Improving quality/stability of power

[Toulon7559]

Generally, Raspberries are susceptible for the quality of their power supply.
Therefore, for my 'production' Raspberries the Power Supplies are 'original' and/or bigger capacity than required.

Still the impression that these Power Supplies (occasionally) transfer the transients from the 230V-Network due to switching consumers and due to 'noise' caused by those consumers. Such transfer then causes disturbance or even stop in the operation of the Raspberries.

Any 'tricks' to improve the quality of the 230V-inputs to the Power Supplies?
Or is add-on backup battery a good idea (experiences/advices?)?

[EddyG]

Current Raspberry Pi 4B has a 5.1 Volt power supply. Don't use cheap powersupplies.
If you want to be save use https://geekworm.com/products/raspberry ... ment-board
Or something like that.
I use https://geekworm.com/products/raspberry ... 6447&_ss=r
with a 5.1 Volt 4A power supply which is connected to an APC UPS, which is used for a lot of other things.

[mpx2]

Generally, Raspberries are susceptible for the quality of their power supply.
Therefore, for my 'production' Raspberries the Power Supplies are 'original' and/or bigger capacity than required.

Still the impression that these Power Supplies (occasionally) transfer the transients from the 230V-Network due to switching consumers and due to 'noise' caused by those consumers. Such transfer then causes disturbance or even stop in the operation of the Raspberries.

Any 'tricks' to improve the quality of the 230V-inputs to the Power Supplies?
Or is add-on backup battery a good idea (experiences/advices?)?

Try this Universal broadband mains filter adapter 3 A model. The 3 A 750 W model is the most efficient.
https://www.amazon.de/Netzfilter-Univer ... 084JG4NXK/

I don't use UPS because the last power down was 3 years ago but refrigerator and air conditioner are causing interference.

For final touch you can add ferrite to USB cable just before the Raspberry Pi.

ferrite.jpg (37.16 KiB) Viewed 2328 times

[Toulon7559]

Comments to the responses

1.Power supply with much larger capacity than required is a simple remedy to overcome short dips.
2. Mains filter setup with coils & capacitors indeed a good countermeasure at entry-side against spikes and noise, but a 1A-version seems to provide ample space for my modest power needs
3. Ferrites are general 'suppression-devices' in my setups around the data-lines and at the power-entries to devices. Often very effectieve
4. Against power-dips also thinking about integrated power supplies with widere entry-range like this device, but no experience seen.
Would such device 'clean/smooth' an incoming dip?

[fargle]

Its a bit more expensive in terms of time and money, but I use wired LAN PoE connections with PoE hats or converters. So power is doubly filtered by the LAN switch PSU and the PoE circuitry. If more protection were needed, I would run the switch from an UPS, device uptimes are completely dependent on the availability of the incoming mains, not its quality.

Headless Pi 3 Model B, no wifi or Bluetooth, drawing less than half an amp:
.

poe2.jpg (25.1 KiB) Viewed 2294 times

[mpx2]

Toulon7559. Do you know which electronic devices cause interference? You can add filters for those devices or try to use different phase.

Schaffner IF13-SE-H05-3100-WF-XXX dual stage filter is another alternative to filter mains
https://www.schaffner.com/products/emcemi/

[Toulon7559]

Unfortunately (like many dutch houses) 3 phases enter my house, but internally in my house the 230V-net has only 1 phase.
Obviously switching-on of a high load may cause a short, visible netdip, hence to be avoided (if possible).
Generally the most 'disturbing' devices are dimmable lamps, electronic power-controllers (regardless specs) and group switches for power:
just surprising what kind of transient/glitch is caused if you jointly switch on/off 2 monitors/flatscreens ........
[have been triggering a few times an electronic fuse when switching-on a set of computers plus their peripherals]

Already have a segment with an entry-mainsfilter before the 230V-power distribution to the devices
and in same segment ferrites for each device's entry point for data and for power: result is rather stable operation.
Was looking for a more sophisticated solution, but reading the responses seems prudent & cost-effective to repeat that passive filter-setup for a next segment.

Additional (very cheap, but effective) measure is discipline to separately switch-off/-on devices to prevent those high, simultaneous transients:
the cost is just 'remembering & paying attention'.

[EddyG]

I had the same problem with switching on all those electronic devices, it even trips my 30mA earth leakage circuit breaker several times.
That is why I purchased a UPS.

[Toulon7559]

@EddyG

A 'central' UPS to feed the sensitive devices is a good investment, but limits the locations of those devices and usually a bit oversized for the needs.

To make the power supply for those devices independent/ autonomous, as 'ceiling-solution' thinking about 'mini-UPS' per device like Strom-Pi.
Enough advertisements, but not seeing experience-comments about such setups and cost almost same as for the device itself (which seems excessive):
therefore the 2nd question at the start of this thread.

The 2nd comment under this article mentions a practical solution with an 'intermediate battery'.
Seems comparable with this setup, but would prefer a solution with lower DIY-level for UPS:
this website (with nice informative comparison-list) aims at a kickstarter-solution which would be more fitting my approach and needs to support a few 'production'-Raspberries.

[mpx2]

I had the same problem with switching on all those electronic devices, it even trips my 30mA earth leakage circuit breaker several times.
That is why I purchased a UPS.

What is your UPS model? There's not much filtering in basic UPSs. Online UPSs with high quality sine wave are very expensive.

https://community.fs.com/blog/line-inte ... e-ups.html

Raspberry Pi use 5 V DC so that's why I used power filter for 230 V, high quality 5 DC converter and 5 V battery. I removed the battery because there was no need for it. Raspberry Pi is not my most sensitive device.

I would like to see what's in inside the t.racks Power Conditioner 12
https://www.thomann.de/gb/the_t.racks_p ... ner_12.htm

[EddyG]

I have a APC BR 1500G-GR UPS which is used for a lot more than just my Raspberries.
I also use the for my electric driven roller-shutters, because when the power goes down I have to be able to get out of my house.
Almost nobody give that a thought.
I might be that the UPS does not give a sinewave, but there you have a good converter from 230V to 5.1 Volt for.

[pgielen]

If you want to be save use https://geekworm.com/products/raspberry ... ment-board
Or something like that.

I have installed the X728 along with the X825 and an SSD into a X825-C6 metal case. It is a bit of a hardware hack (you will have to grind some extra holes in the case) but it works great and makes your system more reliable. See my blog at robothuis.nl for more details, software and test results (it is in Dutch but has an English translate button).