A search about current draw issue didn’t return meaningful result, I think that it should be mentioned more evidently in the specs because that can have a great impact for a given setup. It appears that the E1 mk2 is drawing more than 500mAmp (about 560), that means that it can’t be powered by many units.
iConnectivity mio XM can’t power neither Lab4Music Sipario.
In the case of iConnectivity, a powered hub fix it but for the Sipario, it’s not a solution as it doesn’t work with Hub.
My MIO XL just barely powers it. If I put a power meter in the loop then that’s just enough of an extra draw for it to constantly cycle power and not boot. So it’s on the hairy edge for me with MIO. But not an issue for me the way I use it.
yes, the controller is rated at 500mA. The major part of the current draw comes from the LCD backlight. We have noticed that current draw of the LCD panels differ given the same PWM/brightness settings. To fix it, we introduced the brightness control settings in the Setting section of the 4.0 firmware. We are also working on adjusting the gamma curves to provide brighter colours without pushing the backlight too high,
With the new settings the controller can run at around 400mA on average. The work on the 4.0 is completed and ready to be released soon.
For Sipario and similar device a Y-USB cable can be used to provide extra power.