This is a placeholder topic for “Raspberry Pi 4 Power Supply (Official) - USB-C 5.1V 15.3W (White)” comments.
The official Power Supply needed for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
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The official Power Supply needed for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
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Great power plug but please, PLEASE! remove the stupid pointless round part that sticks out around the charger as it stops me plugging things in next to it thanks to the pointless pieces of plastic sticking out around it. After cutting them off I can now plug things around it without problems.
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Hey Corey,
I completely agree, I’m not sure whether it’s some kind of European compliance requirement or saves on manufacturing costs, but it’s certainly an issue. Unfortunately, we don’t manufacture these PSU ourselves, it would be best to suggest this to the Raspberry Pi Foundation directly.
All the best with your projects!
Hi Corey,
It’s actually important! The Pi supply needs that space for airflow so it doesn’t over-heat. You might get away with it at low load, but I couldn’t recommend it!
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Thanks for the tip, I might have to.
I don’t think so, they don’t get very hot at all even with mine being overclocked and is a huge annoyance when it’s being greedy and needs to be have spacing just be be plugged in…
Well use something else. MeanWell and lots of other people make 3A or better power supplies.
Cheers Bob
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True there could be “better” power cords but this is the official one and rather use that, all they need to do is remove the pointless pieces of plastic that sticks out around the charger and the problem is solved.
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Oliver is exactly right, cutting and modifying supplies certainly isn’t the way to go and not what I would recommend that on any supply. That being said, if airflow requirements are an issue the RPi Foundation may be able to redesign the case to be better suited to fit in Australian ports if there’s enough request from the customers to change it.
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Yeah but it doesn’t need it, with loads of use heavy and light as a full PC and many other uses the power supply never gets very warm even after it being on for multiple days or heavy use compiling code or playing games.
Here is how it looks now after I modified it and removed those pointless pieces of plastic
Now it’s clean and not a hog when I plug it is not is not dangerous as again it never gets hot or even at best that warm with use.
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Hey Corey,
I know this probably not what you’re looking for but I just use a small extension cable for annoying supplies like these. Totally agree with the peace of mind that running the official supply gives, though!
-James
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I’ve recently done a couple of voice assistant satellites that require two 5V wall warts, one for RasPi and another for the speaker … and a separate 4-way power board for 2 oversize power supplies. Seems overkill for a small project which in total is only drawing a few amps.
I wonder how many projects end like this ? And how much money, electricity and resources are being wasted by having lots of small power adaptors ?
It would be nice to have a power supply that takes only one wall socket and has two or three 5V leads coming from the power supply (and maybe an option with a 12v or 9V line to power motors or servos). This got me looking at USB chargers - but most don’t provide enough power for a RasPi 4, let alone additional boards - and leads me to the likes of “Comsol 90W USB-C & A 3 Port Wall Charger & Cable” ($99 from Officeworks) or “Quick Charger 3.0, USB Plug Chargers, Total 33W” on amazon which claims to deliver 18W Quick Charge on port one, and 5V at 3.1A on ports 2,3 and 4. reviews, however, are mixed.
Looking on the Raspberry Pi forum there are several who vehemently rubbish anything other than the official Raspberry Pi power supplies. Sure the RasPi power supplies may be good quality (we hear every product touted as high quality, so the phrase has long lost meaning), but it would be nice to have another option or two which are more suited to projects than just a single RasPi.
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Hi Donald,
I can certainly relate to projects that seem to have multiple power supplies each taking up space where you wish you could just have one bigger one that does everything.
The catch with Raspberry Pi power supplies is that the Raspberry Pi boards are officially documented as 5.1V devices.
Many Pi boards do get used with 5V power supplies and work without issue, but we’ve had numerous reports of Pi boards displaying low voltage warnings when combined with USB peripherals and tripping the Pi’s low voltage alert mechanism. This is the reason we recommend use with the official power supplies as it’s one less part to troubleshoot with a supply that is guaranteed and warrantied to work.
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Hi Trent
You are kidding right ??? 5.1V or 5.0V. If RPis are that critical I would not bother reading about them let alone pass over $$$ to purchase. You would probably find that some el cheapo DMMs would be worse than that especially if they have a few years on them. I wonder how many of these “wall warts”, as the Americans call them, have been discarded because the meter says they are out of tolerance.I think mostly it would be the better quality (and more expensive) instruments that you would expect to retain accuracy over several years. Indeed if you are doing “traceable” type work it is usually a requirement to have your instrument’s’ calibration checked annually.
