5.3v charger

[ppapaz]

Hi All,
I have extra charger which is rated 5.3V.
Is it save to use it on my Raspberry pi 3 modB
(photo is from the charger)
Thanks in advance
p.

[tweak42]

Hi All,
I have extra charger which is rated 5.3V.
Is it save to use it on my Raspberry pi 3 modB
(photo is from the charger)
Thanks in advance
p.

The official raspberry pi spec voltage ranges is 4.75 to 5.25v. I believe the on board fuse will blow at 6v so with that in mind you should be safe at 5.3v. The exception is that Pi3 may complain about not enough power (rainbow square) if you load it down with high draw USB devices since your power supply is rated for 2A and the recommended is 2.5A.

[ppapaz]

Thanks for the info
I will try to find 5v charger, I don't want to risk
P.

[tweak42]

Thanks for the info
I will try to find 5v charger, I don't want to risk
P.

Honestly, unless you're using a really low quality charger that has voltage spikes way out of spec (or it catches fire), there's very little chance of damage. Higher voltage may even compensate for voltage drop using longer cables.

[ppapaz]

I am assuming that the charger that I have is good quality. It is genuine Samsung
I will check one more day the output voltage and then use it.

P.

[drgeoff]

If it is genuine Samsung I would have no worry about using it with a RPi. Did it come with a Samsung tablet? Many of the 'Samsung' labelled chargers on ebay are fakes.

[RaTTuS]

I am assuming that the charger that I have is good quality. It is genuine Samsung
I will check one more day the output voltage and then use it.

P.

if it is then it should not be outputting 5.3V on the USB port as that is out of spec
however if your usb lead is long then it may only be getting 5V at the other end ...

[davenull]

the Samsung charger of the OP has a standard USB plug, so is it not supposed to apply to the USB voltage standard then?
Anyway, using a 2-5m USB cable will keep one on the safe side perhaps, though.

[rurwin]

Anyone can use a plug. They probably can't use the USB logo, but it seems they are not.

It's not within the Pi spec, so nobody can say officially that you should use it.

If it is outputting 5.3V, then it's only 50mV out of spec. The cable and the poly-"fuse" on the Pi will drop more than that, so it will be fine to use.

However, if it's 5.3V +/- 5%, then it could be outputting up to 5.65V and that may damage the Pi.

[tweak42]

Using a usb power meter, I just went through 6 different models of usb chargers and 2 usb battery packs and only 1 of them measured 5.03v. The rest ranged 5.12-5.21v. All of them including the batteries are labeled 5v, except one charger labeled 5.3v. The usb port on my computer measured 5.01v.

So from that statistical pool, usb chargers tend to lean on the +5% side of 5v.

For those curious the charger labeled 5.3v is for the HP Touchpad and measures 5.12v idle but I've seen under load up to 5.4v when charging a phone at less than 50% battery.

I bought this usb power meter to weed out junk usb chargers and cables accumulated over the years. I've trashed several that drop to less than 5v under load.

[Cyroq]

I was looking for a solution to the rainbow icon when I coincidentally stumbled upon the previous post: I'm also using the HP Touchpad charger. I replaced a 1.5A Samsung for the 2.0A HP charger, hoping that the rainbow icon would be gone, but it's still there.
The charger is original, including the 1m usb cable. When playing a movie on my Raspberry Pi 3 I can see the side of the rainbow square in the corner lighting up sometimes (it's just a few pixels wide so I only see the red and blue). Isn't the HP Touchpad charger enough to power the Pi?

Also, is this really damaging my Pi? If not, is there a way to (re)move the rainbow icon so it doesn't disturb my viewing pleasure anymore?

[joan]

The rainbow icon is warning you that the power supply isn't up to the job.

If you want to ignore the warnings add the following line to /boot/config.txt

avoid_warnings=1

[rurwin]

I found that the power supplies that worked well with my Pi2s, failed to supply enough power for my Pi3.

One reason for that is the USB lead. The USB spec says that a power supply that has a socket has to provide 5V at the socket. There will be voltage dropped on the cable and so the Pi will never see all of it. However a power supply with a built-in lead must supply 5V at the end of the lead and so the Pi will see 5V on its input at least. The official Pi3 power supplies have built-in leads and supply 5.1V, so they even allow for some voltage drop in the polyswitch "fuse".

[tweak42]

I was looking for a solution to the rainbow icon when I coincidentally stumbled upon the previous post: I'm also using the HP Touchpad charger. I replaced a 1.5A Samsung for the 2.0A HP charger, hoping that the rainbow icon would be gone, but it's still there.
The charger is original, including the 1m usb cable. When playing a movie on my Raspberry Pi 3 I can see the side of the rainbow square in the corner lighting up sometimes (it's just a few pixels wide so I only see the red and blue). Isn't the HP Touchpad charger enough to power the Pi?

Also, is this really damaging my Pi? If not, is there a way to (re)move the rainbow icon so it doesn't disturb my viewing pleasure anymore?

