General discussion • Powering Raspberry Pi 5 from a 12 V Battery Using USB-PD

Hello,

I recently bought a Raspberry Pi 5, and it appears to require a 5 V / 5 A power supply. Most cigarette-lighter USB-PD car chargers only provide up to 3 A at 5 V, which does not seem sufficient.

After some research, I found this Tindie board that can convert higher USB-PD voltages down to a stable 5 V / 5 A output suitable for the Raspberry Pi 5:
https://www.tindie.com/products/regaldr ... -for-rpi5/

My idea, after spending a couple of hours researching this, is the following setup:

12 V battery (solar-charged, typically 14.5 V → 12.5 V)
│
[5–10 A fuse]
│
Female cigarette socket
│
USB-PD car charger (70–100 W)
│
5 A-rated USB-C cable
│
Tindie USB-PD → 5 V / 5 A converter board

The converter negotiates a higher-voltage PD profile from the car charger (for example:
5 V / 3 A (not with this as it is under 6V), 9 V / 3 A = 27 W, 12 V / 3 A = 36 W, 15 V / 3 A = 45 W, or even 20 V / 5 A = 100 W) and steps it down to 5 V / 5 A, which should be sufficient for the Raspberry Pi 5.

│
5 A-rated USB-C cable
│
Raspberry Pi 5

Do you see any potential issues or risks with this approach?

Thank you for any feedback.

Statistics: Posted by josk — Thu Dec 25, 2025 9:35 pm

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