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For my project SamplerBox, I had done many extensive tests in the past and it was possible to successfully power a RPi 2 for multiple hours with such a small 2600mAh power bank (18650-battery inside), and even 7 hours with a better-quality battery (see my article here).

Of course, it was using a read-only filesystem for which a power failure was not a problem. (Along the multiple hundreds hours of usage, there was not a single SD card failure).

Question: I tried the same with a RPi 4 and it does not seem to work. I know that the RPi4 consumption is higher than RPi2, but is there a way to make it run on lower CPU speed / lower power requirement? More generally, is there a way to make a Rpi4 work with such common small power banks?

Note: I would like to avoid dedicated "powerbank RPi Hats" which are more expensive (and by the way, I already use the GPIO / Hat for something other else).

Basj
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  • "is there a way to make a Rpi4 work with such common small power banks" -> It's purely a YMMV scenario. Some banks may work for some things some of the time but this actually is not what they are for (see my answer to the duplicate). I too have had them work for older models doing low load activities but the upshot is again, that this is a purpose they are not designed for, and if you are avoiding other choices because they are slightly "more expensive" -- you get what you pay for and YMMV, or try the right tools for the right job, etc. – goldilocks Dec 10 '21 at 20:12
  • Thank you @goldilocks for your comment. Do you have a link (maybe another duplicate?) for this part of the question "is there a way to make a Rpi4 run on lower CPU speed / lower power requirement?"? (This part of the question is still interesting on its own I think, and less YMMV) – Basj Dec 10 '21 at 20:29
  • Well, it's a valid question all by itself, and really the best questions (most useful to posterity) are exactly that, a simple practical question without a lot of contextual clutter ("because I need to do ____, and related to that is the question of ___" <- Ends up as too localized, harder to find, etc.). – goldilocks Dec 10 '21 at 21:01
  • ...There are various questions here already related to underclocking but they all look to have the problem just mentioned, and AFAICT there's two canonical approaches, via core frequency settings in /boot/config.txt and by setting the cpu governor used by the kernel (search around for "cpu governor" and you'll find explanations of that). – goldilocks Dec 10 '21 at 21:01

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