How reliable is the automatic power management?

1st. batch user here. Is the current state of power management 100% tested, rock solid, etc.?

As much as I like tinkering with electronics and KS products, our (only) car is still very essential for family logistics. If the car’s battery is drained one morning, because I’ve been goofing around for no good reason, my wife will kill me for sure - and you will loose a tester :wink:

On the other hand, if you say it’s OK, I will mount the Autopi permanently.

Hi

The low voltage cutoff is pretty low level, and thus pretty stable. We have been running the current version of the smart power management firmware on devices permanently installed for several months now, without experiencing any real issues, where a critical issue would be something like draining the battery.

The low level voltage cut-off is the lowest level of protection, as we also introduced an inactivity timer, that will make the device sleep when the car has been off for a while. So you will most definitely not even reach the low voltage cut-off - unless you park at the airport for, say, several weeks.

So based on our experiences it is pretty solid :slight_smile:
I hope this answers your questions.

Best regards
/ Malte

Building on the question on power management I have a related question.
What if low voltage cutoff kicks in? Is a safe shutdown signal send to the Pi and does is power off in a proper way?
From what I’ve read is that the file system can crash / go corrupt when power is suddenly cut without shutting down first.

Hi Lars

Yes, the raspberry will get a signal to shut down and then it will shutdown the proper way, to prevent any corruption issues.
We have not had any corruption issues, but we know that it is a real issue, so we have made a bunch of changes to the image to minimize writes to the SD card, to further decrease the risk of corrupting the SD card.

Best regards
/ Malte

1 Like

Today was the battery level in my Hyundai Ioniq Electric 12v 40% when i look 3:00 PM
Then the car was still about 24 hours.
But i can see in the loog that the last event was 06:15 Am so it had shut down then.

When i see the logg so was the last registration of battery voltage 12.4v 9:36 PM the day before not in the logg after that?
I am just wondering if this is normal or should i bee worried to have a empty battery if it has been still for more days?
https://photos.app.goo.gl/snYNW2FbxMUQHxZK9
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZwwntMLigdCMsMJD6
https://photos.app.goo.gl/K5PjKEJya963cVqD9
Regard Jörgen

My car (Hyundai Ioniq Electric) was still for 1 day and now it was a critical level 11,9 volt on battery.
So i was plugged in the charger for the battery to be sure

Hi @jorgeli,

The power management should should down the AutoPi, when voltage drops below 12.2V and not wake up untill you charge or start your vehicle.

Let me know if this is what you see?

best
Peter

Hi Peter
I think the problem is that AutoPi not always recognize when engine is “on” with a electric car
Sometime when my EV is still all day and critical level on 12v battery it lock like it has start up any way.
Its the same when i am driving then Autopi is power down sometime because it thinks engine stop
Regard Jörgen