We’ve shipped over 900 boards. Use our Order page to get yours now!
Introducing the Red Reactor
The premium uninterruptable battery powered solution for the Raspberry Pi
So, why another battery powered UPS for the Raspberry Pi?
Maybe you want to make your project more portable, but by the time you’ve added a display, sensors and other USB devices you need something more robust than a basic design.
In the development of several Raspberry Pi projects, we tried many commercially available boards and were surprised to find that none seemed to be designed with all of the basic requirements that you might expect:
- Read the actual battery voltage and current in software for safe shutdown
- Detect in software when a charger is connected / disconnected
- Deliver enough current for the Raspberry PI, a display and other ancillaries
- Fused, Battery over-charge/discharge protection to maintain battery life
- Seamless supply transition from battery to mains even under high load
- Designed to operate from standard 5V USB adaptors
- Extremely low current draw when not in use @ < 100uA
- Attach below the Raspberry Pi, to enable full access to the 40-pin header
- Standard connection to popular low cost 18650 batteries
- Seamless integration with your project, access ON button state in software, with Hard RESET function
That's why we designed the ultimate UPS ourselves
The Red Reactor is a high-performance battery power board designed to meet all these requirements, and has been tested cleanly delivering in excess of 4 Amps to a wide range of designs from the Raspberry Pi 4, Model 3 (A+ and B+), and Pi Zero, along with ancillaries such as a display, USB hub for keyboard, mouse and webcam, and even an audio amplifier. Directly connects with any 40-pin Raspberry Pi.
But don’t think of this as just another battery power supply. The design enables you to maximise battery life (using the hugely popular, highly capable and cost effective 18650 batteries) with carefully managed charge cycles and ultra low leakage, yet is able to drive large loads whilst giving you accurate battery information in software to decide when to safely shutdown. The Red Reactor’s connector ports make it easy for you to wire into your project, for example, to choose your own on/off button and not be tied to a tiny button on the board, and wire up power to external devices.
The same on/off button also controls the ‘RUN’ reset signal, so you have the option to reset your system if your software gets stuck!
Available with ‘Pogo Pins’ for a solder-less connection the design can fit neatly underneath a Raspberry Pi so that the 40-pin header connector remains free for all those accessories you want to use in your project!
Order page is now Live!
We are a small but experienced team of engineers and marketeers based in Cambridge, UK, and have collectively spent more than 50 years developing electronic and wireless products. We also love playing around with gadgets.
We had already successfully built and tested a prototype battery power supply that provides all the these features, but we postponed our Kickstarter launch in 2021 due to Covid and the subsequent component supply issues. We simply did not want to commit to a delivery that we knew would be delayed because of this.
After joining the PCBWAY crowdfunding project sponsorship program, we made our our final prototypes with them to verify the component changes made due to supply issues. The production was completed without any problems and each and every board underwent very extensive testing back at base.
We have successfully completed our Kickstarter campaign with over 400 backers, exceeding our goals by 300% and have now fulfilled all our Kickstarter orders with some great reviews! (and a lot of traffic to our GitHub site ♥)
With this production run we have more units and more custom Pogo-pins for sale right now. Just head over to our order form, but you’ll need to be quick!
Check out the intro video
Please keep checking our News page for regular updates and feature articles!