Raspberry Pi Power Management HAT Adds RTC, Battery Management, Software On/Off

If your Raspberry Pi project runs on battery, but may not need to be turned on 24/7 in order to lower power consumption, you’d have to find a way to schedule on and off times, and power off the board cleanly either when the battery is almost depleted, or your timer requires it

There’s no built-in support for this in any of the Raspberry Pi boards, but Waveshare Power Management HAT can help you do just that since it adds an RTC, and enables software-controlled power timers and battery monitoring via an Arduino compatible ATmega328 MCU.

Power Management HAT Raspberry PiPower Management HAT specifications:

  • MCU – Microchip ATmega328P-AU MCU
  • Storage – CAT24C32 EEPROM
  • USB – 1x micro USB port for serial communication via CP2102 UART to TTL chip
  • RPi Interface – 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO header
  • Misc
    • NXP PCF8523 RTC & calendar chip + CR1220 battery holder
    • DEBUG switch (9) to either:
      1. Power directly Raspberry Pi board
      2. Let the “Arduino” MCU manage the power supply
    • UART selection (15)
      • A – Access Arduino via USB to UART
      • B – Control the Raspberry Pi by Arduino
      • C – Access Raspberry Pi via USB to UART
    • Power/User and Reset buttons
    • Status and Power LEDs
  • Power Supply
    • PH2.0 connector for 7~28V regulated power supply or lithium battery
    • Monolithic Power MP1584 switching regulator
    • Protection circuits such as reverse-polarity, overcurrent, etc…
    • Voltage/current monitoring circuits
  • Dimensions – 65 x 56.5 mm (Raspberry Pi HAT)
Raspberry Pi Power Management HAT
Raspberry Pi not included

The Power Management HAT ships with a  18650 battery case (for two batteries), a USB-A to USB micro B cable, a 40-pin female header, and screws to attach it to the Raspberry Pi board. Once you’ve added your own 18650 batteries and connected the HAT to your Raspberry Pi 3/4, you’ll need to install and run a script (Power-Management-HAT-Setup.sh) in the board, and flash one of the code samples (ButtonBoot, MeasureCurrent, MeasureVoltage_ShutdownInLowVoltage, etc..) from the Arduino IDE as explained in the Wiki.

Waveshare Power Management HAT can be purchased for $19.99 and up on Amazon, Seeed Studio or directly from Waveshare.

Share this:

Support CNX Software! Donate via cryptocurrencies, become a Patron on Patreon, or purchase goods on Amazon or Aliexpress

ROCK 5 ITX Rockchip RK3588 mini-ITX motherboard
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
The comment form collects your name, email and content to allow us keep track of the comments placed on the website. Please read and accept our website Terms and Privacy Policy to post a comment.
5 Comments
oldest
newest
dgp
dgp
4 years ago

Seems like a lot of board for something that can be done by a single cheap PMIC from AXP or Injoinic. From what I can tell the Injoinic ones even have an RTC with oscillator built in.

Paul M
Paul M
4 years ago

After a bit of research, I found that most RavPower USB “bricks” will work in pass-through mode, so can act as a UPS. I bought the model type “UK-RP-PB058” which is listed on Amazon as “USB C PD Power Bank 26800mAh Portable Charger 30W Type-C Input and Output External Battery Pack for Nintendo Switch, USB C Laptops, MacBook and More” [amazon UK code is B07PN36LLW] To work in pass-through, connect power to the microUSB or USB-C, then the device to an USB-A output. This works fine with a Pi4 using the official R-Pi4 power supply. I was able to run… Read more »

Paul M
Paul M
4 years ago

p.s. I bought it for under £35 on CyberMonday, so although the price is £55, if you’re not in a hurry it’ll be on sale at a hefty discount sometime.

Roman
Roman
4 years ago

Did you check if this power bank delivers the power without interruption to Pi during losing/getting back the power from the mains? Most power banks stop power delivery for short time enough to reset the Pi.

Frank Gould
4 years ago

I don’t see any chart defining each of the components in this article. It appears only 9 and 15 are mentioned. The wiki has no details either, especially python examples and use. The script only reads on GPIO pin to determine to shutdown the Pi. Where can I get details how to use this board, with python especially? I don’t see what battery to install to enable the RTC feature, if required.

Boardcon Rockchip RK3588S SBC with 8K, WiFI 6, 4G LTE, NVME SSD, HDMI 2.1...