PiJuice - A Portable Project Platform For Every Raspberry Pi
Created by PiJuice Team
PiJuice is the ultimate module for all portable Raspberry Pi projects. Includes many fun maker projects and a solar power version too!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
EMC Testing Results, 50 unit samples and more....
over 10 years ago
– Sat, Sep 12, 2015 at 09:41:45 AM
Hi Backers,
It has been a busy time the last couple of weeks! Whilst we still have a lot of work to do over the coming weeks, it is starting to feel that we are *almost* on the home stretch with PiJuice.
Here is what we have been up to...
EMC Testing and Results
As you have probably already seen in previous updates, we were at RN Electronics in Essex for our EMC testing of PiJuice on Tuesday and Wednesday last week (1st and 2nd September). Despite being two long days with lots of waiting around, it was a new experience for us (never witnessed any EMC testing before) and was interesting to see all of the kit, and discuss the details about the various tests with the engineers at RN Electronics. They were extremely knowledgeable and professional and all in all it was a great couple of days (they even gave us a free lunch from the sandwich van!!)
We took a lot of pictures as promised! Our favourite of these are shown below and you can find all of the rest of them on our Facebook page:
Semi Anechoic Chamber with Faraday Cage at RN Electronics
Setting up PiJuice for the Conducted and Radiated Emissions/Immunity tests
PiJuice Powering a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B
When undertaking the conducted and radiated emissions and immunity tests, we had to go with a "worst case scenario" test case - i.e. when PiJuice is plugged in to as many things as it possibly can, to generate as much noise/RF emissions etc as possible. You can see this set up in the picture below. The interesting thing with this test was that we did some preliminary readings first with my LG phone charger powering the PiJuice - this was way over on the radiated emissions. We then tried with the official Raspberry Pi PSU made by Stontronics - the emissions from this supply were even higher than the LG charger. Feeling a but concerned and pulling our hair out a bit, we then tried with our "own branded" micro usb power supply that we sell in our shop (we had left this one until last, as we had assumed it would be the worst as it was not a "name brand") and that worked perfectly first time - so we conducted the rest of the tests with that power supply and it worked flawlessly throughout!
"Worst case scenario" testing with PiJuice attached to Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, HDMI screen, power supply, ethernet, keyboard, mouse and two USB dongles!
Ferrite waffle and semi anechoic wall lining
A really big green antenna! (A really accurate antenna for measuring radiated EMC emissions)
More set up!
Control room with lots of expensive kit!
Conducted emmisions test complete with vertical coupling plane
Radiated immunity test complete with big black antenna (to fire RF at PiJuice) and camera (to make sure PiJuice keeps working and is "immune" to the RF being fired at it). Raspberry Pi attached to PiJuice is also "pinging" a computer on the local network.
Another picture of radiated immunity test - complete with test engineer Brad!
Moved to a different test room for voltage dips, surge tests and ESD test
Official final picture of PiJuice for test purposes :-)
The fantastic news is that we passed all of the tests successfully first time round, which means that PiJuice is now certified as a class B device for CE, FCC, IC and C-Tick! It was nail-biting stuff but we came away smiling :-)
PiJuice CE Testing Certificate!
50 unit samples
We mentioned in previous updates that now we had a design we were very confident in we would be pressing ahead with the order of 50 samples units from our chinese manufacturer in order to test production quality, allow us to more quickly test the units in a variety of scenarios, progress software much faster etc.
The great news is that these have now been finished and 40 of these are currently on their way to us from China! We have left 10 in China, in case we need to perform any tests at the factory going forward, or send one to packaging manufacturers etc etc.
Top side of PiJuice (before auxiliary battery connector soldered on)
Bottom side of PiJuice (before pogo pin soldered)
We intend to use a number of these 40 in house for testing, but will also likely be sending some out to community members to crowdsource the testing somewhat. More on this once they have arrived!
Further production news
As you can see from the EMC testing pictures above, the latest samples have the stacking header on them now, and we have a design for the laser cut surround/battery holder as well. The laser cut design needs tweaking a bit before we go into full production but it is very nearly there.
We have some of the batteries we are hoping to use for the final product on their way from our manufacturer along with the 40 PiJuice boards from the 50 unit order. We will test these and hopefully be able to proceed with these chosen batteries.
We are also working hard on the guide layout/design as well as the packaging. As soon as we have anything to show you on those we will do!
BackerKit Reminder
As we said in our last update, we are going to be locking down the add-ons and surveys on BackerKit on Wednesday 9th September at midday UK time. Please make sure you have added all of the add-ons you need by that time. You still have two days if you want anything else! So get yourself over to http://pijuice.backerkit.com if you need to change/add any additional PiJuice boards, batteries, Raspberry Pis, SD cards or anything else.
As we said previously, we will NOT be locking down the addresses now - so if you are moving house soon or anything like that you have nothing to worry about. We will not be locking down addresses until we are much closer to shipping the products.
Last but not least - there are still 59 of you who have not filled in your survey in BackerKit. If you know you are one of these 59 we would be really grateful if you could head over there now and fill it in. If you are having any problems, or have not received the BackerKit email then please let us know in the comments as soon as possible!
Thanks, as always, Aaron and the PiJuice team
IMPORTANT: Final BackerKit reminder before lockdown tomorrow
over 10 years ago
– Sat, Sep 12, 2015 at 09:41:43 AM
Dear Backers,
Just one final reminder that we will be locking down the BackerKit surveys and add-ons tomorrow at midday (UK time) so make sure you have all of the add ons you want before we do so!
We also still have 58 backers who have not filled in the survey or selected add-ons. You will still be able to do this even after we have locked down BackerKit, but it could cause delays to you receiving your reward if you leave it too long so we would be grateful if you could do this at your earliest convenience :-)
Thanks, Aaron and the PiJuice team
IMPORTANT: BackerKit Lockdown 9th September 2015
over 10 years ago
– Wed, Sep 09, 2015 at 07:19:09 AM
Dear Backers,
We just wanted to let you know that one week from today, September 9th, we will be locking down some of the information you have entered on BackerKit.
What that means is that after next Wednesday you will no longer be able to make changes to your pledge questions and add ons. If you want to order any more PiJuice boards, SD cards, Raspberry Pis, power supplies, extra batteries (or anything else from BackerKit) to your order then now is the time to do so! The reason for doing this now, is to allow us to tally up the final quantities of all of the various products we need to ship out for your rewards and BackerKit add ons.
You WILL still be able to make changes to your address details until we are ready to ship. So there is no need to worry about shipping details changing etc. We will post another similar warning before we lock down the addresses.
Testing, progress, further updates etc...
We have been at our test facility, RN Electronics, today and yesterday doing the IC, FCC and CE testing (this was unfortunately postponed from the 20th and 21st August).
Where I am currently sitting - watching the final (5 hour long) test - testing mains surges!
We are also delighted to announce that we will be certified to C Tick standards for Australia and New Zealand as well as the others previously mentioned!
A full update will follow, with pictures and loads more information about the testing process later this week :-)
Thanks for reading, Aaron and the PiJuice team
IMPORTANT: Final BackerKit reminder before lockdown tomorrow
over 10 years ago
– Tue, Sep 08, 2015 at 04:17:04 PM
Dear Backers,
Just one final reminder that we will be locking down the BackerKit surveys and add-ons tomorrow at midday (UK time) so make sure you have all of the add ons you want before we do so!
We also still have 58 backers who have not filled in the survey or selected add-ons. You will still be able to do this even after we have locked down BackerKit, but it could cause delays to you receiving your reward if you leave it too long so we would be grateful if you could do this at your earliest convenience :-)
Thanks, Aaron and the PiJuice team
EMC Testing Results, 50 unit samples and more....
over 10 years ago
– Mon, Sep 07, 2015 at 11:51:53 PM
Hi Backers,
It has been a busy time the last couple of weeks! Whilst we still have a lot of work to do over the coming weeks, it is starting to feel that we are *almost* on the home stretch with PiJuice.
Here is what we have been up to...
EMC Testing and Results
As you have probably already seen in previous updates, we were at RN Electronics in Essex for our EMC testing of PiJuice on Tuesday and Wednesday last week (1st and 2nd September). Despite being two long days with lots of waiting around, it was a new experience for us (never witnessed any EMC testing before) and was interesting to see all of the kit, and discuss the details about the various tests with the engineers at RN Electronics. They were extremely knowledgeable and professional and all in all it was a great couple of days (they even gave us a free lunch from the sandwich van!!)
We took a lot of pictures as promised! Our favourite of these are shown below and you can find all of the rest of them on our Facebook page:
Semi Anechoic Chamber with Faraday Cage at RN Electronics
Setting up PiJuice for the Conducted and Radiated Emissions/Immunity tests
PiJuice Powering a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B
When undertaking the conducted and radiated emissions and immunity tests, we had to go with a "worst case scenario" test case - i.e. when PiJuice is plugged in to as many things as it possibly can, to generate as much noise/RF emissions etc as possible. You can see this set up in the picture below. The interesting thing with this test was that we did some preliminary readings first with my LG phone charger powering the PiJuice - this was way over on the radiated emissions. We then tried with the official Raspberry Pi PSU made by Stontronics - the emissions from this supply were even higher than the LG charger. Feeling a but concerned and pulling our hair out a bit, we then tried with our "own branded" micro usb power supply that we sell in our shop (we had left this one until last, as we had assumed it would be the worst as it was not a "name brand") and that worked perfectly first time - so we conducted the rest of the tests with that power supply and it worked flawlessly throughout!
"Worst case scenario" testing with PiJuice attached to Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, HDMI screen, power supply, ethernet, keyboard, mouse and two USB dongles!
Ferrite waffle and semi anechoic wall lining
A really big green antenna! (A really accurate antenna for measuring radiated EMC emissions)
More set up!
Control room with lots of expensive kit!
Conducted emmisions test complete with vertical coupling plane
Radiated immunity test complete with big black antenna (to fire RF at PiJuice) and camera (to make sure PiJuice keeps working and is "immune" to the RF being fired at it). Raspberry Pi attached to PiJuice is also "pinging" a computer on the local network.
Another picture of radiated immunity test - complete with test engineer Brad!
Moved to a different test room for voltage dips, surge tests and ESD test
Official final picture of PiJuice for test purposes :-)
The fantastic news is that we passed all of the tests successfully first time round, which means that PiJuice is now certified as a class B device for CE, FCC, IC and C-Tick! It was nail-biting stuff but we came away smiling :-)
PiJuice CE Testing Certificate!
50 unit samples
We mentioned in previous updates that now we had a design we were very confident in we would be pressing ahead with the order of 50 samples units from our chinese manufacturer in order to test production quality, allow us to more quickly test the units in a variety of scenarios, progress software much faster etc.
The great news is that these have now been finished and 40 of these are currently on their way to us from China! We have left 10 in China, in case we need to perform any tests at the factory going forward, or send one to packaging manufacturers etc etc.
Top side of PiJuice (before auxiliary battery connector soldered on)
Bottom side of PiJuice (before pogo pin soldered)
We intend to use a number of these 40 in house for testing, but will also likely be sending some out to community members to crowdsource the testing somewhat. More on this once they have arrived!
Further production news
As you can see from the EMC testing pictures above, the latest samples have the stacking header on them now, and we have a design for the laser cut surround/battery holder as well. The laser cut design needs tweaking a bit before we go into full production but it is very nearly there.
We have some of the batteries we are hoping to use for the final product on their way from our manufacturer along with the 40 PiJuice boards from the 50 unit order. We will test these and hopefully be able to proceed with these chosen batteries.
We are also working hard on the guide layout/design as well as the packaging. As soon as we have anything to show you on those we will do!
BackerKit Reminder
As we said in our last update, we are going to be locking down the add-ons and surveys on BackerKit on Wednesday 9th September at midday UK time. Please make sure you have added all of the add-ons you need by that time. You still have two days if you want anything else! So get yourself over to http://pijuice.backerkit.com if you need to change/add any additional PiJuice boards, batteries, Raspberry Pis, SD cards or anything else.
As we said previously, we will NOT be locking down the addresses now - so if you are moving house soon or anything like that you have nothing to worry about. We will not be locking down addresses until we are much closer to shipping the products.
Last but not least - there are still 59 of you who have not filled in your survey in BackerKit. If you know you are one of these 59 we would be really grateful if you could head over there now and fill it in. If you are having any problems, or have not received the BackerKit email then please let us know in the comments as soon as possible!
