ATXRaspi is great for enhancing your Pi with a power button that will gracefully shut down your Pi without the need to login to do that. I’ve been running my Pi like that for at least a year. But I felt like I needed something new, more powerful.

Enter MightyBoost – a multi purpose PSU that can supply the power a Pi needs, and also be controllable by a Moteino (including wirelessly controllable if needed) such that it would duplicate the functionality of ATXRaspi. And most importantly to be able to run it on battery backup in case power is lost, to avoid SD card corruption and downtime. Also it can monitor the battery (via Moteino A7) and shutdown the Pi in time before the battery runs out, as a last resort. Without a Moteino it can be used as a general purpose 5V boost-from-lipo power supply, that can also charge your tablet/iPhone/droid/etc.

I have now upgraded my Pi gateway to using MightyBoost. I had to lasercut a new mid layer for my existing Pi Gateway lasercut case. I have posted the changes (corel and DXF files) in the github repo so you can customize &/or lasercut your own if you’d like. As usual, I like to cut the new template in cardboard and do a fitting test, measure any adjustments, re-cut if needed, then finally when it’s perfect cut it in the more expensive translucent acrylic. Continue reading →