Raspberry Pi 45W USB-C Power Supply on sale now at $15
Whether you’re running a Raspberry Pi or charging a laptop, the quality of your power supply makes all the difference. Today, we’re excited to introduce our best power supply yet, perfect for either task: the $15 Raspberry Pi 45W USB-C Power Supply.
Efficient regulation
Every Raspberry Pi single-board computer we’ve ever sold needs flash storage and a power supply. And not just any flash storage or power supply: buying the cheapest SD card or USB wall wart you can find on Amazon is a guaranteed way to have a bad experience.
So over time, we started to regulate the accessories offered by our Approved Resellers. We would test resellers’ SD cards, to ensure that they had sufficient random-access performance and were resilient against thousands of unplanned power loss events. Last year, we took this to the next level, launching Raspberry Pi-branded A2-class SD cards and NVMe SSDs, which are now the only storage options promoted alongside our computers.
Similarly, Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5 were accompanied at launch by 15.3W and 27W USB-C power supplies. Dominic worked with our ODM partner KTEC and capacitor vendor Panasonic to validate that the design of these products met our aggressive goals for transient response and product lifetime. In the case of the 27W power supply, we added a custom 5.1V, 5A operating mode to give Raspberry Pi 5 headroom to pass an aggregate 1.6A downstream to power-hungry peripherals.
Power for everyone, power for everything
When you build really high-quality generic products, like USB power supplies and SD cards, interesting things happen. Our colleague Oli tells a story of seeing customers at a Micro Center in North Carolina come up to the Raspberry Pi display and buy just our 27W power supply on its own: in building the best USB-C power supply for our customers, we’d accidentally built the best USB-C power supply for everyone.
I can certainly relate to this – every USB device in my house is powered by a Raspberry Pi power supply. But 27W is just a little bit too weedy to rapidly charge my laptop, and so the idea of an upgraded design was born: even better electronics, in (almost) the same form factor, with a longer (1.5m versus 1.2m) cable and a suite of new 45W operating modes, including 20V, 2.25A.
All this is available for just $15, compared to $12 for the 27W version. Raspberry Pi users won’t notice a difference: you’ll still get 5.1V, 3A on a Raspberry Pi 4, or 5.1V, 5A on a Raspberry Pi 5. But for everything else, perhaps you’ve just found your new favourite power supply. Check out our new 45W power supply today and order from your favourite Approved Reseller.
52 comments
rpiMike
Very nice, longer lead is appreciated. Note your spec still says 1.2m !
Raspberry Pi Staff Helen Lynn
Good spot – fixed!
Anders
I’ve ordered one, should be in my hands tomorrow. I’ll report on how it works out with an M2 MacBook Air.
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
Looking forward to your feedback. I’m using it with my M3 Air and haven’t looked back.
Anders
It’s a nice solid feeling PSU, the 3 pin plug is fixed – rather than the type that can be switched out for different countries- a positive because it eliminates the spring-contact connection on the AC.
On Macbook M2 Air it powers the device fine when switched on MacOS reports battery not charging, but it charges rapidly in sleep mode. On Macbook Air there is no LED indication anywhere of charging in progress or charge complete. The Apple charge magsafe connector has an LED to do this job. I’ve order a USB-C to magsafe adapter to take advantage of this connector.
I’ve now hung the PSU by its cable to straighten it – due to it using good quality thick conductors the cable holds the kinks from being tied up in the packaging.
It will make a fine second PSU for the Air at a fraction of the price of an Apple one. Winner.
aBUGsworstnightmare
Having a 20V option looks interesting
ardencaple
Nice – but I would have loved to see a supply with PPS mode as well!
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
It’s on the list. This platform can do PPS, but the spec is pretty gnarly, and getting an implementation working to our standards is fiddly.
fanoush
IKEA sells SJÖSS 45W usb-c charger that can do PPS and have quite positive reviews -good quality for low price.
lis
Have you ever thought about an official power supply that can power several devices at once? To avoid the mess of wires when each device needs a separate power supply. I know about PPPoE, but sometimes a power supply is more convenient. Maybe not even with USB, but with a connection to GPIO pins. A little more compact than what you have pictured on Torturing SD cards. I would limit it to, say, 5 devices. Ideally, it should be able to power the entire product line. At least model 2 and newer. Of course, there are other manufacturers for this. But the question is specifically about an official and tested for compatibility power supply.