I haven't had any problems powering my Pi3 with a HP Touchpad charger, but I'm using a short 1 foot cable. It's quite possible it's a loose connector, so definitely try something different. It's odd you only can see the corner of the rainbow square, whenever I've seen it, it's always on top of everything else.

[masa-aud]

reply to tweak42 on 5.3V
Often think checking voltage Pi3 internal is welcome rather than appearance of power supply. My one saying 5V 2A only output around 4V for 1A ex..

masa

[FTrevorGowen]

Hi All,
I have extra charger which is rated 5.3V.
Is it save to use it on my Raspberry pi 3 modB
(photo is from the charger)
Thanks in advance
p.

Apologies, I have only just come across this thread - FWIW, that model of PSU/charger happens to be one of those I've tested:
https://www.cpmspectrepi.uk/raspberry_p ... EP-TA11UWE
and compares well with the official (2A) PSU:
https://www.cpmspectrepi.uk/raspberry_p ... _Models.29
(with the caveat that I've only tested one sample of each)
Trev.

[Cyroq]

This is how the rainbow icon appears on my screen. It's possible that it is my tv screen which is causing the cropped image, it's an old monitor.
I've ordered a new usb cable (Samsung), hopefully this wil fix the voltage issues. It's still 3ft, couldn't find a shorter one

[Koeshi]

The rainbow icon is warning you that the power supply isn't up to the job.

Is that indicative of under-voltage or -amperage? I haven't seen any official docs on the matter.

[rurwin]

The rainbow icon is warning you that the power supply isn't up to the job.

Is that indicative of under-voltage or -amperage? I haven't seen any official docs on the matter.

They are effectively the same thing. If a power supply is too weak to supply enough current then its voltage will drop. So it is the low voltage that is being detected and reported on, but the voltage is low because the power supply cannot supply sufficient current.

[Koeshi]

They are effectively the same thing. If a power supply is too weak to supply enough current then its voltage will drop. So it is the low voltage that is being detected and reported on, but the voltage is low because the power supply cannot supply sufficient current.

My mistake, forgot I was working with fixed resistance.

I am using the official 5v2.5A PSU with a Pi3 but I get the rainbow square every few minutes. Any likely reasons for this?

[tweak42]

My mistake, forgot I was working with fixed resistance.

I am using the official 5v2.5A PSU with a Pi3 but I get the rainbow square every few minutes. Any likely reasons for this?

Bad cable or loose connector perhaps?

[Koeshi]

My mistake, forgot I was working with fixed resistance.

I am using the official 5v2.5A PSU with a Pi3 but I get the rainbow square every few minutes. Any likely reasons for this?

Bad cable or loose connector perhaps?

Possible but I doubt it. I suspect that the issue is that I have power going via the control board for the RPF display and that the USB output is not able to deliver enough power. Unfortunately the other option is to have power to the screen via the GPIO which won't work as I am using the pins already.

[tweak42]

My mistake, forgot I was working with fixed resistance.

I am using the official 5v2.5A PSU with a Pi3 but I get the rainbow square every few minutes. Any likely reasons for this?

Bad cable or loose connector perhaps?

Possible but I doubt it. I suspect that the issue is that I have power going via the control board for the RPF display and that the USB output is not able to deliver enough power. Unfortunately the other option is to have power to the screen via the GPIO which won't work as I am using the pins already.

Ah yeah that sounds more like the problem. Probably advisable to use a separate power supply each, or a multi port usb charger with separate cable for each.

[Cyroq]

I received my new Samsung usb cable and did some tests. My current setup is a Raspberry Pi 3 with external harddrive connected (seperate power supply) and ambilight (50 LEDs) attached to the GPIO (also seperate power supply).
- The new usb cable does not make any difference;
- Disconnecting the ambilight does not make any difference;
- Disconnecting the harddrive DOES make difference, but it's weird: the rainbow icon stays visible all the time. However, when I reconnect the harddrive the same old behaviour appears: it fades away and every now and then it lights up shortly.

The last point is suprising me: why would the Raspberry Pi experience a constant drop in voltage when no other devices are connected, but only get a few drops once every 10 second (approx) when a harddrive is connected?

I could simply turn off the warning but I'm afraid I'm slowly killing my Pi in the meantime.

[tweak42]

I received my new Samsung usb cable and did some tests. My current setup is a Raspberry Pi 3 with external harddrive connected (seperate power supply) and ambilight (50 LEDs) attached to the GPIO (also seperate power supply).
- The new usb cable does not make any difference;
- Disconnecting the ambilight does not make any difference;
- Disconnecting the harddrive DOES make difference, but it's weird: the rainbow icon stays visible all the time. However, when I reconnect the harddrive the same old behaviour appears: it fades away and every now and then it lights up shortly.

The last point is suprising me: why would the Raspberry Pi experience a constant drop in voltage when no other devices are connected, but only get a few drops once every 10 second (approx) when a harddrive is connected?

I could simply turn off the warning but I'm afraid I'm slowly killing my Pi in the meantime.

The only thing I can think of is you have a defective power supply or the Pi is bad. Can't verify that without some testing equipment though.