Hi CD,
Would you recommend using this voltage converter to power an Orange Pi 5? I’m also unsure if it’s advisable to connect it to the VRM.
I am planning to use the Pi for processing the April Tags with photonvision.
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why not use a VRM?
Its not advisable to use a VRM for powering an Orange Pi, since a VRM only supplies 2A of power, and an Orange Pi can pull more than that
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You could use this. It provides the 5V/4A the Orange Pi requires
https://a.co/d/2go0RUf
We use these from UCTRONICS: https://amzn.to/3U9IUTb
Be sure to use the screw terminals.
I’m interested in the idea of using a boost converter like this to boost the voltage to 24V:
And then using something like these to regulate to USB-pd:
That should be scalable to power several high power co-processors easily.
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We used this DC-DC module:
https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?abbucket=7&id=626854810865&ns=1
It can push up to 19V 4A from 9V input for our 5800H mini PC, and I think it is enough for Orange Pi.
I also drew a CAD for its box, with holes for installing a 4cm*4cm cooling fan.
This will brown out when the battery voltage dips below 9V. You should look for a buck-boost converter or a buck converter with a much lower dropout voltage (~6V if possible).
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Anyone have any ways they like to secure it to the orange pi? Either through USB C or those pins?
We cut up the little usb c cables that come with the spark max and just solder the red and black to our buck converters. You probably shouldn’t do this since the cable is pretty thin, but it’s such a short distance it shouldn’t matter. I don’t really like the idea of 3 amps over those little pins/wires
Or just use inline Wagos
Can you link a cable with exposed ends that can handle 4A?
Our team recently ordered this pigtail, Only +v and -v need to be used, the rest can be snipped and insulated.
We found that many of the cheap Amazon regulators did not work well with the Orange Pi boards. Our preferred solution for OP5 is the Pololu 4091. At 12V input it’s capable of 8A, which is plenty to run two OP5 boards; our 2023 robot used two of these to run our 4 OP5’s. Dropout voltage is 0.5 to 1.25V depending on load, so the 5V version is fine down to RoboRio brownout levels (at which point your coprocessor is the least of your worries).
The Pololu boards are reasonably priced and very high quality, and they are small enough that they’re easy to package. We often just throw a piece of large diameter heat shrink over them to insulate them, but a 3D printed box would be an easy solution as well.
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How did you wire them to the OrangePi? Custom USB C Cable?
Yes, we chopped up some short SparkMAX USB-C cables and used those. We put a Molex SL 2-pin connector inline to each one so we could easily swap the cable if it got damaged (it never did). The wires are small, but the runs are short; we never had any issues with this.
We’re now trying an approach of soldering a 4-pin board-mount Molex SL onto the Pololu board, and breaking out DC in and out connections from there. This would enable swapping the board easily if ever needed and facilitates future reuse of the board without need to resolder anything. This is certainly not necessary, though; a simple pair of soldered connections is all you need.
Very cool! THank you!
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Thanks for the replies, I think that I’m going to try the Pololu Voltage Regulator.
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We also use a short section of a SPARKMAX USB-c cable with the Pololu (those board holes for connections are small - I’m not sure you could get much bigger than 22 AWG through them?
I’m curious - where do you connect the input side of the Pololu to, and what do you use for a cable?
Given that we’re talking about supplying single-digit amps of power across cables measuring inches in length for short periods of time, 22AWG is sufficient.
Coprocessors are a “custom circuit”. Our current preferred approach to custom circuit power is a single circuit off the PDH, running to a Rev Mini Power Module (MPM) that provides individual connections and fusing; it’s a nice little product. Other items such as LEDs, Ethernet switch, etc. also are fed from there. We use red-black zip cord for most such power. For LEDs the MPM runs a 5V regulator and from there we run jacketed 3-conductor cable up to the strip(s), with the white signal line driven by a PWM output on the Rio.
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I’ve had 8V regs brown out and shut off coprocessors before. You may want to test the actual minimum voltage, it could be lower than listed.