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New here, but wanted to ask about the above. My Pi 3 B+ is connected to an official &" Touchscreen display, which uses a double adaptor to provide power to the Pi and scren. This work fine.

However, if I connect a Sense Hat to the Pi, the Pi doesn't boot fully. The Sense Hat does light up though, showing a rainbow of colours. I am presuming this is a power issue. Do I need to supply power to both the Pi and the screen separately?

I am asking before trying simply because it would mean a bit of a fiddle to provide power to both, although I could do it. I just don't want to break anything.

Any thoughts?

Regards Phil C

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  • OK, it looks like it IS a power issue. It works when I use separate supplies for the monitor and Pi, but I am still seeing the lightning flash when I run a script on the SenseHat.
    – Phil C
    Commented Jun 8, 2019 at 9:03
  • Usually the yellow lightning only shows for short wile during boot, if you power supply is a little bit below. But the lighting should disappear afterwards, NOT every time you run a script. I suspect your power supply for the Rpi is a little below spec.
    – tlfong01
    Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 5:43
  • Many thanks, Yes, the power supply is not good enough, so I ordered a genuine Raspberry Pi unit, and that has cured my problem
    – Phil C
    Commented Jun 25, 2019 at 17:14
  • you are welcome and how nice to hear that you solved your problem. My Sense Hat is directly plugged into Rpi's 40 pin GPIO socket, so I once thought about messing around the connector pins to separately connect Sense Hat to another power supply. Now you have convinced me that that this might not be necessary. Cheers.
    – tlfong01
    Commented Jun 26, 2019 at 0:35
  • There are advantages to separating the Sense Hat with a ribbon cable, especially if you plan to monitor the temperature. This is because the Pi gives off quite a bit of heat, so I purchased a 40 way cable to remove this issue.
    – Phil C
    Commented Jun 27, 2019 at 16:42

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Question

Still seeing the lightning flash when running script on the SenseHat, ...

Answer

Me too. The yellow lightning comes and goes. My power supply is not that good. I am thinking of using separate power supplies, one for Rpi, another for SenseHat.

Using breakout board and ribbon cable

Now I am using both breakout board and ribbon. This way I can access the GPIO pins easily. I am thinking of not connecting all GPIO pins the the Sense Hat. I am going to use separate power supply for it.

sense hat ribbon cable

Sense Hat Rewiring Notes

Now I am rewiring the Sense Hat for separate power supplies.

sense hat rewiring

References

1. Mounting Rpi Sense Hat and Polulu/AdaFruit IMU on Rpi

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