Introduction Raspberry Pi Types & Rechargeable Raspberry Pi Power Supply

The raspberry pi was developed by the foundation of Raspberry in UK. It is a single computer board like a credit card. The operating systems of Raspberry pi are the different versions of Linux. We cannot install it on Microsoft windows because of a different processor. To buy a Raspberry pi, there are a few companies which are selling the Raspberry online like Newark element14, Egoman and Rs components. The main intention of designing a Raspberry Pi is promoting the teaching of basic computer science in schools.

Raspberry Pi Power supply

Raspberry pi consists of a SD card slot, a Micro USB power, a CSI connector camera, an Ethernet Out (only on 256 MB models), a BROAD COM, a USB 2.0, Status LEDs, JTAG headers, GPIO Headers, DSI display connector, Audio Out and RCA Video Out, etc. For storage and booting this uses SD card, but it does not include a built-in hard disk.

Types of Raspberry Pi

Raspberry pi is classified into two types: Model A Raspberry Pi and Model B Raspberry Pi.

Model A Raspberry Pi

Model A Raspberry Pi

The foundation of Raspberry pi was accepting the orders for the lower cost model A Raspberry Pi on February 4, 2013 and the price of the model A raspberry pi was $ 25.The dimensions of model A is 8.6cmx5.4cmx1.5cm and the Operating System used in this is LINUX and it consumes 2.5W power. It is a Broadcom BCM2835 system on chip board and it is designed with 700 MHz low power CPU, 256 MB RAM, with one USB port and no Ethernet controller. Here dual core video core IV is used to run game and video via raspberry pi.

Model B Raspberry Pi

Model B Raspberry Pi

The foundation of Raspberry pi was accepting the orders for the higher-cost model B Raspberry Pi on 29 February, 2012, and the price of the model B Raspberry pi was $35. The dimension of this raspberry pi is 8.6×5.4×1.7, and the OS used in this Model B is LINUX, and it consumes 3.5W power. The Broadcom BCM2835 system on chip board is equipped with 700 MHz low power CPU, 512 MB SD RAM, dual USB connector, on board 10/100 Ethernet RJ45 jack, and a dual core video core IV is used to run game and video via the raspberry pi.

Power Supply System for Electronic Circuits

Power Supply System

Before dealing with the power supply for a raspberry pi, general circuit diagram of the power supply system is discussed below. By using this, we can convert a 230V AC supply into a regulated 5V DC supply. Mainly, this power supply system consists of four units.

• Transformer
• Rectification
• Smoothing
• Regulation

Transformer

Transformer is used to convert electricity from one voltage to another voltage with a minimal loss of power. It consists of two windings that are linked by an iron core. The main function of the transformer is to step-up (increase) and step-down (decrease) the voltage.

Rectification

A rectifier converts available AC supply to a DC supply with the use of diodes. Rectification helps in producing pulsed DC.

Smoothing

Capacitors are used for smoothening purpose since the rectifier output is pulsed DC so for constant DC it must be filtered out, so does this.

Regulation

It is a voltage regulator 7805 IC, and it consists of three pins that indicate input, ground and output. The voltage regulator maintains the output voltage at a constant value and provides 5V -regulated power supply.

Introduction to Rechargeable Batteries

Nowadays electrical energy is converted from mechanical energy, chemical energy and solar energy. A battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electrical energy. A battery was developed by Alessandro Volta in the year 1800. John Frederic Daniell is a British chemist who developed the Daniell cell which is the developed version of the voltaic cell.

Rechargeable Batteries

A battery has two electrodes: anode and cathode. A positive electrode of the battery is called cathode, and the negative electrode of the battery is called anode. In batteries both anode and cathodes are made from different metals and electrolyte separates the anode from the cathode.

In our day-to-day life, we use two types of batteries: one is use-and-through battery, and the other one is rechargeable battery. A Use and through battery is the one that can be used only once before it completely discharges. A rechargeable battery is a type of electrical battery comprising of one or more electrochemical cells.

Rechargeable Battery socket

In these types of batteries, the electrochemical reactions are electrically reversible; and, because of this reason, these rechargeable batteries are referred to as secondary cells. Rechargeable batteries come in many sizes and shapes ranging from button cells to megawatt systems. These batteries can be reused many times by recharging them externally. Rechargeable batteries are used for light vehicles, portable devices, lights, portable consumer devices, etc.

