Zero2go Omini power supply for Raspberry Pi Zero

Support Raspberry Pi
1

Hi all,

I’m hoping to power my raspberry pi off an 11.1v 3S lipo battery which should give it some long lasting juice.

I purchased a zero2go Omini power supply module from Core Electronics:

It looks like an awesome product, and one can even monitor the battery supply voltage via a shell script, which I got working.

It was working great for about a day off the lipo, no issues at all, until one time I try power it up and the pi would not boot and was fried (no green blinking LED, very hot cpu, bad smell). I am convinced I wired it up correctly as it was working fine and I followed their instruction manual precisely. In my folly, suspecting a dud pi unit, I tried it with another raspberry pi zero which also worked great off the zero2go for about a day, but then it also got cooked with same symptoms. I suspect the zero2go sent too high a voltage to the pi or there was a fault on it. The good folks at Core Electronics have been kind enough to let me claim the zero2go under warranty, but I want to try it again, though this time, much more carefully!

Has anyone had any experience with the zero2go? Could you offer any tips? What would be the safest input voltage? It looks like quite a new product, but super useful if I can get it running stably.

In the manual, page 14, it says you can enable “Set Step-Down Engine Always-On”. By default it is disabled, but the manual states the smarts on the board will automatically enable the step down if higher input voltage is detected. I’m wondering if enabling this setting could help make it safer, or if somehow, there was a slight delay in activating the step-down module which resulted in a voltage spike.

Many thanks
Jonathan

2

After reading Shaun’s helpful suggestion regarding a DC-DC Buck-Mode Power Module, I’m thinking this may be a good (and cheaper) alternative to the zero2go?

I’m thinking I could also hook up a small analogue voltage reader to the pi, and monitor the input supply voltage eg via an ongoing CRON script run every minute, which could auto shutdown the pi if voltage dropped too low, to avoid over-stressing the lipo battery.

Would love to hear from others what you use to power your pi off a battery?

cheers

3

Hey @Jonathan95351,

I think the buck converter could be a good option, they are quite reliable pieces of equipment and are relatively inexpensive. Perhaps, another option could be the PiJuice Hat? These are well-designed boards that offer a built-in auto-shutdown feature, saving you the hassle of making a safe shutdown yourself.

I hope this helps.

4

Thanks Gordon, good suggestions. I’ve ordered a couple of the DC Buck convertors :slight_smile: