See title. I’m thinking of picking this up to power a pair of speakers but am currently powering my Pi using the GPIO pins. If I install this, will I no longer be able to power the Pi that way? Will I have to use the MicroUSB?
Thanks for the suggestion, unfortunately I don’t have a choice. It comes pre-soldered according to the description. There does seem to be other power and ground pins on the board according to the schematic. I’ll try using those
It looks like maybe it comes without the headers preinstalled? If so, you can still power it from there with a stackable header, but you may need to order the stackable header yourself.
Edit: Nevermind, looks like it has a header preinstalled. Still, you can solder wires directly to the exposed pads on the other side probably.
Do you think I could make solder to the other 5V, 3V, Ground pins for power? Will that power both the audio board and pi? Seems like there are traces between them?
Soldering to those power pads should be fine. You really should keep tabs on your current draw though. If anything, you might need an extra capacitor or two across different points on the main power rails. What may happen, depending on a few different conditions, is that if you get a hard bass hit, your pi might reboot due to lack of power.
Everything you are using is overbuilt, for the most part. Just be mindful of where the most power is being drawn and if the current source you are pulling off of is regulated or not. (Any LDOs provide clean’ish power rail for the processors and other ICs, so if the supply voltage is correct, tap before LDOs, not after, for a higher current load.)
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