Raspberry Pi powered by battery

I will show you how to properly supply power to a Raspberry Pi  with a battery or any voltage between 2.9 -32 volts DC.I will be using a efficient Pololu Step-Down/ Step-Up Voltage Regulator and toggle switch.This can be done with any Raspberry pi version. Using a DC-DC converter allows us to have around a 90 percent efficiency in converting the power of the battery into power for the Raspberry pi. You can substitute out for a fixed output DC to DC regulator but its nice to have a adjustable  if you want to use it for other project.

Parts 

1.       A Raspberry pi
2.      Pololu Adjustable 4-12V Step-Up/Step-Down Voltage Regulator
3.      A bit of wire or a 3 pin cable
4.      A battery pack(6 cell AA NIMH pack)
5.      Toggle switch 
6.       Heat shrink tubing

Tools 

1. Soldering iron/station
2. Solder
3. Multi-meter
4. Wire strippers
5. Small precision Philips head screwdriver
6. Vise is recommend but not required
7. A acid brush
8. 91 percent isopropyl alcohol
9. A 10 kΩ to 100 kΩ resistor

Prepare wire

 Solder the headers to output of the regulator

Break the headers into by 4 pin and solder the headers to the Vout and GND locations on the regulator. Go ahead and connect the cable we made in the last step to the output header. Red to positive and Black to ground. 

Clean the connection

Clean the connections well with isopropyl alcohol and acid brush

Solder the switch

Solder the switch between the battery and the Vin via on the regulator. Take some time and clean the connections. Also remember to use heat-shrink tubing to protect the connections. Solder the grounds up at this time to so the negative of the battery is tied directly to the GND via on the Vin side of the regulator. Then connect the switch lead.

Adjust the output

Connect a 10 kΩ to 100 kΩ resistor to the output of the cable/regulator. With a multi-meter on the output turn on the switch and adjust it down to 5 volts DC. Please use patience it will take a bit to tune it in. Using the screwdriver turn the potentiometer clockwise to increase the output voltage. The output voltage can be affected by a screwdriver touching the potentiometer, so the output measurement should be done with nothing touching the potentiometer .

Verify setup and connect to the Raspberry Pi

MAKE SURE TO CHECK THE SETUP SO YOU DON'T BURN YOUR PI

It should not matter what Raspberry Pi you have we can just connect the positive to 5 volt DC power and Ground. Move the red pin over one if using the servo header and connect it to the pi. Positive (red) should be facing away from the rest of the board. Go ahead and switch on the toggle switch. Pi's power and activity LED's should be on.

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