Cheap music server power tweak that is VERY good.

[rikhav]

Hi allWill this battery tweak will work with a raspberry bi as music server ?

The raspberry will be powered by 5volt 2A power bank via the GPIO pins , thus bypassing the fuse and protective circuitry if any

I plan to use an internal HDD used in desktop PCs and power it by a 12 volt battery bank

[rikhav]

What are the specifications of the internal HDD that you plan to use ?

Many HDDs would soon drain a battery bank.

 

Generally all internal non ssd hard drives consume 12 volts if I am not wrong

 

 

I am getting a 20000 mah power bank. Even if I can make HDD work for 3 hours I will be happy

 

 

But the biggest question. Is wil it give expected result ?

[rikhav]

Hi RichardI place the raspberry in such a way on the audio rack that removing the battery is fairly easy to charge it

 

 

Its not even safe when we are just playing with 12 volts ?

I can understand equipment getting ruined , but surely no damage to ourselves

[rikhav]

Hi Richard

 

If damaging the Pi is the issue I can assure you there is nothing to worry. I have been powering my pi via the hifiberry digi plus board. So in this case too all fuse and other protective circuits are bypassed

Faced no issues till now. Have been using it for 4 months now

[rikhav]

My badThanks for making me aware

 

 

So a portable USB drive makes more sense as high capacity ssds way too expensive

[rikhav]

Buy the 5V HDD's 2.5". Can get a 2TB one for under $90. Makes it easy to power separately from the motherboard power supply.

 

Every once in awhile they go on sale.

SAMSUNG Spinpoint M9T ST2000LM003 2TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.com

 

 

I want to connect it to a raspberry pi and so i will need to find something to convert usb to sata

So instead of this will prefer a USB portable hard drive

[rikhav]

Are you connecting the hard drive (Data input) via USB or SATA? Is this hard drive to be an Operating System drive or DATA storage drive?

 

I wouldn't recommend powering a 5V HDD 2.5" via USB 5V motherboard power, not sure if any power spikes would play havoc on SQ.

 

If the drive is to be a data storage non operating system drive then power separately through enclosure or other non motherboard source for best SQ.

 

Hi

Its a data drive only. In a raspberry pi OS is saved on a micro SD card

That's what I am planning to do

Power the data drive buy a power bank. I will use a dual headed cable, one will connect to raspberry pi to get data and other to the power bank to get power

Also the raspberry pi will be powered by another power bank via GPIO pins, so fuse and protection circuit bypasses

[rikhav]

Hi Elviacaprice

 

Yes, I would be using a 2.5 inch portable drive.

Raspberry PI does not have SATA connection as of now. So one needs to connect the any kind HDD via USB

 

As I wrote in my earlier post, I will use a dual headed USB cable for that HDD. one head will connect to raspberry USB to feed data to it and other head to the power bank (to get power from the power bank)

 

I know that for a only data HDD there is no point of having a separate power supply but since the power bank wont cost much I might as well power it by a power bank

[rikhav]

Awesome, Rikhav, sounds like your good to go. Don't understand why you need a dual headed USB cable? Isn't that for sending single 5V pin with the data? Why not just use a normal USB cable? Or separate the 5V with tape? The 5V data drive will still need power separate to the 2.5" drive. Both ground and 5V.

 

Hi

I need a dual headed USB cable because as you would know the 2.5 HDDs take power from the host, in my case it would be a Raspberry pi

I don't want the raspberry pi to power the hdd. instead I want it to be powered by a separate power bank and so for that I will needed a dual headed USB cable

So one can get data from the Pi and other can get power from the power bank

Hope this clears your doubt

Rgds

[rikhav]

Hi SandyI will actually use two of them

One to power the pi and other to power the HDD

I will buy one with quick charge tech so it won't take much tim To charge

[rikhav]

Just One question: Why a power bank?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile mobile app

 

Hi

The idea is to supply clean power to the raspberry pi and so most suitable choice is the power bank

Sbooster which is a LPS for raspberry pi is not available in my country and is also priced at 300 GBP

One more option is IFI I POWER but that too the country distributor has yet to import

 

So till the time I have an option of anyone of above, power bank seems to be a good choice according to me

[rikhav]

I'm just curious as to how and why I would want to do that with my Pi with Digi+ ??

Does this improve sound quality in a consistent way?

 

Yes

For me the tonality is more natural and highs more silky.

And moreover its a very simple mod and have had no issues

[rikhav]

So do you think that a power bank provide clean power? Really?

The power that can provide a power bank is worse than the power of a normal pc usb port .

The voltage of a battery is 3.7v, not 5v; so to take the voltage from 3,7 to 5volt in power bank there Are very cheap switching step up (don't know if it is the correct word in eng) with a huge Amount of ripple. (Because a power bank do not Need to provide a clean and stable power, because you use it to charge other batteries).

