MiSTer FPGA Forum

To this day I always used the power supply that came together with the de 10 nano. I would like now to buy one to leave as backup in case the other stops working.

What brand and specifications would you recommend? I want to buy from ali express (no amazon please, it is 120% tax increase in price for me).

The one a lot of people recommend and the one I use is the Meanwell GST25A05-P1J. If you're running a lot of USB stuff and an external USB HDD like I am, then you definitely need something better than the original DE10 nano supply. You can get them off Ali Express for a decent price it looks like assuming they're legit.

I have a five ampere Meanwell, which is complete overkill, but it is nicely compact and works fine.

Meanwell GST60A05-P1J good too. 30 watt, 6amps. Probably more than you'll ever need. Not sure bout if you can get from Ali Express. Best to be sure you're getting an real one.

The Mister itself won't pull even 4 amps at 5 volts, no matter what, because of its overvoltage and overcurrent protection circuitry. You can go bigger than the GST25A05-P1J, but the only reason to do that is if you're using a Y connector and routing power around the Mister. (which some USB boards do). If you're connecting to the Mister only, you could provide a thousand amps and it wouldn't change anything, so spending more money won't provide any benefit.

You can buy anything that provides 5 volts and at least 4 amps on a 2.1mm wide by 11mm long barrel connector, tip positive/ring negative. The Mean Well is just known to be a good adapter that works on pretty much any country's power. Give it at least 100V, and keep it at 50C or under, and it will provide a nice steady 5V4A.

Note that it doesn't come with a mains lead. It has a socket like a computer power supply, so you have to provide your country's wall-plug-to-computer cable. That's why it works anywhere.

Again: if you're using a USB board with a Y connector mains lead, rather than pulling power through the Mister board, a bigger supply can provide more power to the downstream USB devices. If you're really loading that hub down, that can be a consideration. The Mean Well doesn't have a power switch, so if you're routing around the Mister, you can't use the digital board's switch to power everything off. You have to unplug the adapter, or add an inline switch. Use an AC switch, instead of on the DC side, because many DC switches are lousy quality and will reduce voltage.

It's pretty common for adapters with the right voltage and plug to be sold for use with Christmas lights, and getting a 6A or even larger supply is not difficult. The GST25A05-P1J is just a default option that will work for most users. If you don't know you need something different, and particularly if you don't want to think about or research anything, you can just buy that one, plus possibly a local computer power cable.

Yea, I'm running a separate usb board with a splitter cable. You don't want a bunch of stuff trying to pull power through the DE10s micro usb port.

I use a 4-port powered USB switchbox instead. It takes a separate USB-C input just for power. So I run the DE-10, the I/O board, and the MT32-Pi from the Mean Well, and then the USB ports get power from a spare phone charger. This means I can turn the Mister off without affecting the keyboard/mouse/joystick, which is nice for switching back and forth.

I guess this is a bad solution with early model DE-10s, because they can be backpowered through the OTG port, meaning you can't turn the board off while any downstream hubs are powered. Later revisions don't allow current to flow from downstream.

thank you for the recommendations!

I bought from ali the GST25A05-P1J, I believe it is good because I can use now a cable (similar we use to plug a desktop pc) in my country's pattern and not needing an end adapter anymore.

I also bought a wifi adapter together because my bufallo one, I use since 2014 with Rpi2 and all the time with my mister, just died. Actualy it got hot a lot these past few months I realized.