On 2016/11/25 13:27 , folkert wrote:

I have one of those tp-link probes, a v3 it looks like. Now when I got it, I was warned to put it on a 1A powersource. Now that is a bit of a problem so I started to measure its power usage to verify if I could maybe run it on a smaller power supply. What I measure is 0.14A upto 0.23A - that should easily be powered by a 0.5A power supply I think. As I'm not an electronics expert I'm now writing this message for confirmation: am I right about the power usage? Or ar there situations where it would be using a lot more power?

The actual TP-Link is not very sensitive to voltage changes. You can run it close to 3 volts and it will still work. On the other hand, the first USB sticks that we used (from SanDisk) are very sensitive to low voltage, and will often not show up if there is too much voltage drop somewhere (either in the power supply or in the cable). However, the main problem at the moment is filesystem corruption and USB sticks dying. There is no hard evidence as to what causes this. So to be on the safe side, it is best to use a good power supply. Typically, you can't tell from the outside whether something is well designed or not. And most people use unlabeled cheap versions, both for power supplies and cables. So it seems best to err on the side of caution and recommend slightly higher specs. In the end, if it works, fine. If you find USB sticks dying, then it worth looking if there is anything that can be changed. Philip