Under voltage warnings on RetroFlag NESPI case - best power supply?
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Hi @cyperghost ,
I'm 99% sure it's a USB power cable. Its quite thick, and it's 5V and 3A, and it says Power Adaptor on it. It's 1m in length, so quite short.
I did purposely try to get the most powerful supply I could (3A) and a short cable so I could experiment a bit with overclocking. Hence my surprise at getting very frequent voltage warnings on the NESPI case when I had no issues at all with Flirc.
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@sonicsheppard Just for clearance as I'm not native speaker - I mean such a device and you can use an extra cable. Not a fix connected cable to the wall charger ;)
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@sonicsheppard said in Under voltage warnings on RetroFlag NESPI case - best power supply?:
Hi @Darksavior
It seems that lowering that over_voltage value to 2 has greatly helped!
I've only had one instance in the last 30 minutes, rather than seeing it every few minutes when it was set to 4.
Was wondering, would you suggest lowering it further to 1, or is it even needed for the overclock settings I'm using?
Thanks so much for your help dude, hugely apprecieted!
I haven't really done any extensive testing other than using the examples. Since I've had no issues with the provided settings, I never bothered to test out overvoltage=1. As it was already mentioned, you can try a thicker gauge usb power cable.
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@darksavior It's also possible that it is from the case itself. It provides a power connector pluged in and then powers up the Pie via GPIO pins. So the connectors themself provide some resistance.
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I am having the same issue with the case. I think I'm going to return it and get a different one and see if it does better... I haven't seen this cited as a common issue, so I'm hoping it just a manufacturing defect.
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i am also getting voltage warnings with this case, too bad i really like the case! i've never overclocked anything before, can i change the overvoltage value without changing clockspeed? does changing the value work?
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Just an update, I got a replacement Nespi case and I'm no longer having any issues with the voltage. Seem like there is some manufacturing variation. I suggest that if you have this issue you try and get a replacement.
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@foldedpencil I'm having undervoltage issues as well. I contacted the seller already, just curious what the process was. Did you have to ship the defective one back? If so, was it before or after you received your replacement? I'm a little worried, cuz I removed the nespi label, and added a Nintendo label.
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@dexter I purchased it from retroflag on Amazon and Amazon handled the return. They gave me a free shipping label and told me to use it anytime in the next 30 days (it could have been longer, I don't really remember). I ordered another one, waited for it to arrive, switched them out, and sent the old one back in the new ones box. You could easily keep the top part from the old one (I did that so I wouldn't have to fiddle with switching out my fan). Good luck!
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@foldedpencil good idea! Thank you!
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@dexter By the way, how easy was it to apply the Nintendo decal? I'm considering getting one, but I'd hate to get it crooked. They aren't really that cheap, but do they look good/durable?
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@foldedpencil I actually haven't put it on yet, but I did remove the nespi logo with a magic eraser. No scuff marks or anything. I'll let you know how the application part of it goes.
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thanks guys i got my money refunded. will reorder a working one hopefully
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I'd say try to get a power supply that's rated at 5.25v. That should allow the voltage to drop .25 which would still give you 5v to go with.
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@foldedpencil so I got my new nespi case and even got to keep the old one. Still having the same issues. Guess I have to try a new power supply. NES label was kind of a pain to put on (I chickened out, and had my wife do it) but it looks great
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The one thing I noticed with the NESPi cases (I have two and both exhibit the undervoltage warnings) is that the wires used for power inside the case might be causing considerable resistance and essentially dropping voltage to the Pi.
Might first suggestion is try a 5.2 V rated power supply (with 2.5 A or larger), as mentioned above, and see if the undervoltage indicators go away. If not, my second suggestion (in my case for both cases) would be to replace the wires (noted with cyan arrows) with thicker gauge quality wires. Once I did that, did not have any issues with undervoltage issues. The wires I used were 22 gauge stranded wire.
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@iggy could you post some pics of your GPIO mod?
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@markrmonaco Ill see about posting some pics with a new nespi build....the other two builds have hot glue covering the terminals.
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@iggy Where did you get a spare dual row jumper connector or do you know what that part is called? Also, are the other end of those leads soldered?
Also, do you run psx and n64 games on this wired setup without voltage issues?
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I posted this in another thread and wanted to share it in a few posts related to this, as I followed @iggy 's solution:
"I wanted to add some findings to the power issues on this case.
I had both a Canakit adapter 2.5a and a Pi Hut 2.5a power supply. I don't know if some of it is just bad luck or manufacturing, but I had power issues even scrolling through my game list ( which is a video preview list, not just screenshots/box art).
I decided to solder new larger 22 awg pos & neg input power wires (the ones from the power input/buttons board on the case that runs to the other board which sits under the usb/ethernet circuit board). Replacing these wires cured my lightning bolt issues. It seems that the other wires are fine for voltage but as many speculated, the main power input wires were not thick enough and too much current/voltage was lost after running through the power/reset button board. All seem so be well and am even playing N64 games without any voltage issues. This is with a gampad and a keyboard plugged in, with wifi on, and a third wireless input (ps3 controller ) all being active at once.
Hope this helps."
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