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:
IMPORTANT: BackerKit Lockdown 9th September 2015
over 10 years ago
– Wed, Sep 02, 2015 at 08:44:01 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
v1.5 Samples Confirmed, EMC Testing Update
over 10 years ago
– Tue, Sep 01, 2015 at 04:13:38 PM
Dear Backers,
Really happy to announce that the 3 x v1.5 samples that we talked about making in house have been completed and confirmed working as required. Here is a picture of the final board:
PiJuice v1.5 Board
The production of the 50 unit order in our final manufacturing plant is also well under way and should be completed by the end of the week.
We have now chosen a test facility for the FCC/CE/IC testing and this is provisionally scheduled in for the 20th and 21st August. We are aiming to be present on these days at the facility so that we can take pictures, and ensure it all runs smoothly. We look forward to sharing these with you in due course.
More updates to follow as things progress!
Thanks, as always, for your patience, Aaron and the PiJuice team
v1.5 Samples Confirmed, EMC Testing Update
over 10 years ago
– Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 02:31:56 AM
Dear Backers,
Really happy to announce that the 3 x v1.5 samples that we talked about making in house have been completed and confirmed working as required. Here is a picture of the final board:
PiJuice v1.5 Board
The production of the 50 unit order in our final manufacturing plant is also well under way and should be completed by the end of the week.
We have now chosen a test facility for the FCC/CE/IC testing and this is provisionally scheduled in for the 20th and 21st August. We are aiming to be present on these days at the facility so that we can take pictures, and ensure it all runs smoothly. We look forward to sharing these with you in due course.
More updates to follow as things progress!
Thanks, as always, for your patience, Aaron and the PiJuice team
Final design complete, samples ordered, EMC testing and delivery plan
over 10 years ago
– Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 06:26:54 PM
Hi backers,
It has been a busy few weeks since the last update and we are happy to report that we have made lots of progress!
Final design complete and samples ordered
In our last update we mentioned we were about to go ahead with the 50 unit order for PiJuice boards - both to use as test samples and to ensure our manufacturer would be up to scratch for the full production run which at present is looking to be around 3000 to 5000 units in total. After that update, we actually had to make a few small tweaks to the power circuitry which set the order back by a few days - but the good thing is that we now have a completed design ready for manufacture. We will continue to test the boards at every stage of the process, but we are quite confident that this will be the final iteration of the circuit. Apart from some potential like-for-like component swaps to aid with reduction of lead times and quality of manufacture.
In any case, this also means that the 50 unit order we spoke about is well underway. Some of the electronic components have proven impossible to source quickly and we've been working on finding alternative sources and alternative parts and shipping these ourselves directly to our chosen manufacturer to reduce the time this will take. We hope to have the 50 units in hand in the second week of August.
In order to allow us to get on with finishing the software and further testing, we are also producing 3 samples of the boards and assembling these in house. We aim to have these finished by the mid-to-end of next week, after the PCBs for these arrive with us.
EMC Testing
We have been working hard behind the scenes on preparing for EMC (electromagnetic compatibility) testing of the PiJuice boards. We know this is an important consideration for some of the people wanting to use these in industrial and educational projects.
At present we are intending to test the boards and certify them to CE, FCC and Industry Canada specifications using a certified test house here in the UK. We already have quotes from a number of facilities and will aim to book in some time in a test facility very soon (as they often have ~2 week+ waiting list). This is actually one of the main reasons we are building up 3 samples in house - because we want to get a jump start on this process so we can ensure they are compliant before bulk manufacture so we can feature the CE, FCC and IC logos on the final PiJuice boards. (The other two samples we are producing in house are going to be used for finishing software dev/testing and for general product testing and benchmarking, in case you were wondering!)
Delivery Plan
We now have a finished design, the 50 unit order underway and are getting closer to starting bulk manufacture, we have also ordered 50 units of the batteries and these will be delivered to our contract manufacturer in China shortly and have a number of solar panel samples on their way to us for testing also.
