MakerFocus Raspberry Pi 4 Battery Pack UPS, V3Plus Expansion Board with 10000mAh Battery, Type-C Interface for RPI 5 4B 3B+ 3B 2B+

I’m giving it five stars cause it does what it’s supposed to do. I’m the idiot who has a pi 5 and wanted it to supply enough power with amps and it doesn’t barely supply enough power to power the five alone, the five and a screen and any peripherals or run any programs the five just shuts down because it’s not supplying enough amps but on my 4 b model, it works great power, the screen and everything

I replaced their original version 1 UPS with this new V3P version. It cleared all of the low voltage warnings I have always gotten with the V1 circuit. My Raspberry Pi 4B is loaded with a 4-Port USB to RS-232 Serial Adapter Hub, two RF wireless USB mice, and its Pimoroni Fan Shim cooling fan. Running OpenCPN navigation program, no problem. During my boat's diesel engine 600A start, pulling battery voltage supply to the board to very low, the UPS powers the RPi and its loads with no interruption or reset or Pi low voltage warnings. This upgrade to deliver a max output current of 3A, just like the official RPi AC wall plug power supply, has made all the difference. FYI, I supplied both the old and this new board from a 12VDC to 5VDC Dual-Port USB Car Charger Adapter, 4.8 Amp, 24W, using a Dual USB Male Jack Y Splitter Data Charger Cord to supply the two 2.4A channels in parallel as 4.8A to this UPS circuit. That is, supplying 5 x 4.8 = 24W to the board enables it to deliver 5.1V x 3A = 15.3W output power to the RPi. With the old V1 board output under load was 4.8-4.9VDC. With the new board it is 5.2V+. Perfect!

Great, simple, battery controller. Easy to upgrade battery to larger capacity. Plug and play. Only quirk I found is it does not charge my iPhone 7 plus. I suspect iOS is not liking the current or amperage or voltage or something. Works with pi and will charge android phone just fine. So it works as advertised but don't expect it to charge iPhone. Not sure about other iOS devices.

Excellent little ups. Capable enough while not being super tailored to a single flavor of board. Not having pogo pins is a major bonus for install flexibility

I've been working on a project that involves adding a UPS and Raspberry Pi 5 to an enclosure, so I've been doing some detailed testing of this UPS. Unfortunately I think I'm going to have to return it, as it struggles to stay charged with power attached and an idling Pi 5. If I use the Pi to do anything that increases current draw (e.g. running a music visualizer) it'll actually run down and turn off the Pi -- even with the power supply attached. But this still might be a good UPS for you! The good: - It's a great size, and very slim even with the battery attached - Two outputs - Much cheaper than alternatives - The UART interface gives detailed information (battery level and whether power is attached) The bad: - Can't sustain a load above ~1 amp, even when connected to USB power - Wastes quite a bit of power during normal plugged-in operation - Flashing LED on the back during normal operation - You have to solder the header for the UART interface If you're looking for a UPS for a load that's consistently < 1 amp, this could be a great choice! Just be aware that a higher load will run down the battery and eventually turn off your device. I played around with a number of power supplies, cables, and power monitors. No matter what I swapped out I could never get it to pull more than 1.8a from the input. This number was quite constant. Connected to a load averaging 1a (mostly-idle RPi 5 with a few things attached) the reported charge drifts up and down (as gauged by both the LEDs on the back and the report via UART), and sometimes even drifts so low that it turns off the power output. It never seems to power the pi from USB power exclusively; it always has the battery in the loop. This constant charging and discharging seems to be wasting about 0.8 amps (4 watts) of power. I would love to figure out how to get it to pull the 2.5-3a mentioned in the product description, and forward this power while charging the battery instead of dissipating so much of it.

UPDATE: Makerfocus contacted me, and after several emails decided the best course of action was to send me a replacement for testing. This battery, with the limited testing I've done (playing youtube videos through Raspian; no hardcore gaming or 1080p videos yet) performs without the random low-power lightning icon I normally receive. I imagine, much like a cell phone, battery life wont be hours and hours on video or gaming, but: a.) So far it works EXACTLY as intended. b.) The company was fast to respond to my comments, and help troubleshoot everything to insure I didn't miss anything. (I've built a few of these but it was still nice to have them cover their bases.) Bottom line: I will be using Makerfocus for all my future RPI projects. Thank you Makerfocus! Technically does what it is supposed to do, however my Pi v3 runs in constant brown-out mode (low voltage icon stays on-screen) so I really can't use it with the Pi without potentially damaging my board. I've heard people mentioning a 'quality micro usb cable' but since nothing online really says what is a battery-friendly' cable versus a generic, I'll never know. This will unfortunately have to collect dust with my other old computer peripherals.

I needed UPS for a pi project I was using as a medical device. Most monitoring devices have a battery so I need one that was reliable. This has been rock solid for over a year and the scripts to help shutdown when battery is too low work great to help keep my SD card from corrupting. Battery life for a pi 4 with no screen attached and constant wifi is around ~4hrs with the 4000 mah battery. If I attached a 7" LCD it custs the time down to less than 1hr. So if you want it to last a long time do not power a screen off the battery or get a larger capacity battery. I made a custom enclosure to house the entire projects and it works great. Will definitely get more when I need them