The Raspberry Pi Zero doesn’t have an ethernet port, but with a little hacking, Node shows off a way to power the Pi with a single dual-purpose cable that will get you online and powered up. You’ll need a USB ethernet adaptor, a step down converter, and a couple micro USB plugs. Once it’s all set up, you have both power and an internet connection in a single cable. You’ll need some soldering skills to get through this project, but the end result cuts down on cord clutter quite a bit. Head over to Node for the full guide.
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I remember writing an article with accompanied video for APC magazine years ago for a DIY power-over-Ethernet solution. Some key things to remember that aren’t mentioned in the above video are that only four pins are used by 100baseT Ethernet, but Gigabit Ethernet uses all eight pins. The longer the cable, the greater the DC voltage losses that you’ll incur – and this may result in voltage underruns on your Pi.