Problems with external power supply for DIY edition

[rohit21agrawal]

Subject of the issue

Powering my RPi3 + AutoPi DIY through an external 13.5 V supply (through the OBD connector) , my device keeps getting rebooted or turned off from time to time.

Steps to reproduce

I am currently trying to use the DIY AutoPi dongle to connect it to my own web service built on top Micosoft Azure using IoTHub. I need the device to always stay powered on, and am using an external power supply and powering my autopi through the OBD connector with 13.5 V. However, the device keeps rebooting randomly.

Is this expected? Is there a way to prevent this from happening? Can the power management feature be turned off?

[Malte]

Hi Rohit

Have you seen this guide?

Using the AutoPi with an external power supply (LAB)

The device you have is pre-configured to work directly in your car. When working it in a lab environment you may need to supply the AutoPi with a controlled power supply. There is a couple of things you should be aware of, before connecting your device: Always power your AutoPi from the OBD connector. Don’t use the power inputs on the Raspberry Pi. This makes some of the function on the AutoPi not function correctly and could potentially damage your AutoPi device. The AutoPi has several c…

Best regards
/Malte

[Peter]

Hi @rohit21agrawal,

Welcome to the community.

This is the intended functionality. The device powers down because it has no connection to a car and then powers down due to inactivity. This is a standard safety measure to make sure your car battery is not drained.

For testing purposes I recommend that you simply disable the sleep timers. See docs here:

http://docs.autopi.io/commands/power/#power-sleep-timer

Best of luck with you project.

/Peter

[rohit21agrawal]

@Peter so am in a situation where the autopi powers off/restart while i am installing raspbian and it’s incredibly frustrating.

Also, how do i get the autopi executable to run these commands on the terminal? Sorry if this is a noob question, but i am having a hard time getting this off the ground. Appreciate yours and @Malte 's timely response.

[Peter]

No noob questions with us.

I dont understand why you would be installing raspbian. Why not just start with the image we provide? Its Raspbian on the image.

If you want to make sure it stays on, you can always plug in the little jumper in the corner (#2):

AutoPi connection overview

This is a diagram showing the connection possibilities of the AutoPi Upstream USB connector to RPi GPIO Jumper to force 5V on RPi always (disables sleeptimers from hardware) OBD Connection to car JST connector for external speaker GPIO Pins for RPi and external connection SIM card slot for modem USB connectors for external use [connectors_on_top]

If you want to run the commands directly from the terminal, the just prefix the command with autopi, like:

autopi power.status

You can run any command from our docs.

best
Peter

[rohit21agrawal]

@Peter could you link me to the image please? I wasn’t aware there was a custom raspbian image for autopi

[rohit21agrawal]

@Peter actually is there a private chat/email where i can talk to you more about this and explain my business scenario?

[Peter]

Hi @rohit21agrawal

I’ve send you a pm.

For others see this thread

Reflashing your device

If you find yourself in need of reflashing your device, then you can always get the latest AutoPi Core image right here: The image will work for all editions. We recommend using Etcher for flashing, it will take the GZ image directly and flash it: Once you have flashed your device, you will need to have it re-accepted in the AutoPi Cloud. To do so, just send an e-mail to support@autopi.io with your device ID. Alternatively, prior to flashing you can manually backup the key files in /etc/sa…

Best
Peter