Power via 5V SATA power output

Oranies

I've understood the best way to power a Banana Pi or Pro is the Power microUSB plug.
Another reliable way to power it I've understood is the "5V SATA power output" as I've seen in messatge #6 of "Power via GPIO CON3" [1]
I'm trying to learn about clustering several Banana and I would like to power them in a cheaper way than one microUSB each.
If my cluster work I would like to power Banana and hdd from a small PC Power unit which gives 5V (red cables) and 12V (yellow cables), for 2.5" hdd and 3.5" hdd.

My question is which is the reference of the 5V SATA power connector used?

Thx



[1] http://forum.lemaker.org/forum.p ... 2&fromuid=74542

actkk2000

By the picture it has been used a USB/Sata adapter but perhaps you should modify a Sata cable to add a power entry to make things cheaper...
Here a picture where you have to cut and patch sata power:
http://forum.lemaker.org/forum.p ... 81&fromuid=1602

tkaiser

Please remember that there's a coil between Micro-USB and SATA power. Why not rely on Micro-USB? The connector is capable of 5V/1.8A max (which is perfectly okay since when you power disks externally then the BPi's consumption won't exceed 650mA @ 5V even under heavy load).



(this was a series of tests for thermal measurements outlined in this thread and the last one was with slight overclocking to 1.2Ghz)

You can get a couple of short Micro USB power cables (like these) and connect all red wires to the 5V rail of your PSU and the black ones to GND and you're done.

And please be aware that the wrong cables might lead to voltage drops. Some details and ways to measure this (from within the power management unit AXP209) outlined in this thread.

Oranies

I'm so sorry I've explained myself poorly. Specially for the photo I've chosen to show it out.
My idea is to power the hdd from an external source (an independent PC one), at 5V for the 2,5" hdd and at 5V and 12V for the 3,5" hdd, directly.

I've liked very much the microUSB you propose [1] to power the Banana. It's 1 € each Banana to power it, plus delivery costs (5 €).

I advance correctly learning to set a cluster of Banana.
At the moment my idea is to take advance of your piece of advice and to use microUSB for 2 Banana and an old PC power source to feed all of them. I hope this will be my prototype to test for a larger project.
My previous idea was to power the Banana from an old PC power source thru the "5V SATA power output" but I've been unable to find the model and price of the correct plug to put the power in.

Anyway I understand it can't be a problem bypassing the  coil between Micro-USB and SATA power because I get the power from a good electric source like a PC power  one. Perhaps I'm wrong.
In my design, the electric current (amperage) to put in thru the SATA power plug will be only for the Banana consumption because I pretend to power all the hdd bypassing any Banana.

tkaiser

Oranies replied at Tue Mar 31, 2015 08:02
At the moment my idea is to take advance of your piece of advice and to use microUSB for 2 Banana and an old PC power source to feed all of them

I've used a simple dual voltage PSU to power one Banana Pi via Micro USB, an Olimex A20-OLinuXIno-LIME2 using their standard barrel plug and a 3.5" HDD without any problems:



BTW: Since normal ATX PSUs are very inefficient under low load conditions you might want to give a dedicated dual voltage PSU a try. We experimented also with clusters and have a spare PSU with 5V/12V (both 5A) lying around. We calculated that this should be ok for 5 Banana Pis each with a 3.5" HDD connected using some circuitry and MOSFET drivers to implement a delayed spin-up of Bananas and especially disks (peek current up to 2A/12V at spin-up). One Banana Pi would've been the 'master node' switching on/off everything else using its GPIO pins. We droppend the idea in the meantime but if you would use a mixture of 2.5" and 3.5" disks a PSU like this might be ok for up to 8 'cluster nodes'.

Jimmyv

Hi,

I'm a Banana Pi newbie, and looking for an easy way to power both my 3,5" HDD and my BPi. I don't want to burn my BPi, maybe you can help me out.

I ordered this HDD power supply:



Can I connect a micro usb-kabel to the 5V / GND of the Molex connector to power both the harddrive and the BPi?
Does it make any difference to power the Bpi via de micro-USB or the 2-pin Sata-power?

And if this is possible, what's the best way to make this molex / usb connection?


Thanks!

SPGremlin

My BananaPi Micro-USB power socket does not hold a cable firmly.  You touch a cable, it loses power and resets.

So is it possible to supply a power via SATA jst 2-pin socket, as it is much more reliable mechanically?  Some kind of a coil was mentioned above, how much of a problem it would be?

destroyedlolo

No problem at all : I'm powering one of my Banana with this methods w/o issue
I created a French webpage about that : http://destroyedlolo.info/Banana ... rrectement_son_bPI/