Raspberry Pi Made Its Own 45W USB-C Charger

The Raspberry Pi further expands its hardware accessories product line with the launch of a new 45W USB-C power adapter. This adapter is compatible with all Raspberry Pi motherboards with USB-C interface and has enough power to fully charge smartphones, tablets and many laptops.

The Raspberry Pi already sells 15.3W and 27W USB-C power adapters, but the company says the market demands for higher power versions of adapters to be compatible with more devices. An article on a blog noted: "When you make truly high-quality universal products, such as USB power adapters and SD cards, interesting things happen. Our colleague Oli told a story about seeing a customer from a Micro Center in North Carolina coming to the Raspberry Pi showcase and buying only our own 27W power adapter: When we were making the best USB-C power adapter for our customers, we unexpectedly made the best USB-C power adapter for everyone."

This new wall charger uses similar internal electronics to the low-power version, using Panasonic and KTEC components, but has higher power operating modes such as 20V/2.25A. It still supports the same low-power modes for Raspberry Pi motherboards, such as the 5.1V/3A of the Pi 4 and the 5.1V/5A of the Pi 5.

The 45W charger is enough to achieve maximum charging speeds for most phones, tablets, smartwatches and other small electronic devices. This is also sufficient for some laptops and handheld gaming PCs, but some devices may charge slowly. For example, the 13-inch M4 MacBook Air has a maximum charging power of about 30-35W, but the M4 MacBook Pro has a maximum charging power of up to 70W or 96W, depending on the processor configuration.

The Raspberry Pi also chose longer cables for the 45W charger, with a length of 1.5 meters (approximately 5 feet). However, the cable is not removable, so if the cable is damaged, you will need to replace the entire charger.

Priced at $15 in the U.S., this power adapter is competitive compared to its similar products from other well-known brands. For example, Anker’s Ace 45W charger is priced at $20, UGREEN’s multi-port 65W charger is priced at $25, but neither includes cable. You can now purchase from PiShop.us and VILROS and will soon be available at other official Pi dealers such as MicroCenter and Adafruit.

Pi ecosystem

This new USB Type-C wall charger is part of the Raspberry Pi's continued entry into the official accessories space. Pi motherboards require flash storage operating systems and software—usually SD cards, but sometimes M.2 or USB drives—and USB power. Depending on the settings, a keyboard, mouse and monitor are also required. Raspberry Pi said it began developing its own hardware accessories to provide consistent quality control.

A blog post explains: "Buying the cheapest SD card or USB wall power adapter you can find on Amazon will certainly lead to a bad experience. So over time, we began to regulate the accessories provided by our recognized dealers. We test dealers' SD cards to make sure they have enough random access performance and can withstand thousands of unexpected power outages."

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Article 2 Over the past few months, Raspberry Pi has released its own A2-class SD card, NVMe SSD and Power over Ethernet (PoE) injectors. The upgraded Raspberry Pi touch display 2 went public in November and the company has been selling its official USB keyboard and mouse for some time. There are also some official expansion boards, such as the Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT board, which uses the PCIe bus in the Pi 5 to provide M.2 slots for storage and other devices.

You can still use third-party USB devices and flash storage for many Raspberry Pi motherboards, but it's nice to see the Pi offer its own options, especially for those unfamiliar with SD card ratings or USB power speeds.

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