The "Pi RTC with superCapacitor" is a simple extension board for Pi single computer boards (Orange Pi, Raspberry Pi, or any board with a compatible extention connector).

It uses a PCF85363 RTC from NXP, which includes 64 bytes of non-volatile memory (NVRAM), and a super-capacitor in order to provide power backup to the RTC and NVRAM.

This small board was initially created for the non-volatile RAM function to solve data loss problems on a production line (serial numbers and some configuration identifiers) without continuous writing to Flash memory (which wears quite quickly in this configuration). As it may solve this kind of problems for other people (as well as provide an RTC with a super-capacitor power backup), we will now sell it here too.

The use of a super-capacitor instead of more common batteries provides longer life-span (virtually unlimited) but shorter time and data retention (about two weeks once the super-capacitor is fully charged - the charging current has been limited in order to avoid inrush currents upon board power-up which could damage some Pi boards, so full charging takes a few minutes, but data retention and RTC function starts immediatly)

The board is shipped with female only connector soldered on by default, but this can be changed to no connector soldered (same price, both male and female connectors sent with the board) or use of a connector with both male and female sides on request (+1$ to +5$).

Licence : CC-By-SA-NC

More info on our Wiki