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
Yes – this is on the list to think about. I’ve been shocked (not literally!) by how poor the typical Amazon 4-6 port USB power supply is, and I think we could do something here.
CooliPi
Electrical engineers are more resilient against shocks than other folks. Maybe that’s a reason I’ve survived my ex. Knowing how to ground things is a crucial knowledge. Always wear a (grounding) strip or belt to protect yourself against transients. ;)
lis
Just as an idea: maybe even a case and power supply in one, where you can place X boards.
Rob
Would the new PSU allow a Pi5 more downstream power via USB3? To power multiple external SSDs? I ran into issues with more than one drive so gave up and went m.2 HAT (which works fine) but…
Helen McCall
Hi Rob,
The datasheet shows that at 5.1V the current is 5A, the same as for the Pi5 PSU. For USB drives you need to look at their current requirements. I have found that the WD Green SSDs are about the lowest power rating of any of them, and I have many times run two of these on the USB3 sockets of a Pi4 without any difficulties. So the WD Green SSDs should work fine in pairs on the Pi5.
Rob
Thank you so much Helen! I have been struggling with this for a while now and didn’t think about WD green!! I have a lot of SSDs and HDDs none of which have low Amp draw so this helps!
Richard Jones
The PSU on the torture rig is actually just a high power 12V DC PSU. The 12V to 5V1 is performed locally to each Pi by a custom board you can see hanging off the GPIO pins.
Also the observant may have noticed that this is actually the NVMe Drive stress rig. The SD card rig is next to this one, basically the same minus the M2 Hats.
Anders
With this and the PoE device, feels like Raspberry Pi are expanding into a general supplier of accessories that are not necessarily focused on the Pi SBC.
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
That’s right. A growing realisation just how terrible a lot of “no name” generic hardware on Amazon etc is, and that if we’re careful with how we apply our brand we can do a lot of good.
ukscone
For the next iteration of the power supply please add an on/off switch. I know the UK power sockets are sane and have an on/off but some of us live in insane countries that don’t (on the whole) have on/off switches on the socket
Bsimmo
Where would you add the switch, it would need to be as the mains comes in, otherwise the plug is never truly off?
Why not just buy plugs with a switch, someone must make them even if not used, to be honest few use the switch on the socket anyway.
ukscone
Before the 27w raspberry pi psu I mostly bought the Argon40 psu’s that have an on/off switch on the cable. which work really well
Anders
An on/off switch in the cable on the DC side doesn’t switch off the power supply itself, the socket switches do cut the AC power completely shut down the PSU as soon as capacitance is discharged.
CooliPi
Hi, is the transient response at 5V better than that of the 27W supply? My 2 USB disks (M.2 SSD on USB3 and a 5TB USB3 disk) disconnect upon simultaneous operation. Any hope this PSU could solve it?
rclark
Just hookup the new RPI USB 3.0 Hub with it’s own 27W power supply to power the 5TB drive… And you’ll still have ports available for something else. What I did.
W. H. Heydt
If you ever decide to take another look at the USB 3 hub, giving it enough PD capability to ask for 5A would be a real improvement. That way, it could supply the spec’d 900mA to all 4 ports at once.
rclark
Looking at the USB 3.0 hub specs on-line, I do see RPI specifies 5V/3A for it’s power supply… Not the 5V/5A PS I currently use for mine. So not sure if you could max it out 900 x 4 = 3.6A if needed …. That would be a question for RPI people?
rpiMike
An official power bank capable of powering a Pi5 and the 15.6 inch screen would be very popular.
Anders
I agree this would be very useful, but if I don’t know if RP would want the liability of lithium ion.
Naveen
Perhaps someday we will see a small display on the power supply displaying the volts and amps being drawn.
Paul_S
Will this get over the performance restriction for powering the monitor from Pi 5 or Pi 500 as in this quote ~ “Cost-conscious users can power the monitor directly from their Raspberry Pi via the included USB-A to USB-C cable; in this mode display brightness is limited to 60% of maximum (still quite bright!) and volume to 50% of maximum (still quite loud!).”
Anders
Limitation is on the USB A so still the same limit.
Peter Green
Something I’d like to see is a version with an inlet connector (either IEC or figure 8) instead of the plug. Sometimes you want to put a Pi more than 1.5m from the socket. Sometimes there are simply no domestic sockets in the area but there is some other sort of socket (for example datacenter racks often use IEC 60320 outlets).
