Jetson Nano Barrel Jack power not working

@Void12987

How are you down converting the 11.1V battery to 5V? If you are using a Buck converter can it be adjusted to give 5.35V output?

the 20-30C rating refers to current draw relative to capacity.
For example if you have a 2.0 amp-hour battery, 10C will let you draw up to 20 amps

I am pretty convinced that the Nano needs at least 5.3V into the barrel jack

You should be able to power your robotics components from your power supply in parallel to your Nano

@fizprof,

Thatā€™s probably my issue. Iā€™m not converting it but plugging it directly into the DC jack. Iā€™ll find a way to convert it down to 5.35V. Also my robotics parts are mostly USB-based; so they need to run from the Nano, which shuts down often due to the 2A current max from the microUSB power source.

@fizprof,

Do you know if I can use 5V or 6V instead of 5.35V for the barrel jack?

@Void12987

I tend to agree with Snarky that there must be a Schottky diode reverse current protection beyond the barrel jack (I suspect D32 on the front of the carrier board is the culprit). I cannot see power regulators near that section of the board so it would seem that the system required regulated 5V input (but clearly we need at least about 5.3 as my experience shows).

So straight 5V will probably not work for you. 6V would be too high. But with 6V you can put a silicon diode in line with the + side of the power supply (anode on the supply side and cathode on the nano side) and that will cut it to about the right voltage you need. Beware however you will need a fairly hefty diode that can dissipate about 3 W (probably not the usual small axial diode, to be safe, one with a heat sink ā€“ and make sure it is a normal silicon diode and not a Schottky diode).

Nevertheless if you have a 11-12V battery you should be able to use a step-down (Buck) converter. For example https://www.ebay.com/itm/Adjustable-DC-DC-10A-7V-32V-Converter-Buck-Step-Down-Regulator-Power-Module-XODF/122850143075?hash=item1c9a706b63:g:E7wAAOSwjodaKjma
Note this will not work with 5V or 6V batteries --need at least 7-9V here

You can always buy pre-made plug wires to screw into the terminals and feed the barrel jack

For USB: these can be handy
https://www.ebay.com/itm/10pcs-Black-70cm-USB-2-0-A-Type-Male-to-4-Wire-4-Pin-DIY-Power-Cable-Cord-28AWG/323307308915?epid=1476974584&hash=item4b469e0773:g:ll0AAOSwanRXgh-~

If you plugged 11V into the barrel jack, chances are good you destroyed some part of your Nano. At a minimum, any USB device you plugged in would have gotten fried, and my guess is youā€™d also fry some power control circuitry; I donā€™t know how far into the module that would end up going. Probably at least the load switches for the USB ports and the power monitoring chips; neither are rated for anything close to 11V.

If your only options are 5V or 6V for the barrel jack, then you should go with 5V. 6V would over-volt it, which is likely to destroy it at some point. (Also, it would over-volt any USB devices you connect.)

5.18V on J41 sounds ideal.

@Void12987

Cheerup ā€¦ modern electronics is surprisingly hardy ā€“ recently I plugged in, by mistake, 5V power backward into an ā€œatomic piā€ which explicitely does not have reverse currently protection ā€“ and it was drawing 1.1A. Somehow it survived.

So there is a good chance your Nano might be fine
(I have my fingers crossed for you)

It may ā€œseem fine.ā€
Except at some point, some things wonā€™t work.
And you start looking for bugs, reinstalling the OS, blaming flaky hardware and software.
When the problem is that some MOSFET transistor overvolted and avalanche failed, and the system no longer operates as intended at the hardware level.
Personally, there is a level of hassle that Iā€™d rather spend some money to avoid, and this would probably be up there.

@snarky

You are right, of course ā€“ which was why I immediately bought a second Atomic Piā€¦
the first (reversed current) one is now a tinkering toyā€¦

Alright. It seems like this might be a bigger project getting this thing wireless and with the barrel jack. Iā€™ll update when I make some progress on it.

Just a note which someone with the OPs problem might find useful: not all jumper links are created equalā€¦ During setting up of my nano, yesterday, I placed a jumper from my bag of jumper links on J48 and was disconcerted to note that I had no signs of life on the nano when I powered up. suspecting the PSU (5V/4A wall-wart style), I replaced it with a 5V/3A one I had lying around and got the same result.
Eventually, in desperation, I tried a different jumper and gor the same result. I looked through my bag of jumpers, and found one that was a slightly different design and tried that - it worked!

Its worth noting that these jumpers have mostly been salvaged from old VMEbus units, stripped for useful parts when they were scrapped Raspberry Pifrom our systems, so all of them have come from working systems, and previous occupants of the bag have worked fine on Raspberry Pi and other projects etc. - Iā€™ve never had trouble with them before.

I have not investigated why they donā€™t make proper contact yet, but itā€™s something to bear in mind if you find your board aparrently ā€˜deadā€™ the first time you use the barrel jack.

1 Like

@zetlander, thanks for the tip. Iā€™ll keep that in mind the next time I use a jumper.

@fizprof and @snarky, I was able to make some progress. Although I still canā€™t find a battery source for the barrel jack at the appropriate voltage, I was able to use the Jetbot recommended battery (Amazon.com) to power it wirelessly.

The original thread is still about the barrel jack not working as anticipated, likely due it saying it needs 5V but really needing like 5.35V. Iā€™ll update when I find a battery source that would work with the barrel.

You should be able to use any battery, and an appropriate adjustable voltage converter, as long as the converter has enough current capacity.
Similarly, the 5.5x2.1mm barrel jack connector is pretty easy to find adapters for to a variety of wire formats (including bare stripped wires.)

@Void12987

YOu can connect the 11V battery output to a buck converter such as the one I pointed you to:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Adjustable-DC-DC-10A-7V-32V-Converter-Buck-Step-Down-Regulator-Power-Module-XODF/122850143075?hash=item1c9a706b63:g:E7wAAOSwjodaKjma

Connect the battery to the input of this device, set the output to 5.35V using a small screwdriver
and then connect the output to a barrel jack using, for example

Measure the output of the barrel jack to make sure you are getting 5.35V and that you have the correct polarity

after that you can plug in the barrel jack

@fizprof, Interesting Iā€™ll try that at some point in the future and let you guys know.

I recently noticed that one of my USB peripherals was being powered without the microUSB or barrel jack. It appeared to be powered through an 11V battery going into my Ardiuno Mega barrel jack which was also plugged into the Nano USB slot.

Does that mean the Nano can be powered by USB?

Hello all,

Thought this was the appropriate thread to post in. When plugging the barrel jack in is it supposed to give a green led similar to powering by microusb? My problem is that I have two 5v 4a adapters but neither seems to power the barrel jack, thought it was a board issue so got a free replacement but same thing is happening to the new boardā€¦ any help appreciated!

I would bet a donut that the solution to your power adapter question is found on page 7 of the devkit manual. Pay special attention to J48.
The devkit manual is found, for example, at: https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/dlc/jetson-nano-dev-kit-user-guide

PS guess it could be that both the adapters I have are crap. If thatā€™s the case what is your recommended barrel plug adapter?

@snarky, I think that does explain the problem here. thank you so much for the insights

That little jumper is the cause of many forum posts :) Glad you got it sorted out.

Also: My recommended power adapter is a benchtop power supply tuned to 5.1V and hooked to the 5V rail on the 40-pin GPIO jumper (pin 2,4,6)
Any quality 5V power supply that can do 2A or more, providing between 5.0V and 5.2V, hooked to those pins, should power the Jetson Nano, without worrying about the barrel jumper or not.