Brick Pi WIFI Dongle

BrickPi
1

Confused.

I’m not using the BrickPi distribution, I’m using Adafruit’s PI distro modified with the instructions on the BrickPI site, but anyway, probably irrelevant;

If I boot the RPi + BrickPi powered via USB WIFI dongle is recognised and works.

If I boot the RPi + BrickPi powered by a 9v battery it doesn’t (no lights, completely dead, wlan0 errors during boot)…

Anyone have any ideas as, given that the distro is identical and the only difference is the power source, my inclination is to assume that this is a BrickPi hardware issue?

By the way; My BrickPi doesn’t have the power upgrade.

2

Tim,

We’ve seen where RPi models with a lot of USB pull (and even those without) just totally overwhelm the 9V battery. There is a lot of discussion on this on the forums; the RPi is a hungry beast for power.

Is there any way you can try to supply more juice; ie with a 6XAA battery pack or 8XAA battery pack?

3

Yes, I’ll Heath-Robinson something together and give it a go, subsequent forum surfing had me suspecting something similar.

Tim