GPIO Max Electrical specs

mpetitje

Hello all,

I wish to power my Up Squared Board using an external battery by connecting it to the GPIOs. However, I would like to know what kind of protection does exist and what are the max ratings.

For example, I have a 7.2V battery, is there an internal voltage regulator making it OK to connect it directly or should I use an external DC/DC converter ? Also, It would help me to know the peak current consumption of the board.

Thanks

nukular

You can't just connect your 7,2V battery to the GPIOs (I assume you mean the40 header?).
There is probably some voltage regulator for 5V->3V3, so the 3V3 part could be OK depending on the regulator used, but your 5V line would still be at 7.2V. I'm not sure what is connected to that line, but I would not risk that.

Whether or not you can safely connect 5V to the 5V line on the GPIO header I don't know without the schematics, wich are not public as far as I know.
You could take a multimeter and test if the +5V line from the normal power connector and the 5V GPIO are directly connected. If they are, then I see no problem in connecting powering the board through the GPIOs.

As for the peak power consumption: The power supply that comes with the UP2 has a max output current of 6A @ 5V if I am not mistaken, so I would go with that to be safe. The normal Up came with a 5A PSU, so there is probably a reason they didn't just stick with that and exchanged it for a more powerful one.