Raspberry Pi Forums

The alternate subject of this post is "DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!"

I was reluctant to write this post because I'll be called stupid, with a reason.

I set up my Rpi with a powered USB-hub, an external hard drive and connected it to a router as well. I took it to work for bragging purposes and when I came back home late in the night I put the rig together again, turned everything on and went to bed.

The next day nothing was working, so I went to check and realized I had switched the AC adapter for the router and the USB hub, the plug was exactly the same and even the names were somewhat similar (D-Link and Dynex). The AC for the USB hub is 5V and the router's, 12V.

Long story short, the hard drive, the USB hub and the SD card were all fried. But for my surprise, the Rpi board wasn't damaged. Maybe it was, but it's working flawlessly so far. That's amazing! (at least for me).

Bottom line, pay attention when plugging all those cables!

Good advice. Maybe I should color-code my cables, huh?

apereira wrote:I was reluctant to write this post because I'll be called stupid, with a reason.

More "careless" I would say. You aren't the first to have done this and won't be the last. I have seen costly mistakes with kit shipped from the states plugged in with the PSU still set for 110V. It's easy to overlook such things or get it wrong before powering-up.

One of the arguments in favour of the micro-USB connector for powering the Pi is that it reduces the chance of such mistakes happening to almost zero.

For barrel-style connectors, which are prone to having wrong plugs inserted into wrong sockets, I tend to use coloured insulating tape markers on the cable near the jack and on the equipment. That can help highlight any mistakes about to be made.

I once owned two pieces of kit: a TNC and a 2metre radio.
One was centre pin positive.
You can see where this is leading, can't you?
Grabbed wrong power lead in a hurry -
Result ? A perfect rectangular smoke ring from between the two halves of the radio case