for this year. I have a Pi B+ in my cart atm, but I am trying to figure out what should go with it. I would prefer to wait for the Starter Pack (so YOU can work out the bugs... lol), but the start of school gets a day closer every day.... So I have to put my own kit together so I can at least get started and be a little practiced before the kids show up.

What do I need to do about power? Most of the projects I (and my class) will do will need 3 USB items: keyboard, mouse, and WiFi dongle - with who-knows-what going in the 4th USB slot. Will the 5.25VDC / 1A Power supply work? How about the 5VDC / 2A power supply? I would like to avoid the powered USB hub if I can. If each of the 4 USB ports need 0.5A, and the rest of the B+ needs 1A, should I be looking for a 3A power supply?!?

And I see different recommendations for keyboards - but wouldn't any USB keyboard work if I plug it into the USB port? I see you can use keyboards for TTL, but why would you? Is there any benefit to having one of the too-small-for-my-fat-fingers keyboards vs whatever USB keyboards I have floating around? I am going to be doing robots initially, so the keyboard would only be connected temporarily for programming, etc., and not a permanent fixture of the project.

Thanks - the sooner I get this sorted out, the sooner I can get my B+ on its way. I appreciate any clarity you can shed!

James

[adafruit_support_mike]

The B+ will work with a 1A power supply, but its onboard power system can handle 2A. Using a 2A supply will prevent flaky behavior from brownouts and the long-standing "RasPi reboots as soon as I plug in a wifi dongle" problem (sudden increase in current load pulling the supply rail low enough to force a restart).

I haven't seen specs for the USB ports yet, but 500mA is more of a tradition than a hard requirement for a USB port. USB devices are rated in terms of a 'standard load' of 100mA, and hubs are supposed to be able to support a 5 standard load client per port. The RasPi RevA and RevB were limited to 140mA, which translates to 1 standard load and some headroom.

The B+ power system is rated for 2A, and that won't all go to the USB ports. As a pure guess, my money says they've been juiced up to 250mA per port nominal, with the capacity to do more than that for a single port in either pair.

WRT keyboards: yeah, any USB keyboard should work. There's no point in our selling hardware you can get from Walmart though, so we stick to the more exotic form factors. ;-)

[jctj]

Awesome. Thank you for an informative reply! I would have been so impressed if you had quoted Pirates of the Caribbean with the "And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner ."