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I would like someone to point me to (preferably an amazon link) a power supply that is guaranteed to work with my RPi and provide enough power for ethernet, and possibly a keyboard and mouse.

In the past I have been able to just plug the USB power cord into my laptop, but this is no longer working for some reason. All I currently get is a red power light.

I have read the long list of accessories on the wiki, but many have notes on them about only working under certain conditions, or that only one person found it to work. So, is there a widely-available, bullet-proof option for me?

And one clarifying question: My USB HDD has two USB ports. If I were to run the Pi headless, and use both USB ports for the HDD, would it provide power? Or would I still have to use a powered usb hub/similar?

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  • I built mine using an old SMPS and a free promotional USB hub - sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/…
    – Lord Loh.
    Nov 8, 2012 at 22:54
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    I appreciate the reason for the question, buy shopping list questions are generally off-topic on StackExchange
    – Andrew
    Nov 9, 2012 at 6:51
  • Apparently if you overload the polyfuses, they can take a long time (say a day) to fully reset.
    – John La Rooy
    Nov 12, 2012 at 12:16

7 Answers 7

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I would recommend using a self powered hub for the hard drives. The old Raspberry Pi (256MB model) had a fuse that limited the power from the USB ports. I faced this problem inspite of using a 30A power supply (SMPS).

Many of cheap phone chargers from Amazon do not have a proper filters and will inject enough noise to cause interference. None of those amazon products mention any numbers like load regulation / line regulation.

Of all the ones listed, this looks good. It is a 9W USB charger for kindle. So it should provide ~1.8A. You will need a USB type A to micro USB cable. If this charger gives you trouble with the hard drive, consider a self powered hub as well. When you draw too much current from a power supply, the filtering becomes insufficient.

My power supply: enter image description here

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  • From this picture, are you taking the 5V and ground wires from the PC power supply to supply power to the USB hub? Where did the wires from the USB hub come from?
    – HeatfanJohn
    Nov 8, 2012 at 23:19
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    The USB hub is just the shell. I cut the data traces on the PCB and all it serves is as a housing for the USB ports. Yes. the 5V / Gnd comes from the SMPS. I then use a USB Type A to microusb cable to power my pi. (Was this yur question?) I power a lot more than just the pi. I have simultaniously powered 2 pi, beagleboard xm, pandaboard and a usb hub.
    – Lord Loh.
    Nov 8, 2012 at 23:22
  • Thanks for the additional info. What you said makes sense. I was curious how the red and blue cables connected to the modified USB hub. This is a great way to power multiple devices.
    – HeatfanJohn
    Nov 9, 2012 at 2:32
  • Yes. the red and blue cable are for the +5 and gnd of the hub. The hub was not very smart and does not power down ports or restrict current. Now it is just a conductor ;-)
    – Lord Loh.
    Nov 9, 2012 at 2:41
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I use this 5V 1A (1000 mA) USB power supply from Adafruit with my Pi which is Ethernet connected, has a USB keyboard and this mini WiFI USB adapter. I have no problems with my Pi and this power supply.

enter image description here

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I use an apple power supply for the iPhone. It's got an excellent voltage regulation circuit inside.

For the external HDD, use a separate powered hub.

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I use a HTC charger which gives 1.5 A at 5v. It works well with the fast settings on raspbmc, but I kept having corrupt sd cards on the superfast setting. Don't know for sure that it was caused due to the power supply. Having trolled the forums, I gather - HTC chargers don't have 'clean' power when you turn it on. no idea what that means but it hasn't affected my pi. apple usb chargers give 1 A, and we need 2 A if we want to overclock. Also , many forums recommend mod my pi chargers [2A] but at 4 pounds a piece, i simply wont invest because the whole charm for me was to be able to set up an xbmc centre using stuff lying around the house etc. belkin powered usb hubs are also highly recommended. hope that helps.

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I've 2 of these and the work like a charm, you might want to put tape over the red LED tho. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008MWDTW4/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Genuine-HTC-TC-B250-Wildfire/dp/B004AVR738/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352456384&sr=8-1

I am using this HTC charger with Ethernet, a keyboard and a mouse (that has flashing lights!) and it works fine. I was also able to use a Bluetooth dongle, the keyboard and Ethernet at the same time.

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Why not Kindle power supply? you can easily find it in Amazon website and has 1A power

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