Getting juice out of laptop SATA/Micro connector to power up things.

by

Long story short, I wanted to power raspberry pi through unused sata connector / bay in my thinkpad. However, it acted dead every time I've tried, with wired connector orsoldered power pins.

Turned out, for my thinkpads (and most likely all devices that have slimline SATA connector) to start providing power, we need to fake the presence of the device.

I've found that after doing some digging around documentation on google books here: [ The Essential Guide to Serial ATA and SATA Express, Page 355, Table 8.2 ] and Wikipedia: [ Serial Ata: Slimline Connector ] I needed to bridge first and last ( or second to last, or 5 / 6 ) pin together with resistor of 0-220ohm resistance.

Image with informations extracted from above links.
Image with informations extracted from above links.

 

Worth remembering. Build log of my multibay-mounted raspberry pi soon, when I get rest of the components.