I have dealt with this sort of requirement all my electronic working life and have often thought that when an instrument is calibration checked you could probably assume the last dozen or so and the next dozen or so measurements are OK. Outside of that who knows. I have seen the requirement with production where things like wire wrap and crimp tools are tested before the start and about half way through every day. That could be thought of as being overly fussy but the customer requires it and is paying for it so us mere mortals cannot argue can we??
Cheers Bob
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Off on a different tangent … I note that Core currently have 3 prices for Official Raspberry Pi power supplies:
- Raspberry Pi 3+ Power Supply (Official) (White) $18.95
- Raspberry Pi 4 Power Supply (Official) - USB-C 5.1V 15.3W (Black) $14.35
- Raspberry Pi 4 Power Supply (Official) - USB-C 5.1V 15.3W (White) $16.45
My understanding is that the colour of the power supply makes no difference; and that it is OK (even desirable) for a power supply to have more amps available than the connected device’s maximum requirement. The Pi 3 also requires 5.1V, so could use the RasPi 4 power supply - except that it does have a different power connector.
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Hi Donald,
The next project in the barrel for me has this exact issue although it requires a bit more power. The best value supply that I came across was this 12V one: 12V DC 5A Fixed 2.1mm Tip Switching Power Supply Australia
Then to get lower voltages I use some step down regulators from Pololu to power the Pi’s. An SMD USB socket for a cable to plug into and voila a power supply for a few different things at varying voltages.
Re the different prices on power supplies, colour wont make a difference, I’d say its supply and demand. If you have some micro USB PSU’s around you can use this to change the connector: https://core-electronics.com.au/usb-micro-b-to-usb-c-adapter-black.html
I belive the extra 0.1V is to make sure when the Pi draws more current the voltage doesnt droop low enough to trip those voltage warnings
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Some time ago I bought a Pi 3B+ and connected a 5.0V supply with more than enough capacity to power the Pi. Upon power up a small message appeared on the GUI saying there was a power supply problem. (cannot remember the msg) The Pi worked fine and I ignored it as I explored the Pi capability.
When I got around to checking why, I discovered the small difference in voltage (5.0V to 5.1V) was the problem. I bought the official Pi plug pack and the message no longer appeared. I used a variable supply of 5.1V and the message no longer appeared.
I don’t know if this is a deliberate design feature to make people buy the official plug pack or a hangover from the original hardware.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation was able to procure the original processor chips at a discounted price, making development of the Pi possible. The original processor was essentially a graphics chip with an embedded RISC processor.
I found all of this information in the Raspberry Pi Forum pages, or it used to be there.
The history of the Pi is quite interesting.
Regards
Jim
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Hi Donald,
Every now and then we have a customer that absolutely must have a power supply in a particular colour for their application, so we started listing the separate colours as separate products on our site after so many requests. Since we purchase them for different prices that is reflected in the final price on the website.
I always just go for the cheaper one, but if you want to be selective about the colour, now you can!
The Pi 4 power supply and Pi 3+ power supply are not rated to the same power output as the Pi 3 boards and Pi 4 boards have different current requirements (due to the faster processors).
The power requirements for each generation of Pi board are available here:
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Hi Bob,
I know it seems ridiculous to think that 0.1 volts would make a difference in this application, for the vast majority of cases 5 volts is sufficient for the board to perform correctly but as @James46717 has documented you will get a rather annoying error message if the Pi notices the lower voltage supply.
My suspicion is that this was done to encourage people to use the official power supply that has some extra current delivery headroom knowing that it would be used in schools and with beginners unfamiliar with power ratings. It’s all well and good to know the Pi’s power requirements but when the end-user will inevitably connect a USB hub and a large number of USB peripherals that also need power via the Pi’s power supply the official power supplies are designed with allowance for that.
The documentation does list an assumed amount of extra USB peripherals are connected:
Interestingly they also show that the low-voltage warning is designed to be triggered at 4.63V (+/- 5%).
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Hi @Donald23173
I note that Core currently have 3 prices for Official Raspberry Pi power supplies
Product origin and purchasing volume are going to have an effect on price. I can confirm that both factors are valid for the parts you linked!
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