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Question about Pineapple power supply


andyfive

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Hello Everyone,

First off, I would like to say hello to the community, and introduce myself. I am Andy Five. I have just received my pineapple about a week ago, and have been lurking the forums and learning as much as I can. I have a question regarding the pineapple's power supply. I have two '12v' sealed lead acid batteries that float right around 13.5v, fully charged. I plan on using them for a remote deployment. I don't want to take the chance of trying to power the pineapple directly from the battery so that leaves my only choice to use a regulator. As many of you probably know, linear regulators are notoriously inefficient. I don't want to waste my precious juice, so I'm planning on using a switching regulator. Here is my basic question: I have found the following switching regulator for extremely cheap on ebay. It will output 5 or 6v @3A from my batteries. Will this regulator work with the pineapple, or do I have to worry about the 'noise' from a switching regulator? Thanks in advance your the assistance!

P.S. Here is the regulator that I ordered:

http://www.hobbywing.com/product_show.asp?id=209

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The specs of the pineapple are 5v-12v. However, all my deployment packs are 12v batteries that are 13.5v on full charge. I have had no problem running the pineapple on these batteries. In fact, Darren mentions deploying a pineapple using a car battery in a flower pot for days.

I don't see an issue with the regulator you ordered. I was looking at one of these when I use my stealth car case with my pineapple and need to restart the engine to move it to a new spot, I was afraid of spikes from the starter.

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Excellent. This is good to know. I will hook the pineapple directly to the battery. Thankfully the regulator will still be able to be put to use. I plan to use a raspberry pi running either PwnPi or kali, which requires the 5v that the regulator will supply. :D Now I've just gotta wait for some parts to arrive in the mail...

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It all comes down to wattage. The pineapple can run at 5-12v on around 1.5A (think it's 1.5, might wanna double check).

That means it can handle 7.5W up to 18W, of course these will be conservative - the range will be larger than this, but these are the recommend powers.

So, you could say run it at 6v at 3A to get 18W safely.

(Wattage = Voltage x Current)

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Excellent. This is good to know. I will hook the pineapple directly to the battery. Thankfully the regulator will still be able to be put to use. I plan to use a raspberry pi running either PwnPi or kali, which requires the 5v that the regulator will supply. :D Now I've just gotta wait for some parts to arrive in the mail...

Wait. I am not telling you to do it. I'm just saying that I haven't had a problem doing it.

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It all comes down to wattage. The pineapple can run at 5-12v on around 1.5A (think it's 1.5, might wanna double check).

That means it can handle 7.5W up to 18W, of course these will be conservative - the range will be larger than this, but these are the recommend powers.

So, you could say run it at 6v at 3A to get 18W safely.

(Wattage = Voltage x Current)

What he said. We took special care to specifically develop a voltage regulator that'll accept a wide range from 5-12v -- though if you lower the voltage you'll need to make up it with higher current (amperage).

Edit: I don't have experience with switched vs linear regulators so perhaps you can write back with your experience. I can't see why it wouldn't work -- though your efficiency may vary.

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Thanks for the heads up. In that case, I think that I will wait and use the regulator. I love my pineapple and would be so sad if I hurt it! ;) I asked my original question because I have had some issues in the past while using a switching regulator with RF equipment. The power supply's 'noise' caused significant interference with the RF circuitry. This particular regulator has a ferrite on the output line to aid in stopping any stray rf/noise. Anyway, once I actually receive all of my parts I will give you all updates regarding how everything worked together. :D

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to give you all an update. I took an o'scope to the switching power supply that I ordered (link given above) and it turns out that it does have some noise. The pineapple however works fine running from it. I assume that this is either because the noise level is insignificant, or the pineapples internal regulator circuitry had adequate filtering.

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