What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?
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@gohan said in What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?:
Price is not bad compared to others, but still costs more than a pi3 😅
The pi is mass produced. His UPS is probably produced in small batches. i.e. it's more of a specialty item, which somewhat explains the price.
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OK, I just settled on this: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NTQYUA8/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
$25, surge protection, no lithium, and maybe (?) I'll be able to power the Pi directly from one of the UPS usb power ports.
It seems ridiculous that the Pi still doesnt have a shutdown button. Presently I have to ssl to it and do a "sudo poweroff" before unplugging it. Not exactly convenient!
@neverdie said in What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?:
OK, I just settled on this: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NTQYUA8/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
$25, surge protection, no lithium, and maybe (?) I'll be able to power the Pi directly from one of the UPS usb power ports.
It seems ridiculous that the Pi still doesnt have a shutdown button. Presently I have to ssl to it and do a "sudo poweroff" before unplugging it. Not exactly convenient!
I have this installed now. It turns out that the built-in USB power port is enough to power the Raspi3b running Octoprint. :)
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@gohan If I unplug it from the wall (thereby simulating a power failure), it continues to send uninterrupted power over it's built-in USB power port, if that's what you mean. i.e. power failures don't crash the Octopi.
Or did you mean what happens if I switch-off the UPS and then unplug it? i.e. is there a different (longer lasting) circuit powering it's USB power port?
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Has anyone gotten their PiModules UPS PIco to work right or for very long? And is it even compatible with a Pi 3B?
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@gohan said in What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?:
anyway 2A is more than enough for a Raspberry
No, I do not think it is enough. They recommend 2.5A PSU for the latest RPI. I have 3A power supply for RPi3B. 2A was not enough, but I must say I have a few bits and bobs attached to my RPi like camera or Z-wave USB module
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@gohan said in What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?:
Price is not bad compared to others, but still costs more than a pi3 😅
The pi is mass produced. His UPS is probably produced in small batches. i.e. it's more of a specialty item, which somewhat explains the price.
@neverdie said in What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?:
@gohan said in What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?:
Price is not bad compared to others, but still costs more than a pi3 😅
The pi is mass produced. His UPS is probably produced in small batches. i.e. it's more of a specialty item, which somewhat explains the price.
Yes, you are spot on. It is hard to beat the RPi price. I think Pi Zero W priced at GBP 9 here in the UK - this is less expensive than some AVR platforms and yet much more powerful.
All UPS HATs I looked at here priced around Euro 25+. This is designed for DIY users and hence produced in much smaller quantities. Additionally, things like firmware has to be written and maintained up to date. And that is a big cost as this is not an open source. -
@gohan said in What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?:
anyway 2A is more than enough for a Raspberry
No, I do not think it is enough. They recommend 2.5A PSU for the latest RPI. I have 3A power supply for RPi3B. 2A was not enough, but I must say I have a few bits and bobs attached to my RPi like camera or Z-wave USB module
@alexsh1 said in What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?:
@gohan said in What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?:
anyway 2A is more than enough for a Raspberry
No, I do not think it is enough. They recommend 2.5A PSU for the latest RPI. I have 3A power supply for RPi3B. 2A was not enough, but I must say I have a few bits and bobs attached to my RPi like camera or Z-wave USB module
I did extensive measurements of the current drawn from the RPI3 and you can actually run on 1A, the extra power depends on the devices you connect to it (if you count the 4USB ports it is potentially 4x0.5A = 2A, you add the 0.7A from the RPI3 itself and you end up in the 2.5/3A range)
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@alexsh1 said in What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?:
@gohan said in What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?:
anyway 2A is more than enough for a Raspberry
No, I do not think it is enough. They recommend 2.5A PSU for the latest RPI. I have 3A power supply for RPi3B. 2A was not enough, but I must say I have a few bits and bobs attached to my RPi like camera or Z-wave USB module
I did extensive measurements of the current drawn from the RPI3 and you can actually run on 1A, the extra power depends on the devices you connect to it (if you count the 4USB ports it is potentially 4x0.5A = 2A, you add the 0.7A from the RPI3 itself and you end up in the 2.5/3A range)
@gohan cpu- load ?
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@alexsh1 said in What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?:
@gohan said in What's the "best" UPS for a Raspberry Pi 3B?:
anyway 2A is more than enough for a Raspberry
No, I do not think it is enough. They recommend 2.5A PSU for the latest RPI. I have 3A power supply for RPi3B. 2A was not enough, but I must say I have a few bits and bobs attached to my RPi like camera or Z-wave USB module
I did extensive measurements of the current drawn from the RPI3 and you can actually run on 1A, the extra power depends on the devices you connect to it (if you count the 4USB ports it is potentially 4x0.5A = 2A, you add the 0.7A from the RPI3 itself and you end up in the 2.5/3A range)
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@gohan I did the same thing too. Only for my set-up. I am not interesting powering a bare RPi. 2.5A is not enough in my case - I am using 3A PSU. I suppose this is due to 20x4 screen I am running from the RPi together with other peripherals.
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I tested the UPS PIco HV3.0B HAT Stack. On Rpi 1B and 3B. And it works perfectly :) maybe installation of the software is not very easy and the documentation is not very clear but i think it is worth the effort. And I got it for half the price of rpi3. Another +1 is that it has additional 3.3V ldo that can supply 150mA, should be sufficient to power the nrf24l01+ pa/lna module :)
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Just thought I'd mention that last week we had a lightning strike that was close enough that it completely fried both my irrigation controller and also the UPS on my wife's computer. Her computer did survive it though. So, although the odds may seem remote, it does happen. How lithium batteries would react to a lightning strike is unknown to me, so that's one of the reasons why I've ruled them out for use in a UPS. Unfortunately, doing so does seem to narrow the options considerably.
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Just thought I'd mention that last week we had a lightning strike that was close enough that it completely fried both my irrigation controller and also the UPS on my wife's computer. Her computer did survive it though. So, although the odds may seem remote, it does happen. How lithium batteries would react to a lightning strike is unknown to me, so that's one of the reasons why I've ruled them out for use in a UPS. Unfortunately, doing so does seem to narrow the options considerably.
@neverdie for the lightning protection I use a surge protection extension lead like this
https://www.amazon.ca/Belkin-6-Outlet-Commercial-Protector-Rotating/dp/B000JV3CKA
Additionally, UPS PIco has got the following protection:
- System Protection
- Direct Raspberry Pi® Hardware Reset Button via Spring Test Pin (pogo pin)
- Programmable Watch-Dog Hardware feature (Still Alive Timer)
- PPTC 2.6A fuse
- ZVD circuit on 5V GPIO connections
- Microcontroller watch-dog
- Over Temperature protection
- Over Current protection
Re PSU, this is the one I have
Raspberry Pi 3 Charger, Aukru 5V 3000mA Power Supply 3A Micro USB Charger for Raspberry Pi 3 Model B / Pi 2 Model B / B+ Plus, Banana pi https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017YW2CKM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_o9d9AbBYH266F
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This thread is old, but still consists of the best suggestions for a Raspberry Pi UPS so adding my findings here.
Despite Pi being used for a lot of battery-powered projects, it's surprising to see that a well-defined UPS is not available.
While most of the above-suggested power boards will work fine, they lack form factor and customizability. I would rather take an open-source design and tweak it to my needs than just using a off-shelf black box.So I am planning to improvise on this design called ["DIY Raspberry Pi UPS – An Uninterrupted Power Supply to Keep your Pi Safe during Power Failure"](DIY Raspberry Pi UPS – An Uninterrupted Power Supply to Keep your Pi Safe during Power Failure)
The author has provided both schematics and PCB layout so it should be easy to tweak the desing. The board is already designed to handle 1.5A (continous) and 3A (peak current) which would suffice well for my project. Though I could really use a software on/off feature like i should be able to shift between battery power and main power through a GPIO pin. Will share the design when I am until.
Until then if anyone has found better designs or features, please update me.
Power to you guys, thanks
