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- Power Supply - 5V, 4A
This is a high quality power supply manufactured specifically for SparkFun Electronics that packs a lot of power; 20W at 5V and 4000mA! This power supply helps to squeeze every drop of performance out of a board like the Jetson Nano, but can also work to power addressable LED strips and projects that require higher power requirements.
This power supply has a center-positive 5.5x2.1mm barrel connector and works with 100-240VAC inputs via a 2-prong style plug.
Important: While SparkFun Tech Support was verifying this product datasheet from the supplier, we found that this supply will begin to drop voltage when drawing more than 2 amps up to a maximum of a .25v drop at 4 amps. We have notified the supplier & have identified the root cause as the length & guage of the cable used from the power supply to the barrel jack. New units are inbound with a 1.5 ft cord that causes no voltage drop below 5V. While this has not caused any in house issues powering boards like the Jetson Nano, if you application demands it, we recommend shortening your cable to 1.5 ft.
- 2-pin input plug (wall AC cord)
- Power supply & attached center-positive 5.5x2.1mm barrel connector
- 100~240VAC Input 50/60HZ
- 5VDC, 4A Output
- Peak output power 20W
- 0°C - 40°C operating temp
Power Supply - 5V, 4A Product Help and Resources
How to Power a Project
February 7, 2013
A tutorial to help figure out the power requirements of your project.
Core Skill: Electrical Prototyping
If it requires power, you need to know how much, what all the pins do, and how to hook it up. You may need to reference datasheets, schematics, and know the ins and outs of electronics.
Skill Level: Rookie - You may be required to know a bit more about the component, such as orientation, or how to hook it up, in addition to power requirements. You will need to understand polarized components.
See all skill levels
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Customer Reviews
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I tried a couple USB based power supplies (that should have worked) for the Jetson Nano, both got the desktop to come up but would cause the Jetson to shut down from simple things like opening up a terminal.
This is the first power supply I've tried that runs the Jetson flawlessly, even when programming CUDA.
Glad to hear the power supply is working well for you.
On a personal note, I have tried the classic 2.5A power supplies for Raspberry Pi's and they seem to work best when the Jetson is in the 5W mode (to limit the current draw). I have a another 3.5A one that seems to work well even in MAX mode with the CPU maxed out, but I haven't really tested the performance of the CUDA cores. That being said, I have browned out the device by overdrawing current for a motor driver. (In case anyone is curious, I would highly advise avoiding brown outs as it corrupted my SD card.)
Any switching power source produces signals at harmonic frequencies. Much of my work involves radio signals, and I have to use linear (non-switching) power sources or add brute force filtering at the power input to combat this type of noise. Do you have any data on the noise output from this supply?
Unfortunately, I don't think we have information on that.
However, I am not sure if your question applies to a power supply like this one. From my experience, linear power supplies and the ones with filtering tend to be "extra" large in size. I assume that this power supply would operate similarly to other "portable" power supplies of this nature, which probably are switching based on their size and weight. (Unfortunately, I am not an expert on this topic so this is my best guess.)