Master Plug Dual USB Power supply 70% off Sainsburys

Just found this in sainsburys



Its a surge protected socket with 2 usb power outputs rated at 1000ma (unsure if shared or individually)

Was originally £14.99 now £4.49 70% off

that"s pretty damn good for under a fiver, shame my nearest is far far away, OK a car ride but still frustrating, still a good find tho

Yeah, saw these too and grabbed a few - Thought it'd be good for a power source the RasPi! - Bargain for that price.

its not online either

Good find!

I assume it is the same as this one in PC World :

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/.....9-pdt.html

for £9.99.

I might wander past Sainsbury's on the way home.

Additional info :

Masterplug Surge Protected USB Charging Adaptor.

Unlimited warranty cover in the event of equipment damage by an electrical surge/spike.

• 1 socket.


• 13 amps.


• Surge protection.


• Surge indicator.


• Power indicator.


• Child resistant sockets.


• Suitable for indoor use.


• Manufacturer's 3 year guarantee.


• EAN/MPN/UPC/ISBN: 5015056513003.

Yep the very same.

Had loads in Chichester so any larger Sainsburys should have them

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Master....._sbs_diy_1

a slightly different approach

Nice one!
Now to find the cable (or will one be supplied?)

There's some discussion on these plugs here:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deal.....6#comments

Do we know what current each USB port can supply?

The documents are not exactly clear, and I dont have the kit to test them out.

I bought two of them this afternoon.

The documentation does not make it clear. However I plugged in my HTC Desire and checked the "Battery Status" settings. It stated is was "Charging (USB)" rather than "Charging (AC)" so I suspect each socket is only capable of 500mA.

This means the data lines are not shorted together so the phone only recognises it as a normal USB port, not a port capable of delivering 1000mA.

This is fine for my purposes as I only ever charge stuff over night so 2 hours or 4 hours makes no difference.

A bit of a strange design decision from MasterPlug as everything on the packaging states "USB Power". The packaging states it will charge all "USB chargeable" devices. Not sure this is entirely true. No fancy Apple stuff in my house so I will only need it for mobile phones.

A handy bit of kit to have in your desk drawer or laptop bag but perhaps not much use for the Raspberry PI model B.

maybe the htc charger has some sort of circuitry that tells the phone its safe to draw more than the usual usb current. my other half has a 2A charger for her tablet and ill see what my htc says when plugged in to that.

Sainsbury's are also selling a Masterplug mains plug with a single USB socket at £4.99 and is more clearly stated as 5V @ 1000mA but still doesn't indicate if it will supply 1000mA always or only when that's been negotiated. Also, if I remember correctly, it's marked "charger" so no idea how it would perform if used for powering an R-Pi over any prolonged period.

Given that it's impossible to know from most packaging if any USB charger / supply will perform as desired I'm still recommending people buy the official foundation power supply. It's a small price to pay for peace of mind, knowing you'll get something known to be suitable and safe.

Sainsbury's are also selling low cost PNY branded "colour" SD Cards; 4GB £2.45, 8GB £3.99. No indication of class marked and no idea if they'll work with R-Pi but cheaper than any other supplier I've seen and no VAT or postage to add on.

hippy said:

Sainsbury's are also selling a Masterplug mains plug with a single USB socket at £4.99 and is more clearly stated as 5V @ 1000mA but still doesn't indicate if it will supply 1000mA always or only when that's been negotiated.

If it's 1000mA, then it is not negotiated and is always available.

It usually means the "charger" or "PSU" has shorted together the data pins to let the device know it can pull >500mA, though not all chargers do that so may not charge all devices.

However, the RPi doesn't ask the power supply what it can draw, it just assumes it can pull whatever it needs from the micro-USB port.

You are right in wondering if a "Charger" is rated for continuous use. It should be ok for a few hours, but it's hard to tell if it will run all day without actually trying it out.

hippy said:

Sainsbury's are also selling low cost PNY branded "colour" SD Cards; 4GB £2.45, 8GB £3.99. No indication of class marked and no idea if they'll work with R-Pi but cheaper than any other supplier I've seen and no VAT or postage to add on.