One can use an extension socket of course, but that makes the overall power supply arrangement rather unwieldly, at least with UK/EU plugs/sockets (US plugs are smaller, but I’d rather not put 230V on a US socket)
Kevin
I’d love this too. It would also help with larger powerbrick plugs not fitting into extension leads.
Anders
The problem would be voltage drop over the longer cable on the DC low voltage side, and the fact that the PSU maker has no control over the quality of DC side cable which is why it is better to extend the AC side.
Anders
Sorry, misread the original comment.
Yes, I agree.
George Anagnostou
A standalone drop-in UPS is also a good idea.
And what about a GPU hat?
Roger
How is RPi pricing affected by tariffs? Does the rest of the world subsidize USA?
mark
thank you, great to see this new option. this will be my goto when i need a USB-C power supply for a laptop or other device.
will we also see an official raspberry pi 12V DC power supply that plugs into car auxiliary power sockets?
please consider making one (or a 12-24V variant) for those of us whom often use Raspberry Pi’s in off-grid applications or vehicles (and don’t want to plug directly into the car’s computer if it has its own integrated usb ports).
Nick
Hmm… The Pi 6 could definitely use more power. :)
Gordon77
Good accessory.
I wonder why it just doesn’t deliver 5A , to pi4 etc, rather than negotiating for it ?
Hubert
A question about efficiency:
the efficiency of the power supply varies with the load, so i want to know if it makes sense to use this power supply with a Pi5 or Pi4 instead the 25W Version because the load is only nearly half of the 25W power supply. It is not a question about the price. I use the Pi4 often with the 25W supply, this leads to the same question.
solar3000
In the 45w product page, no USA item listed.
[ ] I am human
[ X ] I am cyborg
[ ] i am a robot
Raspberry Pi Staff Ashley Whittaker
Weird – that option didn’t pull through on our product pages but we’ve fixed it now. Thanks for the heads up! PiShop.us and CanaKit are stocking these items.
Davidian
Glad you’ve created very good power supplies for mains power, will be using one. But ohhh I could use a Raspberry Pi quality supply for a 12V source. I’ve had Pi’s in continuous use off grid for years, but getting the right power usually means an inverter to a wall wart, most 12V to 5V dc dc converters sag too far. Sure would be nice to skip the extra step for efficiency and cost sake. And I know a lot of nature, astronomy and security remote users would agree.
Helen McCall
Dear Eben,
May I be cheeky and suggest that since the Pi500 motherboard looks like it is designed to double up as a laptop motherboard looking at the power supply unused portions, and same for the nvme blank portions, your release of the laptop sized Pi Monitor, and now this 45W Power Supply, probably means you now only need the case and the battery to launch the Pi5 Laptop!
venkat
Having a detachable cable is much better.
beta-tester
i still don’t understand the choice of unusual 5.1V over usb-c (without QC,PD,PPS capability) for the rpi5. this makes using a generic usb-c charger and reliably use of the rpi5 very hard. it was already hard with the earlier rpi’s to find the right micro-usb charger. the developers missed an opportunity. hopefully they will do a better job for the rpi6 if there is a rpi6 in the queue.
Erwin Dan Nielsen
Is the new 45w USB power supply 100% compatible with the RPI USB Hub ?
I do not want to by the old power supply.
Jim Manley
Great new products, Eben, Liz, and team!!! Yes, ‘‘tis I, Jim of Manley, long lost in the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains in Montana, but have trekked South to spend our final days/years/decades/centuries/millennia about 30 miles South of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We’re at 6,000 feet, so much cooler than in Phoenix in the Valley on the Surface of the Sun (known locally as the Valley of the Sun). I’m a few hours drive North of the shiny new TSMC 3 nm fabs campus, so dumpster diving should yield all sorts of fun stuff. I’m building a 60-foot diameter hemispheric dome using conduit for framing, supporting a shell of fiberglass fiber and cloth reinforced styro-air-crete.
Take Good Care Everyone!
Jim
David Black
Hi Eben,
Firstly; thank you for your wonderful Raspberry Pi products and accessories.
Apologies for late question…
Similar to 27W supply, imagine its just a matter of time before there’s a 45W black version?
Kind regards.
David Black
Further to previous…
In case helpful, unless a black version is pending, noticed a possible small copy and paste typo for the 45W listing (mentions ‘black’)?
“Cable: 1.5m 17AWG, white or black”
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/45w-power-supply
Many thanks.
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