With all of this starting to fall into place nicely, we are beginning to get a better handle on the delivery plan and how long this will take. We are building up an updated Gantt chart / schedule as we speak and the main steps within that are as follows:
Finish independent build and test of new design (3 units in house)
Finish manufacture of 50 sample units from contract manufacturer
EMC Testing
Finish software
Finish packaging and guide book design and production
General functional testing (including software, battery etc)
Testing and manufacture of final solar panels
Bulk Manufacture (once testing complete and we're sure everything is good)
Shipping (we have everything set up for this already, but this only becomes relevant once all the other items are ticked off)
Once we are confident that we have accurate timelines for all of the above items and have fully populated our chart/schedule, we will then be able to start estimating and planning out shipping dates and timelines for all of the pledge levels.
As we already know there are some lead time issues on a couple of components, we are actually aiming to place the bulk component orders as soon as we know that a component will definitely not change, in order to keep the delivery timeline as short as we can going forward.
Thanks, as always, for your ongoing patience.
All the best, Aaron and the PiJuice team
Final design complete, samples ordered, EMC testing and delivery plan
over 10 years ago
– Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 06:26:54 PM
Hi backers,
It has been a busy few weeks since the last update and we are happy to report that we have made lots of progress!
Final design complete and samples ordered
In our last update we mentioned we were about to go ahead with the 50 unit order for PiJuice boards - both to use as test samples and to ensure our manufacturer would be up to scratch for the full production run which at present is looking to be around 3000 to 5000 units in total. After that update, we actually had to make a few small tweaks to the power circuitry which set the order back by a few days - but the good thing is that we now have a completed design ready for manufacture. We will continue to test the boards at every stage of the process, but we are quite confident that this will be the final iteration of the circuit. Apart from some potential like-for-like component swaps to aid with reduction of lead times and quality of manufacture.
In any case, this also means that the 50 unit order we spoke about is well underway. Some of the electronic components have proven impossible to source quickly and we've been working on finding alternative sources and alternative parts and shipping these ourselves directly to our chosen manufacturer to reduce the time this will take. We hope to have the 50 units in hand in the second week of August.
In order to allow us to get on with finishing the software and further testing, we are also producing 3 samples of the boards and assembling these in house. We aim to have these finished by the mid-to-end of next week, after the PCBs for these arrive with us.
EMC Testing
We have been working hard behind the scenes on preparing for EMC (electromagnetic compatibility) testing of the PiJuice boards. We know this is an important consideration for some of the people wanting to use these in industrial and educational projects.
At present we are intending to test the boards and certify them to CE, FCC and Industry Canada specifications using a certified test house here in the UK. We already have quotes from a number of facilities and will aim to book in some time in a test facility very soon (as they often have ~2 week+ waiting list). This is actually one of the main reasons we are building up 3 samples in house - because we want to get a jump start on this process so we can ensure they are compliant before bulk manufacture so we can feature the CE, FCC and IC logos on the final PiJuice boards. (The other two samples we are producing in house are going to be used for finishing software dev/testing and for general product testing and benchmarking, in case you were wondering!)
Delivery Plan
We now have a finished design, the 50 unit order underway and are getting closer to starting bulk manufacture, we have also ordered 50 units of the batteries and these will be delivered to our contract manufacturer in China shortly and have a number of solar panel samples on their way to us for testing also.
With all of this starting to fall into place nicely, we are beginning to get a better handle on the delivery plan and how long this will take. We are building up an updated Gantt chart / schedule as we speak and the main steps within that are as follows:
Finish independent build and test of new design (3 units in house)
Finish manufacture of 50 sample units from contract manufacturer
EMC Testing
Finish software
Finish packaging and guide book design and production
General functional testing (including software, battery etc)
Testing and manufacture of final solar panels
Bulk Manufacture (once testing complete and we're sure everything is good)
Shipping (we have everything set up for this already, but this only becomes relevant once all the other items are ticked off)
Once we are confident that we have accurate timelines for all of the above items and have fully populated our chart/schedule, we will then be able to start estimating and planning out shipping dates and timelines for all of the pledge levels.
As we already know there are some lead time issues on a couple of components, we are actually aiming to place the bulk component orders as soon as we know that a component will definitely not change, in order to keep the delivery timeline as short as we can going forward.