That's certainly a pretty good price - "known-name" Class 4 8GB SD cards from Amazon seem to fall into the £4-6 bracket (mostly with free shipping), but it's rare to find "High Street" retailers selling SD cards so low. If I knew I wanted an 8GB card, found these PNY models were Class 4 or 6, and I didn't want to wait (!), I think I'd be off to Sainsbury's "toute suite"...

Mind you, I wonder if I should go for 16GB, in case I need the "headroom"?

Tim

Actually, I just re-read that post above (must've been half-asleep earlier ): £3.99 for an 8GB SD card? If it's a Class 4 or 6, never mind whether I'll use it in a RasPi or not: that's a total bargain anyway!

Off to Sainsbury's tomorrow - thanks for the head-up...

I had a look for these cards at my local (largeish) Sainsburys but no sign of anything at this price. What they did have was:

8G SDHC class 4 Optima at £19.99

4G SDHC class 4 Sandisk at £10.99

4G SDHC class 4 Verbatim at £11.99

4G SDHC class 4 Optima at £11.99

4G SDHC class 4 Integral at £7.99

2G SD (no class indicated) Optima at £6.99

So nothing like the bargain prices referred to above. Has anyone else been lucky?

I couldn't see the Masterplug adaptors either but from what has been said above I'll either use my existing HTC phone charger or buy a spare one (Amazon have them for about £4) as this definitely supplies 1 amp.

Sainsbury's cheap PNY cards are in packaging very similar to this ...

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/.....2115_2.jpg

Can't miss the 4GB as are 'Raspberry Pi apt "shocking pink" 8GB bright blue. In my local store they moved from the CD/DVD media area to the 'cheap electrical' section where the Masterplug kit can be found. There weren't a lot when I grabbed mine - I didn't believe the price and was half expecting a trip to the customer service desk.

SD4GBHCCOLP-EF, barcode 3 536401 531463

SD8GBHCCOLB-EF, barcode 3 536401 531470

Plenty of references ( and far higher prices ) on t'web but all out of stock so would guess it's a limited end of line deal.

The single USB Masterplug sockets were hanging on a vertical plastic strip of 10, 5 white, 5 black from the labelling.

Perhaps strike the cheap SD deal - 4GB now at £11.99 in my store. Presumably one of Sainsbury's short-term knock-down sales I never seem to benefit from.

Grabbed the last single socket Masterplug USB charger; the font label says "Charge/Power ... any USB device" so should work with an R-Pi. Will keep the packaging and receipt

If it doesn't say 1000mA per port then it is probably overall. Anyone who owns one of these could open it and see if the ports are connected together.

Perhaps shorting the data pins would be possible too, assuming this won't cause an overload. Are the pins really supposed to be shorted though? Not connected with a resistor to tell the connected device how much power can be drawn or anything like that? I've never had a USB charging phone so I don't know how this works.

I visited a big Sainsbury's yesterday lunchtime, and the assistant there said it looked as if all the PNY SD cards have gone - I should've nipped in there at the weekend

At least the MasterPlug adapter was still on sale, so I might consider that one (whilst not taking too long about it)...

Hi there!

First post here, mainly just to say thanks! Saw this thread and went and bought one just now! Really good find there, well done!

As i see some people are on about SD cards, I also just ordered this off of amazon

SanDisk 8GB 30MB/s Extreme HD Video SDHC Card - only £10.62 if anyone is interested! 

Here is a link

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/pro.....B00422FBJ2

Spudd

Just been into lidl (uk), where they have combined phone charger/usb hub/card reader for gbp 7.50 or something..
Make is "parkside". Sorry to be vague but with children & couldn"t stop

Parkside stuff is LiDL's own brand and pretty good fro the money. Just check it's the right rating, I think you need 750mA (.75 Amps) for the Pi.

I have here an old Apple iPod power supply (from an iPod Colour) and it looks like it will be perfect. 5v 1A, enough for the Pi and some low power USB goodies.

So, got the power, got the keyboard / mouse, got the monitor.. where's my Pi?