Raspberry Pi Model B+

photo 3One day after launch, I got delivery of a Raspberry Pi model B+. Here’s a few pictures of it, plus a couple of side-by-side pics with the old Model B.

 

 

 

 

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Here you can see the new 40-pin GPIO header.

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Here’s the underside of the board, showing the new microSD slot. Much neater than the older full-size SD card slot on the previous model.

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And here’s a few pictures of the new Model B+ along side it’s older sibling, the Model B. You can see  the older Composite video and stereo audio jack (yellow and blue connectors) have been replaced by a single 3.5mm jack socket that carries the composite video signal and stereo audio. Also the comparison of the older 26-pin GPIO header versus the new 40-pin header.

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For full technical specs, see http://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/#introducing-raspberry-pi-model-b-plus

And there’s an excellent article on Adafruit here: https://learn.adafruit.com/introducing-the-raspberry-pi-model-b-plus-plus-differences-vs-model-b

Edit: I just did a quick measurement on the current draw of the two versions of the board, and the old Model B draws 315mA at idle, where the new model B+ draws just 195mA. Excellent!

 

 

5 thoughts on “Raspberry Pi Model B+”

  1. 4 USB ports?

    What is the limit of electrical current for USB devices powered via the board?

    Hesham

  2. Hesham –

    James Adams in the comments section of the product announcement on RaspberryPi..org says:

    “The USB powrchain has a proper limiting switch and will not brown out the board if USB devices are plugged in when powered (or even if they try to take too much current or there is a fault like a power short). Default allowed USB current across 4 ports is 600mA, but can be increased to 1.2A via a config.txt parameter if a good quality 2A PSU is used. I have tried a few different USB hard disks and they all power fine directly from the Pi at the 1.2A setting.”

    Good to know! 🙂

  3. Hey Dave! Do you know if the B+ would take the TFT screen used on the PiPhone?
    I am planning to build one…
    Cheers!
    Leo

    1. Yes it does, but there are two things to be aware of. The kernel needs to be updated to use the new Ethernet and USB chips on the B+, and the GPIO pins are offset buy 6.5mm, so the screen is slightly offset when sitting on the B+. No big deal for either, and the PiPhone should look fine either way. 🙂

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