Metals Used in Different Batteries

Metals Used in Different Batteries

Power Supply for Raspberry Pi

Power Supply for Raspberry Pi

Up to now, we have discussed about the general power supply and rechargeable batteries in order to understand better the Raspberry pi power supply. Choosing the best power supply for raspberry pi could be a random choice, and when the audio quality is our main concern, and then raspberry pi power supply unit is responsible for proper functioning of the device.

If we choose a poor quality power supply unit, then it will result in the corruption of the SD card. A Raspberry pi takes about700 mA power, to charge the raspberry pi. Motorola cell phone charger is the best option to charge the raspberry pi as it delivers 850mA.

Before selecting the charger for raspberry pi, we must ensure that the cell phone charger would deliver 700mA or not; otherwise, they will not work. As far as raspberry pi power supply battery is concerned, we should decide how long we want to run our raspberry pi on the battery power. The amount of energy in a battery is measured in mill amperes/hours. For example, a 1000mA battery can supply for one hour; a 500 mA battery can supply for two hours; and a 2000mA battery can supply for half an hour. For powering the raspberry pi, there are some battery packs that itself have micro USB adapters.

If we want to provide some extra power, we may need another type of battery, that is, Lithium polymer. These batteries are similar to the ones used in in laptops and cellular phones and are used in RC cars and hobby air crafts. The purpose of these Li-Po batteries is to supply more current for additional devices. But the down-side is that we must do all of the wiring manually and must buy an external charger. The Li-Po batteries range is from 150mAh to 10000mAh.

By using Raspberry Pi we can do many funny things: mode my pi, own pi case, living room PC, a mini web browser, ZX spectrum Pi, Retro Pi, Arcade Pi, windows 3.0 on a Pi, Robotics, Learn to program, scratch the Pi, Spectrum basic for RPi, Pi hacker, FIREFOX OS on Pi, RISC OS for Pi, Beer can keyboard, Bit torrent server, RPi cloud server, RPi UAV, RPi weather station, 10 inch RPi touch screen, Home automation, Mine craft, Raspberry Pi cluster.

Advantages of Raspberry pi

Power Consumption

The Raspberry Pi draws 5 to 7 Watts of electricity. Model A raspberry pi consumes 2.5W power, and model B raspberry Pi consumes 5W; and, it runs on 5V at about 1amp that means 5*1=5W.

Lacks moving parts

The raspberry pi uses an SD card for the purpose of storage which is fast and lacks moving parts , and therefore doesn’t require fans for cooling and other purposes. Compare to the lower SD cards, a class 10 SD card is usually best for the best performance.

Form factor

The form factor of a raspberry pi is very small, so it can be held in our hands and can be integrated in the devices as well without any noise in Pi.

Status lights

There are several status lights on the raspberry’s mother board; with a clear case, we can see disk I/O, power status, NIC activity.

Expansion Capabilities

There are many devices available for the pi with affordable prices, ranging from an I/O board to a camera for expanding its capabilities.

Built in HDMI Graphics

The display port on Raspberry pi is HDMI that can handle resolutions up to 1920×1200, and it is nice to make the raspberry pi into a video player. There are some converters that can be converted to VGA for compatibility including HDMI-DVI-D cables, VGA cables, VGA converter boxes, AGA+ audio adapter, VGA cable adaptor, VGA converters.

Affordability

When compared to the other alternatives, raspberry pi offers the best price with a 512MB SD RAM, and it is affordable for many uses: business and other requirements.

Huge community support

The raspberry pi has community support, and it can be obtained easily for the hardware and GNU/LINUX software that runs on the raspberry pi mainly in user forums.

Over Locking

In raspberry pi, in case of any performance related problem while using the application, then the pi can be over locked.

Drawbacks of the Raspberry Pi

Though Raspberry comes with many advantages, yet it has got some disadvantages and drawbacks as well. The following are a few of them:

ARM architecture

The ARM is a low-powered and highly efficient architecture and it is not x86. Therefore, any binaries that are compiled to run on x86, cannot run on the raspberry pi. For the ARM architecture, the entire GNU/LINUX has to be compiled, and all of the time new ones start appearing. There are few applications that need x86, and the only one problem that occurs includes wine. It runs windows programs, unfortunately wine doesn’t work on the pi.

RAM Not Upgradable

The main components are soldered to the mother board including RAM, which is 512 MB and it is not a problem though as LINUX/GNU can easily run on this. But, while running as a small server, pi uses about 100 MB RAM.

This is all about the raspberry pi power supply system and its description. Hope you got some basic idea about this concept. In addition to this, for any doubts on implementing the projects related to raspberry pi, you can contact to us by commenting in the comment section below.