LiFePO₄wered/Pi™

UPS functionality

An end to corrupted SD cards

Even if you never intend to unplug your Raspberry Pi, the LiFePO₄wered/Pi™ provides great value. How often have you had your SD card corrupted when the power went out? What if you need to keep an application running through power outages?

The LiFePO₄wered/Pi™ will keep your Raspberry Pi Model A+, B+ and Pi Zero running for over an hour on battery power, and will cleanly shut it down before the battery runs dry. The system can be configured to automatically boot the Raspberry Pi whenever enough power is available, making it a true UPS (uninterruptible power supply) solution for low power Raspberry Pi systems!

Clean shutdown

Your Pi will always shut down before power is removed

Maybe your SD cards don't die due to power outages, but because you run a headless system and have no other choice but to yank the power cord.

No more!

Whether the Raspberry Pi is shut down by software, or it is shut down because the battery runs out of power, or you use the handy touch button to shut it down, the Raspberry Pi will always first do a proper shutdown, and then turn off the power.

Touch button

Convenient boot and shutdown for headless systems

Many Raspberry Pi's are used without a screen, keyboard and mouse. They are controlling some device or running a service, and unless someone goes through the trouble to log in remotely and perform a shutdown, the only way to turn them off is to remove the power. There are endless reports of SD cards corrupted this way.

Now there is finally a better way! The LiFePO₄wered/Pi™ provides a convenient touch button that can turn on the Pi and turn it back off by doing a proper shutdown first. The touch button has a press and hold feature that prevents accidental activation.

Feedback LED

Know what's going on

User friendly systems need good feedback. Especially in a headless Raspberry Pi setup, it can be hard to know what's going on.

The LiFePO₄wered/Pi™ provides a red LED to indicate the battery is charging and a green LED to indicate the power state of the system: off when the Raspberry Pi is off, on when the Raspberry Pi is on, and "breathing" when it is booting or shutting down. The LED also provides feedback when the user presses and holds the touch button and indicates if the system can't comply with the user's touch input by flashing.

Wake-up timer

Extend battery life

If you have a low duty cycle application, you can greatly extend the battery life by using the LiFePO₄wered/Pi™s wake-up timer. This feature allows an application to set the number of minutes the system will stay powered off after shutdown. When the time elapses, the LiFePO₄wered/Pi™ will start the Raspberry Pi up again. This user settable time can range from a minute up to 45 days!

Excellent uses of the wake-up timer are low frequency data logging and time lapse photography.

Ultra low power

Less than 5 µA

When the Raspberry Pi is off, the LiFePO₄wered/Pi™ is still working: it's scanning the touch button, keeping track of the voltages in the system and maintaining the wake-up timer. It does this using very little power, making it possible for a system to be in standby for years on a single charge.

Voltage monitor

Keeping track of input and output

The LiFePO₄wered/Pi™ takes continuous readings of the battery and Raspberry Pi voltages. The smart controller will not turn on the power if it detects the Raspberry Pi is powered by other means. It will also shut the system down and prevent it from booting when the battery voltage is too low, ensuring the battery stays in good condition.

Configuration tool

Application access to settings and data

The Raspberry Pi and LiFePO₄wered/Pi™ communicate with each other using a I²C bus. A command line tool and library were created to allow users to easily access the data inside the LiFePO₄wered/Pi™.

Using these tools, the user can access voltage measurements and thresholds, touch button parameters, the wake-up timer and the auto-boot flag. Some of the parameters can even be written to flash to make changes permanent.