DIY stuff

84 orders since Nov 25, 2020

Bietigheim-Bissingen, BW, Germany

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Overall Rating:

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (4.62)

Documentation: (4.12)

Shipping: (4.75)

Communication: (4.75)

All Reviews

Nyxolyno | July 11, 2023

Must have RPi Hat

For Smart UPS Supply for Raspberry Pi & Power Button

This device does exactly what it says it does, and it should be a must-have hat for anyone concerned with data corruption on their SD card.

I reached out to the developer once, and he replied quickly with an answer. Communication was excellent.

Documentation was a bit confusing, but after reading the web page multiple times, I got it to work for my needs.

I still don’t understand what using different GPIOs means, because this is a hat and is technically connected to all the GPIO pins.

Also, there is what appears to be a jumper wire of some sort in the product pictures, but this was not included with the hat when it arrived.

I simply needed a way to safely shutdown and reboot my RPi when connected to a vehicle’s DC outlet, and this hat performs perfectly for that need. Despite the documentation stating the official RPi power adapter being a requirement, I got mine to work perfectly with a 5-amp rated USB-C cable and a 30-watt, 5-amp DC plug for my car. It can work with other cables and plugs, but you must select accessories based on amperage to make it work properly.

Shipping to the U.S. was really good considering it was coming from overseas, and it was very well packaged.

Overall, great product, and I hope the developer decides to make more of these so they’re available in the future.

Cosme | June 7, 2023

A super cap UPS for rpi boards that does what it claims

For Smart UPS Supply for Raspberry Pi & Power Button

What can I say... it does everything that is advertised!
It is pretty much a plug and play solution, it took me 30 min to go over the documentation, plug it and test it.

I am mounting this in an arcade cabinet, so I cut a usbc cable and wired it straight to a 5v 15a power supply.

The maker is very friendly and responsive over email/comments, he answered my questions overnight (this is as fast as I can expect it, given that my timezone is 12 hours away from Germany).

I read some feedback by other users about the documentation, mostly asking for a pdf that summarizes it all. Although it is true that a pdf could help, if you take the time to read all the html documentation you will realize that it is very well documented. You get the technical specs, schematics, configuration for the rpi when needed, the firmware for the microcontroller, and even the ability to message the maker!

Chris | Jan. 11, 2022

Straightforward installation, did what it said on the tin

For Smart UPS Supply for Raspberry Pi & Power Button

Not much I can add really! Added to and energy monitoring setup which i didn't want to risk losing data from. Worked exactly as described.

Only suggestion for improvement I could make would be to have the documentation available on PDF for easy access/printing if necessary (not that it is really).

Fast dispatch, immediate comms (and reminder re power supply requirements) direct from the seller.

Just how Tindie should be, well done and thankyou.

Lawrence | Oct. 23, 2021

works as expected

For Smart UPS Supply for Raspberry Pi & Power Button

Runs a PI controlled by a wall switch. No more lost data. My second one, will purchase again. The SD card has never failed using the UPS supply.

Patric | May 23, 2021

Nice form factor, would be cool if it worked as advertised

For Smart UPS Supply for Raspberry Pi & Power Button

Shipping to the US went about as well as can be expected. No complaints there.

My unit does not work with any of the USB-C power supplies I have; a short time after booting, the yellow LED starts blinking, indicating that the device has detected a voltage sag. According to the hackaday blog posts, this is basically due to the fact that you need an ultra-stiff power supply for this thing to work correctly. I will try the official Raspberry Pi power supply as recommended in the blog documentation, but my hopes are not high.

The form factor is good. I did have to put a spacer on the rpi header to give the UPS some vertical clearance; this is due to the fact that I already had some aluminum heatsinks glued onto the pi itself, and did not want to remove them. I think if I didn't have the heatsinks it would mate perfectly right out of the box.

TL;DR this is not a plug-and-play solution; you probably need to order a very specific power supply to ensure that this works.

Response from DIY stuff | May 23, 2021

Dear Patric,
many sections of the documentation indicate that, according to measurements, successful use is only possible with the official pi power supply.
There might be others on the market that work but from your description of the failure it is definitely a power supply issue.
I'd be interested which brands of PSU you already tested and which voltage/power rating they have. Don't forget also the cable has an impact in case you were using a PSU with USB-A connector and an adapter cable.
Regards,
Dirk

Tijl | May 16, 2021

Perfect board for powering the Raspberry Pi

For Smart UPS Supply for Raspberry Pi & Power Button

I've ordered this board to power a Raspberry Pi in an amplifier I'm building.
When the amplifier is not in use, it is powered down completely to save some energy. However it is very cumbersome to go through a complete shutdown procedure manually before powering down. Often the Raspberry Pi gets unplugged because it is too much effort to shut it down over ssh first.

This board is the perfect solution for this problem. It allows to add a power button easily to quickly shutdown the Pi, but most importantly will also shut down the Raspberry Pi when unplugging the power! This really made working with the amplifier a breeze!

The documentation on Hackaday is good and gets you started quite easily. I modified the pins to which the power down and acknowledgement signals are connected. With the documentation in the software it is easy to adjust it to use other pins. You can basically connect it to any pin on the Pi using some wires.

I really recommend using the board on a Raspberry Pi which you shut down frequently as it makes it much easier!

Giovanni | March 7, 2021

It works great! Mandatory for Raspberry Pi!

For Smart UPS Supply for Raspberry Pi & Power Button

It works great as described. Finally I can stop worrying about power outages corrupting my Raspberry Pi SD card! So happy with it that I boight second one.
Thanks for having engineered this great piece of hardware!

Stefan | Feb. 12, 2021

Picoreplayer / Media Server now running with UPS

For Smart UPS Supply for Raspberry Pi & Power Button

I bought the smart UPS to integrate it into a Squeezebox Touch rebuild that is running on a Raspberry Pi 4. The UPS works flawlessly and shuts down the PicorePlayer and more important the additional media server safely as soon as the power is unplugged and thus avoids any corruption of the server cache. I use an original 3A Raspberry power supply and have seen no problems. The Supercaps give around 20 sec shutdown delay. Both HW button triggered and SW triggered shutdown functions work out of the box by enabling the available shutdown and poweroff overlays on the required GPIO pins of the Picore player config.
Communication of the seller was supportive and shipping was fast. Thank you for developing this board, I can highly recommend it !