Hi, I am a newbie here. I have made a Lego project which is designed to be not moveable. So I would like to use wall plug instead of worrying about battery by using battery pack. For my Lego project, I need to supply the power to one large motor, one medium motor, three touch sensor and one ultrosonic sensor.
I have a 5V/2.5A adapter to power the Raspberry Pi. I have learnt that I need to use an additional adapter to supply the BrickPi as well in order to running the motors and sensors. Which adapter I should use? Thanks!
The BrickPi3 will run on USB power supplied through the Raspberry Pi, with the exception that the motors won’t run. For a suitable power supply to use in place of the battery pack for running motors, a 9v DC 2 Amp (or greater) regulated power supply should work well. See the Batteries and Power section of the BrickPi3 Technical and Design Details for specifics.
Thanks Matt, just double confirm that I can use a 9v/2a (or greater) power supply for BrickPi, which is able to run two motors and four sensors I mentioned previsouly. Meanwhile, for Raspberry Pi, I can still supply by the 5v/2.5a adapter. Am I right? Thanks
Yes that is correct. If the motors have significant load, 2A for both might not be adequate, but should be fine for most applications. For details regarding motor current draw (and lots of other Lego motor data), see here.
The 5v regulator on the BrickPi3 allows you to power the BP3, RPi, and sensors with just the battery pack (or in this case a 9v power supply). However, using the additional 5v power supply plugged into the RPi won’t hurt anything, and it could prevent the RPi from crashing due to a brownout (e.g. if the motors are overloading your 9v power supply).