I am wrapping up my first Raspberry Pi project. The final version needs to control 3 28BYJ-48 stepper motors and 3 hall effect sensors. In my PoC (with a single motor and hall effect sensor), I have been powering them via the standard GPIO pins on the Pi.
My Raspberry Pi Zero 2 does not have enough GPIO power pins. What's the best way to power these 6 accessories and the Pi itself with a single power outlet?
Thanks!
My Raspberry Pi Zero 2 does not have enough GPIO power pins.
The power pins are not GPIO (general purpose input output) pins, but they are part of the same 28 or 40 pin breakout. You can't turn them on and off, read signals with them, etc., they are just "dump" connections to the power rails.
There is only one 3.3V rail and one 5V rail.
The reason there is more than one pin for each is convenience WRT connecting things. If you have something connected to two different 5V power pins, it is exactly the same as if you had connected them both to one such pin, eg., by splitting a connector.
So, if you need more power connections, just split a connection to a pin. This does not of course increase the amount of power available (but neither does connecting things to different power pins on the same rail).
By analogy, on a normal 2 port household wall outlet, plugging something into both ports is exactly the same as plugging them into an extension cord plugged into one port (overlooking whatever limitations the extension cord may introduce). The same amount of power is available either way, using both ports does not provide more power.
I would recommend that you don't power motors from the Raspberry Pi as they noisy in a electrical sense. So get an external PSU for your motors!
And how to power it from a single outlet, check @goldilocks answer.
does not have enough GPIO power pins... what does that mean? ... why would you need more than one? ... you should really be asking if a Pi can be used as a power supply