ELECTRICAL POWER SUPPLY QUESTION
Can anyone here sanity-check the #electrical #power solution I've ended up planning for my next automated #insect monitoring tool?
This will be a unit running on mains power. It includes a #RaspberryPi 4B controller (also running a #camera and various sensors), along with a number of high-powered #LEDs (to attract insects and to illuminate photos).
The #RPi requires 5V supply and I am using an A009 BuckBlock to deliver constant current for the LEDs. This works optimally with a 24V supply.
The RPi will turn the lights on and off using a relay.
At present, I'm thinking that the best approach is to power the whole unit with a 24V AC-DC converter and then use a second 24V-5V converter to step down this DC for the RPi.
That means three power converters are required. In this diagram:
The cyan converter is for mains (ground is back through this converter, but the diagramming tool was not good for representing this).
The yellow converter steps down for the RPi power.
The pink converter delivers constant current for the lights.
Am I missing something? Can this be done better? Will I need additional capacitors to stabilise the RPi voltage when turning on the lights suddenly draws down an extra 27W, or should a decent step-down converter handle that?
TIA for any assistance.