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Sleepy Pi - A Sleep mode and Arduino I/O board. A Call For Volunteers

fuffkin

I’ve been testing some of my Sleepy Pi prototype boards and am just about to order a number of next revision boards.

 

I’d love to give out some of this next batch of boards to the community to test out.

 

I actually designed this as an add-on to a humane Mouse-trap. These are all well and good, but if you don't check them every day, the poor mouse still snuffs it.  The idea of the Sleepy Pi is that it'll implement a "Wake-n-mouse" (as opposed to Wake-on-lan image) and take a photo of the captive mouse and either tweet or email it to me.

 

In terms of functionality the Sleepy Pi is essentially a Smart Power Management board for the Raspberry Pi that includes a low power Arduino that stays powered when the Raspberry Pi is off. In this way it can reduce the overall power used by the RPi, particularly when powered from batteries in applications where the RPi doesn’t need to be on all the time. You can think of it as adding a “Sleep” mode to the Raspberry Pi, because the Arduino can periodically wake the  RPi up to perform a task and then put it back to sleep. As a side benefit you also get some Arduino I/O to play with, like Analogue Inputs and PWM’s.


Key functions:

  • Reduce the effective Power consumption of the Raspberry Pi
  • Power directly from batteries up to 17V
  • Adds Arduino I/O to the Raspberry Pi such as Analogue In or PWM
  • Break out the Raspberry Pi GPIO & Arduino I/O to screw terminals
  • Prototyping area and expansion headers for daughter boards
  • Power button for manual switch on/off
  • “Wake” or “Sleep” in response to events or triggers such as:
    • Analogue value crosses a threshold
    • Digital input changes
    • Specific time to “wake” via Real-time Clock

 

Is this something people could use? Can you think of an applications you'd use one for?

 

I would love to hear any feedback. You can contact me either through the forum or on my blog at http:www.spellfoundry.com

 

Jon

  • Jon

     

    Are you commanding the Pi to sleep, or just 'pulling the plug'.

     

    I have a project using a Pi, camera and WiFi that is solar powered, and doesn't need to run 24hrs.

    I was intending to do something very similar, so I'm interested in your solution.

     

    When is the next run and what prices are you talking.

    I might know someone who might be interested in selling these, if the price is right.

     

     

    Thanks

    Mark

    New Zealand.

  • in reply to mcb1

    Hi Mark,

     

    That sounds like an ideal Sleepy Pi appication. It basically helps in situations where the Pi dosne't need to be up all the time i.e. datalogging & time lapse and is particularly relevant for battery or solar powered Pis.

     

    In terms of how it shuts down, the Pi is commanded to shutdown and then once it has stopped, the "plug is pulled". Thus when "asleep", the Pi consumes zero power. The only power consumed is the Arduino which is asleep in the traditional way. Start-up is the reverse, physically powering back on the Pi.

     

    I'm hoping the next run will be ready in around 3-4 weeks. I haven't fixed pricing yet for the final boards, but unless anything drastic changes, it's likely to be somewhere in the 30-40 GBP range.

     

    I would be more than happy to speak to anyone interested in selling these.

     

    Jon

  • Jon

    I think this would be a great product.  I know off the top of my head one use i would use this for.  Being from Wisconsin and huge into hunting every year around late July we start to put out scout cameras to track the whitetails to tell us how many, what size and when they are moving on the property but having 100s of acres to walk around and swap out the sd card just takes forever.  What i want to do is attach a Pi to each camera and have it transmit all the pictures to 1 central station located in the cabin.  Now this transmission only has to be every 2 weeks or so, so this product would work great to turn on the pi and push what needs to be pushed then shut itself back off.  If your looking to have someone to test this i would be more than happy.

     

    Nate

  • in reply to Nate1616

    Hi Nate,

     

    Thanks for sharing that application, I love all the wildlife applications that are coming out. I started life as a Biologist, which led me to in a very roundabout route to Machine Vision & engineering. Anything that combines cameras with PI's and wildlife gets my vote (ok, even if you go and shoot them later image)

     

    I think the Sleepy Pi could definately be pressed into service here and I'll gladly send you one to test when they're ready.

     

    Jon

  • in reply to fuffkin

    Jon

     

    Thanks for the update.

     

    The NZ$ v pound make this is the $60-70 range, which is more than a full size Arduino and the associated Pi interface.

    I'm certain it has more features, and presents a very compact solution.

    Good luck with your project.

     

     

    Mark

  • in reply to fuffkin

    LOL Jon.  Dont worry we are not out there just shooting anything.  We do deer management which means we try to keep a 1:4 ratio of bucks to doe and the bucks have to score at least 140 inches to shoot.  Let me tell you this has shown some pretty impressive results.  Its not uncommon now to shoot a buck that scores at least 160 inches.

     

    Nate

  • Hey Jonathan

    Just checking back in to see if you have any of these ready for beta testers.

     

    Nate

  • in reply to Nate1616

    Nate,

     

    You're absolutely right, about time for an update:

     

    The new boards are in and I've build up a couple for commissioning. I'm about half-way though this at the moment and so far no issues. If the other 50% also presents no major problems, I should be ready for a full update early next week, which hopefully will be kicking off the beta build and I can let you have some clearer dates then.

     

    Jon

  • in reply to Nate1616

    Nate,

     

    You're absolutely right, about time for an update:

     

    The new boards are in and I've build up a couple for commissioning. I'm about half-way though this at the moment and so far no issues. If the other 50% also presents no major problems, I should be ready for a full update early next week, which hopefully will be kicking off the beta build and I can let you have some clearer dates then.

     

    Jon

  • I would be very interested in testing and possibly helping to debug the boards ... I have some experience in those areas.