Power question

[Finbar J]

Hi all

I have an open plotter instance running for over a year and covered about 600 miles as my only plotter.
The pi has an SSD for storage, and connetions to a U-blox and some USB connections (primarially a USB SDR to run as an AIS reciever)
Power is delivered direct to the IO ports with a buck converter.

I do have a small issue.

Open CPM sometimes crashes (the wait/force quit popup) when the engine is started.  Other services seem fine and browsing and stuff does not miss a beat.

I dont have any sensors connected to the engine.

I dont know if its EMF or bad power (or something else!).  Any ideas what I can do to fix this?  My usual process is to shutdown the open plotter, start the engine, and bring the plotter back - but that is a bit of a Kludge.

I also recently got a Standard Horizon VHF (with AIS reciever) that I hope to connect, but dont want to start that without fixing the other issue first.

Regards
John FJ

Regards
John F J

[baltika_no_9]

In powering directly via the GPIO pins you are bypassing the voltage regulation (and fuse) that the Pi otherwise provides. You are therefore exposing the device to transients such as voltage perturbations. That means you need a good quality regulated power supply. 

See here https://thepihut.com/blogs/raspberry-pi-...spberry-pi

Quote from the article linked "It should be noted that, unlike the USB-C port method, there is no regulation or fuse protection on the GPIO to protect from over-voltage or current spikes"

The bold text is not mine, it is stressed in the link.

I think my approach then would be to power from the power port to see if that has any effect. Maybe using a power supply with the appropriate connector something like this one

That one is a 3A version but there are other similar ones if you think you need more capacity. It has a USB C connection so OK for Pi 4, if you're using a Pi3 then one with a micro USB is required obviously.

Good luck