How to power the raspberry pi 5 with the robot?

Technical Electrical
,
1

Our FRC team is currently exploring the use of the new Raspberry Pi 5 for our robot this year.

We have encountered challenges in properly powering it within the context of our robot.

Raspberry pi 5 official documentation
(Raspberry Pi Documentation - Raspberry Pi 5),

The recommended power supply for the Raspberry Pi 5 provides up to 5A current at +5.1V. However, we have observed that the Raspberry Pi 5 can operate reasonably well with a power supply from a phone, which outputs 5V at 3A.

My question revolves around finding a suitable connection method to ensure the Raspberry Pi receives the required power—either 5A at 5.1V or at least 3A at 5V—while integrated into our robot.

Any help is highly appreciated

2
3

You could grab some buck convertors like these:

Therefore you turn 12v power from the robot into 5v for the PI with a USB interface

4

Are these buck converters legal? Our VRM is shot and AM is out of stock.

Or, will any 12v to 5v converter be legal?

5

Yes, they are legal, but imo, grab a good regulated one like this
Pololu 5V, 9A Step-Down Voltage Regulator D24V90F5 bc the PDH won’t be able to always produce a full clean 12v and sometimes drops below 12v. Also powering a Pi of a VRM can be a bit sketchy as sometimes the PI can pull more amps at 5v than the VRM can provide.

1 Like
6

The VRM (or RPM) is only required for the radio. Vision processors are custom circuits and any voltage converter can be used. The model I’ve seen recommended is Pololu - 5V, 5.5A Step-Down Voltage Regulator D36V50F5.

7

We spent a lot of time developing a robust solution to power our Raspberry Pi 5s this season. The details are in our build thread.