[gnaffle]

My biggest gripe with the Pi is a lack of proper USB power, so if you add all the stuff you need, especially for a wireless setup it's not so cheap and compact anymore. I'm happy that they've (hopefully) fixed the USB power problem, that makes it much nicer as a platform.

[oasisbob]

I've been providing power over the GPIO header directly, and have had great results. Combine a DC-DC supply with a few smoothing capacitors on a small daughter-board, add a barrel jack + 0.1" headers to interface and you get a lot more headroom and flexibility with how you power it.

(Same-ish end result as the other fuse bypass methods, but with no soldering on the pi, and the caps seem to help with the inrush current required for hot-plugging USB devices. )

It's a tradeoff vs device safety, but is super cheap, and the operational reliability is worth it for me. Every time I stage a pi for a project that isn't powered this way, I'm surprised how much frustration is involved.

Looking forward to this improvement with the B+ as much as anything else.

[1] eg, the CUI V7805 (102-1715-ND at digikey)

[mrb]

The CUI V78xx is a really interesting part, thanks for the tip!

[oasisbob]

No problem! There are a handful of other components I've used that also work well, eg:

* Traco TSR 1-2450 (available at Adafruit) * Cheap adjustable dx.com step-down converter (can't find the exact part #, but it's very popular)

[voltagex_]

Do you know of anywhere I can buy this ready-made?