Measuring Raspberry Pi Power Consumption

In this tutorial you will learn super easy way to monitor power consumption of Raspberry Pi and its official 7" touchscreen display using USB voltage and current detection module. Please also have a look at the video. The same approach can be used for measuring power consumption on other USB devices.

Step 1: Getting Ready

Required hardware:

• USB Voltage and Current Detection module
  
• Raspberry Pi 3 (or another model)
• Official Raspberry Pi 7" touchscreen display
  
• USB power supply
• 2 USB to micro USB cables
• microSD card with Raspberry Pi compatible OS (I am using Raspbian)

Step 2: Assembling

The usage of the USB current and voltage detection module is very easy. First peel off the protective film. After that I plug the USB power supply and connect Raspberry Pi and its touch screen to the module.

Step 3: Measuring Power Consumption

The first row of the USB power detection module shows the voltage. The second row shows the current. The module is capable of current detection in the range of 0 to 3A.

Raspberry Pi operates at 5V. The current depends on the load of the board. There is a peak while Raspberry Pi boots as well as when games or other power hungry applications are running.

Please have a look at the video for details and subscribe to my YouTube channel if you want to see more tutorials.