AR-300M - power questions

sfx2000 · 2019-01-14T23:07:53.956Z

Quick question on power consumption on the AR-300M…

What is typical and max - going thru the forums, looks like peak is 500ma - but what would one to expect with typical usage.

Quick Question #2 (I know… but it’s probably a good follow on)

On the USB port, what is the power limit on that port?

(this goes towards sizing of an external battery pack as part of a dev kit)

jeffsf · 2019-01-15T00:24:15.429Z

I can put my AR300M-Lite on an ammeter this evening. Primary variation will be on the loading of the CPU. There will likely be some variation based on the number of Ethernet cables connected and if EE is enabled or not. I can only check one Ethernet cable on the AR300M-Lite. My experience with a vaguely similar Archer C7 v2 (QCA9558 at 720 MHz) was an increase of close to 1 W between “idle” and the CPU being hammered with a tight loop outputting over SSH. Adding an Ethernet connection with EE enabled added very roughly 0.1 W.

https://docs.gl-inet.com/en/2/hardware/ar300m/ states

Power Input 5V/1A

Power Consumption <2W

which would be consistent with 400 mA or less for the router itself, and 500 mA for USB 2.0. There may be a fuse, fusible link, or other limitation between the supply and the USB port.

sfx2000 · 2019-01-15T00:46:49.487Z

CPU and WiFi are the ones that tend to spike upwards of 500ma - but that’s based on activity…

If I put a stable 5V/2.5A input source - what is the available power on the USB port - can it safely hit 500ma there? Can it do more?

jeffsf · 2019-01-15T04:17:25.005Z

AR300M-Lite, pretty much GL.iNet stock with no customization or added packages.

All numbers are indicative; appropriate safety margins should be factored in.

~250 mA peak during boot, no Ethernet

~165 mA idle, no connected clients, no Ethernet
~205 mA idle, no connected clients, Ethernet connected to Cisco SG300 switch (no appreciable traffic)

~280 mA, one connected wireless client, Ethernet connected, wireless client running while true ; do find / ; done over ssh.

sfx2000 · 2019-01-15T19:09:39.560Z

That works - thanks for taking the time to look at it.

sfx2000 · 2019-01-17T21:08:04.363Z

jeffsf:

All numbers are indicative; appropriate safety margins should be factored in.

~250 mA peak during boot, no Ethernet

~165 mA idle, no connected clients, no Ethernet
~205 mA idle, no connected clients, Ethernet connected to Cisco SG300 switch (no appreciable traffic)

~280 mA, one connected wireless client, Ethernet connected, wireless client running while true ; do find / ; done over ssh.

So, after some additional homework… safe to assume that absolute worst case would be 400ma for the AR300M, and I’m going to assume 500ma additional for USB peripheral, even though I’ve seen some discussion for AR150 that suggests up to 1A is possible…

So that works great for this little project I’m working on…