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nanoPEB Power supply


ulikh

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Hello

I have a question about the nanoPEB.

The expansion port supplies +5V on pin 1, is it not possible to supply the nanoPEB with power through the port.
I don't like the concept with the extra power supply, less cables are always better.

Many greetings
Uli

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2 hours ago, JB said:

The 4a is not designed to supply power to external peripherals, as a general rule. That 5V pin is only designed for a teeny bit of current to power the (surprisingly miserly) speech synthesizer.

And what is the cause, is the power supply insufficient, or something between power supply and port insufficient.
In other words, would replacing the original power supply with a more powerful one solve the problem?

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In answer to your question, the +5V available at the side port is insufficient to power anything that draws much more power than the speech synthesizer (IIRC, about 50mA). The Nano draws quite a bit more than that. The TI power supply is also broken into two parts--an external AC power supply that lowers the line voltage to 18VAC and the internal DC power supply that converts the 18V to the +5V, -5V, and +12V required by the console. There is very little wiggle room there--and the only way to get more power would be to use a beefier DC power supply--but note: you really need all three voltages. Meanwell makes one that can be adapted to the TI as an external supply, but it does require a bit of connector surgery to bring all of the DC inputs out to the back of the machine.

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I suppose that's why the power supply is also required inside the console, as the TI PEB can't provide that amperage that the console needs. I wonder why TI didn't add the whole power supply all at once into the"brick" unit. Were they worried about ventilation maybe? And I suppose size matters and the console PS would have been large. I dunno, but it's a lot of power connectors for, little power??

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My NanoPEB runs quite happily from a short +5V power cable I've run direct from the TI internal PSU board and out through the case by the expansion socket. So I still need to plug the NanoPEB in, but I don't need an external mains adaptor.

 

My NanoPEB consumes about 80mA at +5V, and the console itself about 950mA.

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37 minutes ago, Stuart said:

My NanoPEB runs quite happily from a short +5V power cable I've run direct from the TI internal PSU board and out through the case by the expansion socket. So I still need to plug the NanoPEB in, but I don't need an external mains adaptor.

 

My NanoPEB consumes about 80mA at +5V, and the console itself about 950mA.

That sounds interesting, what's wrong with supplying pin 1 of the expansion port directly from the power supply?

 

Then I could simply switch to pin 1 on the nanoPEB side. 


I wonder why pin 1 can't do that by nature. What hangs between the power supply and the port that prevents this.

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The +5V goes through a few ferrite inductors between the power supply and pin 1. You might well find it works fine by connecting pin 1 direct to the power supply, but you might run into problems if you were to, for example, try to get the console through the FCC emission regulations again.  ;-)

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8 hours ago, ulikh said:

And what is the cause, is the power supply insufficient, or something between power supply and port insufficient.
In other words, would replacing the original power supply with a more powerful one solve the problem?

As I understand things, the trace on the circuit board feeding that pin is VERY thin and won't be reliable with an appreciable amperage running through it.

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Yes, and I think if you don´t solder it perfectly, the upcoming heat - while running with this hack - will finish that for you ;)

 

Means, I have 5 NanoPEBs of all kind, and with 6 out of them I had bad struggle, mostly with the power.

So I swear I will never ever again touch or move my NanoPEBs, I just let them run and am happy that they do so.

 

 

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1- if you do this with a speech in between it won't work.. due to speech cutting that line off from the side port..  you can jumper across it if you like soldering tho

2- if it worked reliably this way, the manufacturer would have used the sideport power.. it doesn't.. it may for one person sometimes, but it doesn't for everyone. ESPECIALLY with consoles with weak power (bad caps?) 

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