Better Power Supply for Rack PiDP-1

[sunnyboy010101]

I'm getting the lightning bolt on my Raspberry Pi-5 when running just the console as well as the full rack version. I know the PiDP-1 is going to use a bit more power than just a RPi-5 alone, but I have a 4.5W Cana Kits power supply and it seems it's not adequate. 

I'm also running a bottom hat NVME with large m.2 SDD and fan, but these alone should not cause the lightning bolt.

I have some higher current USB chargers (one has 2 UCB-C ports @ 20W and two USB-A ports @ 3.1A), but wondered if the power from these is "clean" enough for the R-Pi5. (they are meant to rapid charge phones and heated vest batteries, etc.).

I'm wondering what others are using to get enough power for the whole PiDP-1 (esp. rack version with speakers and I/O panel).

-R

[Matthias Barthel]

My rack works fine with a Raspberry 4 , just Sd-Card and no cooling.my console pidp1 runs on a old Raspberry 3B headless with active Webserver.

Most of the time the console pidp1 runs with a esp32 Microcontroller wit my esp32 adapterboard ( a little bit slower as from the raspberry)

Matthias 

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[Bill E]

I'm running a pi5 in my full rack version using a 20w usb wall-plug widget, iRasptek USB-C, on Amazon.

My -1 is on 24/7, and my music mod with digital filters uses floating point, which I assume uses more power, and it's been running fine.

Bill

[Clem Cole]

I have a  PiDP-1 rack and a PiDP-10 both have a RPi  5. I’ve have been using; Cherosin brand, PD 27W USB-C 5.1 /5A for RPi 5 which is $12.99 from Amazon for each of them. 

Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual

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[sunnyboy010101]

Thanks everyone! I've ordered a 5A USB-C with good cable from amzn. 

[sunnyboy010101]

<sign> Apparently NOT good enough. It's going back. You know the "5A power supply" isn't up to the task when you immediatly get the lightning bolt and a pop-up warning that power is not adequate and things will be throttled!  Plus when I turned on the amplifier the whole Pi just froze and died.

At least my Cana Kit 4.5A power supply works - even with amp turned on. I'm also not immediately getting the lightning bolt for low power with it this time, so I'll just wait and see.

Once I get my amzn refund, I'll investigate something else.

[sunnyboy010101]

Apparently (according to amzn listing) my current CanaKit 45W power supply that I'm currently using is indeed 5A. So no idea why this very power supply gave the lightning bolt last week when running the blinky lights demo program. It's working fine now (with speaker amp on or off) and no lightning bolt.

-R

[Michael J. Kupec]

Everyone does know the true Pi-4 and Pi-5 power supplies actually put out 5.1VDC?

A regular 5VDC unit will always generate the low volt lightening bolt when used on a Pi-4/5. 

I’ve always ordered one of the specific 5.1VDC power packs for my units and haven’t dealt with this issue. 

Michael Kupec

Sent from my iPad as its keyboard is so much easier to type on!😆

On Jan 7, 2026, at 10:07 PM, sunnyboy010101 <sunnybo...@gmail.com> wrote:

Apparently (according to amzn listing) my current CanaKit 45W power supply that I'm currently using is indeed 5A. So no idea why this very power supply gave the lightning bolt last week when running the blinky lights demo program. It's working fine now (with speaker amp on or off) and no lightning bolt.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pidp-1/381d5626-2a7c-4853-8148-c8a7d4c62bf1n%40googlegroups.com.

[Code Dragon]

I'm using one of these GeekPi PD hats ( https://a.co/d/bm4iD82 ), and powering it from a USB-C PD Charger.  It can also accept a 12v input from a standard wall-wart, if you have one of them lying around.  I had also considered one of the UPS hats so I could make the PiDP-1 semi portable

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pidp-1/381d5626-2a7c-4853-8148-c8a7d4c62bf1n%40googlegroups.com.

[sunnyboy010101]

Actually, the CanaKit power supply is the full 5.1V 5A supply. I did more reading on the lightning bolt, and apparently its a bit of a known issue - it's been reported coming on with perfectly good power supplies, and the con census is that a new update to Raspbien is expected to fix whatever is causing it (i.e. the warning is known false due to OS glitch that needs to be fixed).

At any rate my rack PiDP-1 has not given the lightning bolt since last power-on, (12+ hours ago) at which time I also did an OS update (apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade). So maybe it's fixed, but time will tell. Before the update even with the good power supply it would give lightning bolt after about 3 min or so, so 12+ hours running (snowflake) is good progress.

[R Clark]

You can buy the RPI power supply separate too.  Not that expensive.

https://www.pishop.us/product/raspberry-pi-45w-usb-c-power-supply-white/

[Karl Schuneman]

The official Pi5 PSU is PD compliant. The Pi5 exchanges signals with the PSU. If it gets the correct response back, it "knows" that it can get 5A and sets the USB (output) current limit to 1.6A. Otherwise, it sets that USB current to 0.6A. If the PSU doesn't do the PD handshaking, the Pi5 won't set the higher USB current limit.

[sunnyboy010101]

So I did some digging, and the NEW Raspberry Pi power supply (SC1731) is 46W. It delivers 5A at 5V, and 5A at 9V, which is different from all the 27W power supplies which say 5A at 5V but only 3A at 9V. I know we don't use 9V but it's an indicator.

So I ordered one yesterday, which was a bit of fun... in Canada there are a few distributors of official Pi stuff, and all 3 had the same price ($23 CDN). But shipping... WOW!!! One wanted $20 CDN to ship, another 23$CDN for post and $67 for fedex. OUCH. Fortunately the third (Digikey) had $8 CDN shipping via courier. It will be here tomorrow.

What I found in testing with a good sensing power supply (the CanaKit one I have does the sensing) is that everything is great unless I turn on the amplifier. Then I get the lightning bolt (low power warning). If I'm running the blinky lights demo, it happens almost instantly (lots of lights going). If I do other programs it can take a few minutes, but always happens.

Anyway, I anticipate a 45W power supply will solve all these issues.

(though my HDMI touchscreen arrived today and looks awesome! It has speakers and a headphone jack so I could either use HDMI sound and monitor speakers, or plug the rack amplifier into the screen and use that instead of the audio dongle, which I can't get to work at this time.)

-R