Anyone know if the 3.3V line out of a socket can cope with up to 400mA to power a module?
And whats the spider gunna use 
Unless it’s a DP your gunna be sailing close to the wind…
You might be alright…
Seems both SP and DP can go up to 800ma
Spider uses 160ma…
So getting my Abacus out that leaves 640ma…
For the PlayStation generation… Abacus - Wikipedia 
Ok cool, its rare that what im planning will use that much but in some circumstances it can for short periods.
fess up - laser beam? particle accelerator?
btw, the connector is rated for 3A - http://www.samtec.com/documents/webfiles/pdf/shf.pdf
Not sure what awg (conductor size) is used for the interconnect cables, but that is likely to be the limiting factor, assuming your power supply can deliver the amps 
It seems like Gadgeteer needs to provide a solution to this problem in general. My designs usually require far more than the 500ma that USB 2.0 provides. Since the Gadgeteer connector pins are rated at 3A, perhaps a 3A power supply for both 5v and 3.3v could be developed. It could be similar to the DP but with bigger regulators with heat sinks.
@ rdsperg - that is already planned but no due dates yet
@ Gus - That’s great! Add a power switch. Really need to think about a Gadgeteer chassis with power supply. Gadgets need to live inside something. Of course, defining it is the hard part since there are endless project applications and options.
You can always use a modular power architecture where 5/3.3V is supplied independently to modules (just make sure the grounds are common and avoid ground loops).
The biggest issue with a ‘universal’ power supply is that power requirements vary so much between projects. What if you need 24 or 12V for relays or something else?
USB is great for powering the CPU, but terrible for providing reliable, clean power to the whole system. We have a separate power supply for our gadgeteer projects that provides as much power as we need. We use a modified SP to program (all the power bits desoldered and the 5V track broken).
I agree. Most of my projects live off of 12v/24v battery/solar cell systems with relays and motors. My solution is to use Cerb40 and G120 so I can program in NET/C# and use a combination of Gadgeteer and custom IO. Then I have a lot more control over power distribution.
And here’s another great example of why Gadgeteer itself is a great prototyping tool. In most cases you are developing and sitting in a plush office with nice clean bench power supplies (or at least a wall adapter outputting relatively clean power) that then gets regulated and handled across the board and connected devices - and usually a DP or SP module will suffice there. And then it comes time to drop it in an enclosure that will be in a hostile power environment and a modular item like Cerb40 comes into it’s own, and you have your own power control circuits that deal with the nasties you know you need to protect against.