Not enough power for speakers?

Picade
1

Hello all

I have a Picade Maxi from the kickstarter campaign a few years ago.
I have a working RetroPie v4 on a Raspberry Pi 3.

The problem is that the speaker don’t seem to get enough power from the Raspi USB port. The are just silent.
When I connect the Picade PCB with a USB charger directly, then the speakers work.
So it seems that the speakers don’t get enough power from the Raspi USB port?!

I already tried the /boot/config.txt setting to get more power from the USB port. But it does not seem to work.

max_usb_current=1 # give up to 1.2A to USB devices (newer firmware)

Can I power the PCB somehow without the MicroUSB port?
Are there other ideas what I could try?

2

What are the specs for your microUSB power supply? Max output amperage?

3

I use an older iPad charger with 2.1 A output.

4

Gotten the same with pi3.
You can set the volume up with alsamixer.

Since the sound is bad from pi anyway i did use a USB Soundcard. They cost between 1-2 $ in China.

As for power issues, i dont know, im using the offical 2,5 A power supply. It runs the pi3, LCD, USB Hub, Picade board and the usb soundcard without problems. I only had to audjust max-usb current in config like u did.