µUSB power-supply port seems wonky; anybody else?

Hello,

to touch. If I only twist the cable slightly by accident, the machine reboots. Is this a known problem for any of you other Raspberry Pi owners or is my socket broken?

Best,

Moritz

Reply to
mw
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tive

How how much use has the port had? My view of the micro USB connector is "not fit for purpose" and not just on a Pi. On the Pi having to use it as the on/off or hard reset is not really satisfactory. Though the Rev:2 Model B has the abilty to have a reset button fitted. It would only take a similar 2 pin connector and jumper across the pins in the power from the PSU socket to enable the optional use of an on/off switch.

As to your problem have you tried a differnt cable just in case the one you have has failed in some way.

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Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Den tisdagen den 10:e juni 2014 kl. 16:32:09 UTC+2 skrev mw:

No. Seems your socket is broken. At least I have no such problems

Reply to
Björn Lundin

I always unplug the end at the PSU in order not to wear on the micro usb po rt.

Reply to
Björn Lundin

I've unplugged it less than 10 times in total. The PSU is new (unplugged ~3 times). I'll check with a different cable anyway.

Thanks,

Moritz

Reply to
mw

Why not unplug the other end of the cable, or the PSU, or use a switched mains socket, or fit a switch to a USB cable?

Reply to
Rob Morley

connector

In the case of the media player Pi all three of those are inaccessible. In the more general case, phones mainly, supplied chargers tend not to have detachable leads.

IMHO there are basic design faults in the micro USB connector system. There is insufficient lead in. That is you have to get the plug accurately lined up both side to side and up/down before pushing it in. There ought to be a slight flare on the socket to guide the plug in. Then the socket is tiny compared to the size of the rest of the plug, it's very easy to apply excessive force to the socket, especially when trying to plug in, see above...

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Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Oh, not good. See other post about the robustness of the micro USB socket. They are rather fragile it doesn't take much down force to rip a socket off the PCB. Take a very close look at the socket/PCB interface, it might have a manufacturing fault and be parting company.

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Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

No problem here but I switch off the socket at the other end which is a switched socket strip.

Malcolm

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T M Smith 
Using an Iyonix and RISC OS 5.20 in the North Riding of Yorkshire
Reply to
T M Smith

I went for the cheap & cheerful solution: cut into the power cable and fitted a small rocker switch, which I installed in a small plastic box about 70mm along the cable from the micro-USB connector. The bits came from Maplins (in the US that's probably Radio Shack).

Do we know whether its the plug, the socket or both that fail?

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martin@   | Martin Gregorie 
gregorie. | Essex, UK 
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Reply to
Martin Gregorie

I instinctively knew not to mess with the power plug on my Raspberry. The same connector on my Blackberry takes plenty of punishment, which shows what you can do with a development budget.

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Graham. 

%Profound_observation%
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Reply to
Graham.

micro USB is designed with most of the wear parts in the plug, try a different cable. if that does not help you may have a cracked solder joint between the socket and the PCB. you could try to fix that or look into an alternative power connection.

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umop apisdn
Reply to
Jasen Betts

I had similar symptoms, and thought the socket had become detached from the board. However swapping PSUs between pis showed it was a fault in the plug. I therefore removed the plug and replaced it with a USB full-size plug, and power the pi (model B) through one of the standard USB ports.

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Alan Adams, from Northamptonshire 
alan@adamshome.org.uk 
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Reply to
Alan Adams

Seems it's the socket for me that's wonky.

Thanks for the suggestion of using the big USB ports for powering the Pi. I suppose I circumvent the fuse that way, but it's easier than soldering around the micro USB socket. It's working fine so far, but it has only been running like this for a day. Time will tell if I'll regret this (i.e. no fuse and I think also the 200uF capacitor is not used this way so in case I get a very short voltage drop it won't be able to work around it.)

Best,

Moritz

Reply to
mw

The capacitor will still be used, but it is only enough to filter out minimal ripple on the power supply. It won't keep the Pi running for more than a tiny fraction of a second if there is a power glitch.

Reply to
Dom

The capacitor is after the polyfuse, the fuse won't block it,

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umop apisdn
Reply to
Jasen Betts

Is your Pi cased, and if so, does the uUSB plug go all the way through the hole for it?

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Mike Fleming
Reply to
Mike Fleming

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