raspberry pi use

1

About to buy the 7 port powered hub for use with my raspberry pi. I just wanted to confirm that all I need is this one device to power and act as a hub for the pi… ie 3 cables: wall power to hub, microusb to raspberry pi, and the host cable plugged into the pi as well…

2

Hi Mark,

Thanks for asking about our 7 port hub and it use with the Raspberry Pi! You are correct, it’s a perfect companion for the Pi. You’ll need to provide the USB to micro b cable to power the Pi through – However other than that, the Plugable 7 Port Hub comes with everything you need to both power the Raspberry Pi and act as a USB hub so you can connect a mouse, keyboard, external hard drives and all your USB peripherals for use with your PI.

Here’s a link to a blog post with more details about the 7 port hub and the Raspberry Pi:
http://plugable.com/2012/10/22/a-usb-…

And a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDA7Mx…

I hope this helps, just let us know if you have any other questions.

We’re here to help!

Thanks,
Jerome.

3

How is the 7-port perfect for the RPi? it is limited to 500 mA per port and the Model B needs 700 mA. So only perfect for the RPi Model or do I misunderstand?

What about the USB2-HUB4BC, how much current per port would it provide to non USB devices that are only using the format of the connectors (the RPi) ?

4

Hi Tom,

Thanks for asking. The neither is limited to 500mA – either hub will allow well north of 1A through any one port. And the Pi draws what it needs, and doesn’t limit itself the original USB 2.0 100mA unconfigured / 500mA configured limit.

For these reasons, either our 7 port or 4 port hub will work well for that scenario. Nothing will stop the Pi from pulling 700mA (assuming, of course, that the hubs are being used with their wall power adapters).

We recommended the 7 port there for a few reasons, including that we offer both a US and UK version (whereas the 4 port is only US at this point).

But the USB2-HUB4BC is also a great choice http://plugable.com/usb2-hub4bc/ – even though we didn’t highlight it in the video, lots of people are using it with the Pi.

Best wishes,
Bernie

5

awesome, thank you for the quick response. Can you post a link or model number of the 7-port hub? I may be looking at the wrong one:

“Supplies up to (but not more than) the 500mA per port/device specified by USB 2.0. Some devices (e.g. the Apple iPad) require more than 500mA to charge when in use. The hub will supply 500mA to these devices also.”
http://plugable.com/products/USB2-HUB…

br, tom

6

Hi Tom - Great catch! Yes, we had wording in there that was supposed to chase away people who wanted Apple charging (Apple’s 30 pin devices have proprietary behaviors hubs can’t support) – and ended up wording it in overstated fashion that wasn’t right.

We’ve corrected those listings.

In short, the hub itself doesn’t limit what the device can draw. If a device draws more than 500mA, it can get it (up to the 3A total of the power adapter across all devices).

Thanks again!
Bernie

7

Perfect. Just purchased two from Amazon. Thank you for the fast and on-point responses!

8

Great! Just let us know if any questions come up. We’ll be happy to investigate with our Pi here.

9

The product description on amazon leads me to believe that the hub won’t supply power unless it is connected to a pc, Is that correct?

If so, does the Pi have to be connected to the hub via both the pi’s power and USB ports in order to be able to power itself?

10

I purchased a USB2-HUB7BC it will power one PI and accompanied hard drive but it will power the 2nd one for while but then the pi crashes. I Thought it might be the sd card so I plugged into a different hub and its working and has not crashed yet

I am missing something should I not be using this product?