Cool stuff for Raspberry Pi, Arduino and all electronics hobby projects

All posts tagged power supply

New Product: Witty Pi 4 Mini

After we announced Witty Pi 4, there is no surprise that Witty Pi 4 Mini is also on its way. Today is the day, and we now announce our new product Witty Pi 4 Mini.

Witty Pi 4 Mini has same shape factor as Witty Pi 3 Mini, and the connector locations are not changed. This make Witty Pi 4 Mini and Witty Pi 3 Mini physically exchangeable.

What’s New?

Comparing to Witty Pi 3 Mini, Witty Pi 4 Mini uses USB type-C connector instead of micro USB connector, and it has another unpopulated 7-pin header in the middle of the board.

Comparing to the full-sized Witty Pi 4, Witty Pi 4 Mini uses super capacitor instead of CR2032 battery for off-power time keeping. Witty Pi 4 Mini doesn’t come with an on-board DC/DC converter.

Similar to the full-sized Witty Pi 4, Witty Pi 4 Mini also uses the “single I2C device” design. Instead of exposing the realtime clock and temperature sensor directly to Raspberry Pi, it uses micro-controller (MCU) to emulate one I2C device (with address 0x08), and only exposes this I2C device to Raspberry Pi. On the other hand, it implement its internal I2C bus to communicate with the realtime clock and temperature sensor.

 

Witty Pi 4 Mini’s firmware is basically the same with the one in Witty Pi 4 Mini, except that it has a different firmware ID. Just like Witty Pi 4, Witty Pi 4 Mini’s firmware also maps all I2C registers in realtime clock and temperature sensor into its own I2C device, and you can access all I2C registers in realtime clock and temperature sensor via single I2C device.

Since the address of the single I2C device is configurable, you can always avoid the I2C address conflicting.

Same as full-sized Witty Pi 4, Witty Pi 4 Mini can also turn your Raspberry Pi into a temperature controlled device. You can put it into sleep when temperature is rather high, or the other way around.

Migrate from Witty Pi 3 Mini to Witty Pi 4 Mini

If you are using Witty Pi 3 Mini in your project, you may want to know more details about the the difference between Witty Pi 3 Mini and Witty Pi 4 Mini.  In the user manual, you can find a chapter (chapter 13) about how to migrate from Witty Pi 3 Mini to Witty Pi 4 Mini.

How about Witty Pi 3 Mini?

Witty Pi 3 Mini is discontinued. We unfortunately do not offer the possibility to continue producing Witty Pi 3 Mini, due to the shortage of DS3231SN chip.

We will do our best to help our customers to migrate from Witty Pi 3 Mini to Witty Pi 4 Mini.

Price and Where to Buy?

Witty Pi 4 Mini ’s retail price is 18.00 EUR (about 15.32GBP  /  18.42USD  /  23.74CAD), and you can order it here.

You may be able to order them from our distributors soon.

 

New Product: Witty Pi 4

Today we are very proud to announce our new product: Witty Pi 4!

This is the 4th generation of Witty Pi. Comparing with Witty Pi 3, it has same shape factor and same connector locations, and have some interesting new features.

Witty Pi 4

What’s New?

Witty Pi 4 uses a new structure to organise its hardware resources. Instead of exposing the realtime clock and temperature sensor directly to Raspberry Pi, it uses micro-controller (MCU) to emulate one I2C device (with address 0x08), and only exposes this I2C device to Raspberry Pi. On the other hand, it implement its internal I2C bus and connect the realtime clock and temperature sensor to that internal I2C bus.

Witty Pi’s firmware also maps all I2C registers in realtime clock and temperature sensor into its own I2C device, so you can access all I2C registers in realtime clock and temperature sensor via single I2C device.

Because the address of this single I2C device is also configurable, you can always avoid the I2C address conflicting.

A new feature of Witty Pi 4 is to turn your Raspberry Pi into a temperature controlled device. You can put it into sleep when temperature is rather high, or the other way around.

In Witty Pi 3, you cannot specify the “seconds” in scheduled shutdown time, and that was due to the limitation from the realtime clock hardware. In Witty Pi 4, the alarms for startup and shutdown are implemented by the firmware, and hence you can specify the “seconds” in both scheduled times.

There are other differences between Witty Pi 3 and 4, and you can find a chapter about how to migrate from Witty Pi 3 to Witty Pi 4 in the user manual (chapter 13).

How about Witty Pi 3?

Witty Pi 3 is discontinued. We understand it is not good for ongoing projects who use Witty Pi 3, and we wanted to continue producing Witty Pi 3 for a while. Unfortunately due to the shortage of DS3231SN chip, we can not do so and have to discontinue Witty Pi 3.

We will do our best to help our customers to migrate from Witty Pi 3 to Witty Pi 4.

Price and Where to Buy?

Witty Pi 4’s retail price is 25.00 EUR (about 21.48GBP / 29.80USD / 36.77CAD), and you can order it here.

You may be able to order them from our distributors soon.

Zero2Go Omini Rev2 is Here!

Zero2Go Omini Rev2 is released today! This is the second revision of Zero2Go Omini and it looks very similar with the first revision. Because the connectors, switch and LED are at the same locations, the new revision and old revision are almost physically interchangeable (except the USB type C connector).

Zero2Go Omini Rev1 and Rev2

What’s New?

One obvious change is that Zero2Go Omini Rev2 uses USB type C connector instead of micro USB connector. USB type C connector is easier for connection and can bear higher current.

You may also notice that newer revision has an unpopulated 3-pin header on the left ledge of the board. It is the VIN-GND-VOUT header which allows you to:

  • Add additional channel(s) to the board (using VIN and GND)
    Additional channel
  • Using Zero2Go Omini to control other devices (using VOUT and GND), for example a 5V relay.

More details about this VIN-GND-VOUT header can be found in the user manual.

The new revision uses the same firmware and software like the old revision.

Price and Where to Buy?

Zero2Go Omini Rev2 has the same price as the first revision, which is €15.72 (about 13.51GBP / 18.74USD / 23.12CAD).

You can order it from our e-shop or you may be able to order it from our resellers soon.

How About the Rev1?

Zero2Go Omini Rev1 will be discontinued.

At the time being we still have some of them in stock, you can order them if you like micro USB connector more.

New Product: Zero2Go can power your Raspberry Pi in many ways!

Some customers have asked us if we have a product that can do power switch like Witty Pi 2 and accepts higher input voltage, now we proudly announce that we have one!
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Zero2Go is a Pi-Zero sized power supply board that can accept 5~26V input and output 5V for your Raspberry Pi. It also has a button on board, so you can turn on and off your Raspberry Pi with a single tap (just like Witty Pi 2).
compare_wittypi2
Thanks to the wide range of input voltage, Zero2Go can power your Raspberry Pi with many kinds of power sources, such as power bank, Li-Po battery pack, solar panel, car battery or different kinds of power adapters etc.
power_sources
You can use the pogo pin connector (included in package) to connect Zero2Go with Raspberry Pi without soldering.
 
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Or you can solder a 40-pin header (not included in package) on Zero2Go to connect it with other models of Raspberry Pi:
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How Much? When and Where to Buy?

The price of Zero2Go is 350 CZK, which roughly equals to 12.95EUR/10.85GBP/13.65USD.
zero2go_stock
 
Zero2Go is now in stock and you can order one here.
 
 
 

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