Seven questions before I buy a Sixfab UPS Hat for my RPi 4

Sixfab Power HAT & Software
1

Hello,

  1. Can I use the UPS Hat management software/interface offline? My project will not be connecting to the internet, but I would still like to be able to access the management interface/tools.

  2. Can I disable all of the LEDs on the Hat? I don’t want to see any lights coming from my RPi.

  3. Can I attach my 3.7v 12,000mAh Lithium Ion Battery to the Hat? I would like to use it for extended battery-powered use of the RPi.

  4. Can I access battery charge level information from within a Python Script? I’d like to use the battery charge level information in various scripts, to make the RPi perform different tasks based on the charge level.

  5. Can I attach an external Momentary Open push button to the Hat? I’d like to be able to power on, or shutdown the RPi using a single power button, with a single press, because I will not have access to the RPi & Hat (nor any of their onboard buttons) after I seal it all up in an enclosure. I would like this to work exactly the same way Wake-on-GPIO works… one momentary button press.

  6. Is there a Rasberry Pi OS Task Bar Panel Applet that will allow me to see the charge level of the battery on the Hat, at a glance?

  7. Is there an official or unofficial Discord server for sixfabs products/community?

TIA

2

Hi @ohnnytweed

  1. Yes you can use the PMS API.
    You can find more information here

  2. LED

2.1 For power LED you can cut the trace between the pads in the picture
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2.2 : For L2 LED you can disable it with PMS API see set_watchdog_status function.
2.3 : For L1 LED. I don’t now

  1. Yes

  2. Yes with the python API. You can read sensor with this script https://github.com/sixfab/sixfab-power-python-api/blob/master/example/read_sensors.py

  3. Yes, there are solder pads for both switches on the underside of the board, aligned with the switches on top.

ffd1ecac5273fc3bfa6342598bd0afc90940808d384ffd92fd0a72ae3276af8c
ffd1ecac5273fc3bfa6342598bd0afc90940808d384ffd92fd0a72ae3276af8c1086×1086 228 KB

6.You must develop it. it’s a good idea.

Regard,
Alexandre

1 Like
3

Hi @johnnytweed,

I can provide some extra info on number 5. The UPS hat has a ‘safe shutdown’ mode that uses the battery level as the threshold to shut the system down (with shutdown -h now) gracefully. In this mode for the system to boot back up, the battery level must rise 5% points. To be clear, the system does not come back on as soon as external power is reapplied. A button press is required.

The S1 and S2 both have solder-able pads to which you can attach wires.

Since my setup needs to boot as soon as power is applied, I put together a circuit that will automatically ‘push’ the switch using a 555 IC whenever the external power is applied. The schematic, cnc files, and the like are available on my git.

  1. I am also working on my own version of this. It will be ‘fed’ from a ‘watch python3 …’ command so that the command can be run from the console (without X) in a very similar way. Want to collaborate?

S