 

In conclusion, it is quite absurd to use a power bank that provides "dirtier" power than a normal pc usb port.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile mobile app

 

Hi Simone

Thanks for sharing this info

Frankly, I did search a lot on the internet and did not get a definite answer about battery banks in particular.

Some amps like red wine and Dodd used battery power but thier implementation is different

Your post was first time I read something concrete about the battery banks wrt audio

So any suggestions what should I use till I can afford an expensive linear power supply

For me the cost of importing and duty adds up a lot

Can I use wall.adapters by good mobile phone brands such as apple or Samsung

Or

Ifi ipower seems to be a better bet

Lastly can we use car battery? I know it won't be convenient to use but apart from that will it provide ripple free supply?

Rgds

[rikhav]

Rikhav

If you have a suitable NiMh battery charger you could try something like 4 x NiMh 2,600mAH batteries in a suitable holder with 2 wire output leads. You would need to recharge them quite regularly though, even with a low power consumption SSD like recent Samsung offerings.

No, you can't use a car battery unless it is followed by a 5V regulator PCB.

Batteries really aren't a good answer, and I don't see why so many persist with them, unless they have inadequate internal room for a low noise , and preferably very low output impedance, 12V to 5V voltage regulator PCB.

It's the low noise and isolation from the main PSU that you need, and a good voltage regulator provides both.

Alex

 

Hi alex

Don't have any nimh charger

I will use my Samsung Mobile chafger for now and try to procure a ifi ipower or sbooster immediately

Thanks again

[rikhav]

I got my answers for how bad a wall wart and a mobile power bank is or how a good a linear power supply is

 

I have got a teradak linear PSU for few days on loan from a friend

 

I am using raspberry pi running moode audio 2.5

Muisc is stored in a thumb drive connected diretc to raspberry. Hifiberry digi+ is also connected to raspberry

 

What should I say ?

 

The raspberry pi is outputting some serious sound

I myself can't believe my setup can sound so good or there can be such vast change in sq by only providing good power to music PC working as transport

 

I am lucky that a hardcore diyer has agreed to make me a lpsu to power my raspberry and external powred hdd

[rikhav]

Hi John

I know we all are on a never ending quest to improve our setups sound

But believe this is worth it. How do your power the pi as of now ?

The teradak lps I tried out is available for USD 44 from a hong Kong site. That's not too much money too

 

I will find the site address and post it here in some time

[rikhav]

As a Pi and Dig+ owner (feeding a naim dac), I really wished you hadn't posted this.....MUST RESIST

 

Here you go

Be sure to order correct voltage according to which country you are in

 

http://googleweblight.com/?lite_url=http://www.ab-system.hk/index.php?route%3Dproduct/product%26product_id%3D64&ei=5ftMkPkl&lc=en-IN&s=1&m=41&host=www.google.co.in&ts=1458096051&sig=APY536xElIefpT9yVRo0tElMyg4t0j2rMg

[rikhav]

rikhav - Are you using the Teradac that you linked to with a pi? And did you need to make any adjustments to it, or just plug the pi into the 5V usb power output and that's it? - Thanks

 

 

 

Absolutely zero adjustments on the PSU side

 

I have bypassed the fuse and protection circuit of the pi. That's not necessary but upon you if you want to do it. Personally did not have issue of any sort

But its not needed to power the pi by the teradak supply

 

Also powered a peachtree dac through 12 volt dc out along with raspberry pi by 5 volt usb out. No issues at all. Both played well

[rikhav]

John and rikhav,

Were you able to purchase with Paypal or did you use a credit card? I tried to go through PP and the vendor was not able to accept payments. thanks

 

I had borrowed the PSU from my friend to try it out. He has not purchased it from the site link I have postwd. But my other friend has ordered two. He stays in Singapore

I can confirm with you and post back

[rikhav]

I just ordered via ebay and paid with PP

2016 TeraDak TeraLink X1/X2 DC8.5V 1A + USB DC5V external Power Supply -HL | eBay

 

What's the price on ebay

[rikhav]

What's the price on ebay

Sorry was browsing through a mobile so mised the link

[rikhav]

Many people from my country which is india facing issues with payment via PayPal

They getting error "seller can't accept payment via PayPal"

Maybe you can contact site via email

 

Some issue with payment engine

Maybe some

[rikhav]

The same teradak PSU for which I have posted a link

[rikhav]

Thanks Rikhav. Are you sure the usb provide 2A current?

 

 

Sorry for the error

Actually it outputs only 1 A of current. But if you can power your hdds with some other source, the 1 A of curent will suffice for the raspberry pi

I have raspberry pi + Wi-Fi adapter + hifiberry digi + board and it works smoothly with the said terdak psu

[rikhav]

But I don't want to power HDDs with other sources, hence 2V

Then you can try this PSU by teradak

 

DC-30W-SB3 DC (5V/3A) Power

 

It does not have USB connector so you will need to make a custom cable