Hi
I just purchased a D30V30F5 with the aim of providing power for a Raspberry Pi 4B from a Meanwell 24v 400W PSU.
The Pi will only be powering 2 Waveshare RP2040 Zeros (each with an mpu6050 accelerometer) via USB - I have not measured the current draw, but from a little googling, I figure it’s approximately 30-40mA per RP2040 + about 1500mA for the Pi4 (I used the 400% CPU load figures)
The product page for the D30V30F5 says the device will get hot during normal operation, so
I’m looking at cooling options. My first thought was to bolt the regulator to a heatsink, and slap a small 2020 5v fan on it, but came across another forum post for a different regulator (D24V150F12 heat sinking requirements) that mentions that both the mosfet and the inductor get hot, and link to a forced airflow housing design on thingiverse.
Would forced airflow be enough for the D30V30F5 for my application, or should I also be looking at heatsinking the underside as well as the topside inductor ?
From your current draw approximations, the D30V30F5 shouldn’t need any additional cooling. For reference, the values listed on our product page are done in ambient open-air conditions. If you want to add some just to keep the board from getting too hot to the touch, it would probably be easiest to just add some forced airflow from the side of the board (since it is double-sided with the inductor on one side and the regulator and MOSFET on the other).
However, Raspberry Pi recommend a 5.1V power supply capable of 3A for the Raspberry Pi 4B. So, it might be possible for it to periodically draw more current than what you calculated. Additionally, Raspberry Pi boards have a tendency to report low voltage warnings when powered from 4.9-5V instead of 5.1-5.2V. You might consider something like the adjustable 1.4-7V, 3.8A D30V33MAL regulator, which can be tuned to 5.1-5.2V before connecting to your Raspberry Pi and can handle a little more current than the D30V30F5.
