[MinnowBoard] USB power adapter

Scott Guthrie scottgu3 at gmail.com
Thu Mar 26 16:12:39 UTC 2015


I can tell you with my Flotsam with a Crucial 240GB SSD on it (with a
Wireless USB Mouse and a Corded Keyboard), 2.5A didn't cut it.  I could
boot, but with Mint up in desktop, as soon as I did ANYTHING, the system
would crash (voltage/current sag).  Removing the SSD allowed flawless
operation.

I have a 3.5 or 4Amp unit now, but I've not tested it yet.

I don't think you can power the Flotsam with an SSD (or any form of Disk)
on less than 3 Amps.

Scott

On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 12:07 PM, David Byte <dbyte at suse.com> wrote:

> Good advice Ken.
>
> I'm looking to power a stack of up to 8 boards with Flotsam boards and
> possibly up to 8 SATA 2.5" SSD drives as well.  So, I am assuming I need to
> be looking at about 16 devices * 2.5A each @ 5V on a good switching power
> supply.
>
> Thoughts of using this: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Mean-Well/HSP-
> 250-5/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMsPs3th5F8koANcuRqubmL6N%252bynPk%252b952k%3d and
> breaking it out to the 16 device plugs?
>
>
> David Byte
> Sr. Technology Strategist
> Alliances and Integrated Systems
> SUSE
> dbyte at suse.com
> (P)918.528.4422
> www.suse.com
> https://www.suse.com/partners/integrated-systems/
>
> On 3/26/2015 9:50 AM, Ken Tait wrote:
>
>> These boards have a pretty poor power supply to keep them 'cheap'. That
>> is why they require 5V in instead of 12V. All of the larger CPU's have a
>> large instantaneous current draw when they turn on. This gets worse if you
>> add disk drives or USB peripherals. The plug in the wall power supplies are
>> poorly designed, they in fact do NOT handle this kind of surge well. If you
>> get one to work, it is a random event. what you really need is a 5V at 5A
>> switching supply that has a fast rise time to get this to reliably work.
>>
>> If you place an on/off switch in the + power supply lead and plug the
>> 'plug in the wall' supply in FIRST before turning it on, you may get better
>> results.
>> This allows the supply to come up to voltage before turning on the Max.
>>
>> As for the barrel jacks, you can get them from Digi-Key or Mouser, lots
>> of the surplus houses like All-Electronics also have them from time to time.
>>
>> Hope this helps
>> Ken
>>
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>>
>>
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