You could use a small piece of plastic to slide between the connectors of the batteries. Then you can just pull it out to energize the ups. Great build.
@@valzzu but for a NAS I'd go with the RPi 4 CM, there you've got a PCIe interface where you'd be able to put a dedicated RAID Controller or SATA Controller in and be more or less all set :D
@@valzzu I'm currently in the process of acquiring all the parts. Since I'm into photography, I do want to have a NAS but I don't want to pay extreme amounts of money for it, when I can have it for way cheaper (or better for the same price) 😂😂😂
Interesting project, so far I haven't found anything like it. The idea of making it energetically tougher and independent is perfect, especially when it comes to use as a NAS and server.
This would be perfect if the units could be stacked next to each other in a daisy chain, to allow a large number of servers in a compact form factor! Also maybe finding a way to shut down the fan when running on battery power to squeeze out an extra few Watts, like powering it via V-USB directly instead of the VCC
@@MichaelKlements actually it would also help to only enable the fan once it comes above a certain temperature, and disable it once it comes below a certain temperature. since the raspberry pi uses quite low wattage, even under decent load, so the fan might be using as much if not more power as the rest of the setup. the icetower cooler you used should also be capable of keeping a raspberry pi 4 around 30 degrees celcius below the throttle temperature when the fan is of. so unless you are going to run it in a hot environment or overclock it quite much you wouldn't even need the fan to be on and so it would be a safety measure just in case it gets to warm, so for example enabling it at 60 or 70 degrees and disabling it when it is around 55 for the 60, or 60 for the 70. you could also add a delay to it turning of since many compute intensive peaks tend to be close to eachother, or you could automate it using the cpu and gpu usage to predict thermal peaks, however the termal activation and deactivation with a slight offset and a delay before turning it of would be a simple solution. the delay is meant so the activation and deactivation temperature can be closer to eachother without the fan constantly needing to start and stop, so it is a optimization for if you would run it in a hot environment like a server rack. I have also found out of my own experience with a custom soc which is quite similar to the raspberry pi 4 but older that when using it as a server for a website and with a decently compute intensive game server running at the same time the wattage of the board will easly stay below 5w when tweaked propperly. note that that speciffic sbc should have a higher power consumption than a raspberry pi. people have tweaked raspberry pi s to run at much lower wattages than that, however with the automatic clock managing in the os you used in this video you will also in general get very low wattages whenever your cpu is not fully loaded.
Very astute, almost feel like you could remove the fan entirely and use a large heatspreader cooler block instead. That is the way to get the most battery power, you could even undervolt the Pi a little too. I don't know about the software but I doubt it requires the full available power for just server stuff. That way you could have a row of half a dozen of these without worrying about the noise or the heat!
I did not know a UPS like this existed! Welp there goes some more of my money. I'd just been using my usb power banks whenever I needed the Pi to be portable. This will make it so much easier.
@@kkazakov Get one that supports QC3 (Qualcom Quick Charge 3). They are pretty common these days and you can run a Pi 4 from them. A powerbank with usb c PD is even better
Amazing concept! I can see adding a door on the bottom to allow access to the batteries whenever needed, and moving the display to the other end of the case so that all the cables come out the "back" of the chassis, then adding a door/cover for the micro-SD card, and perhaps using the other fan to exhaust out the back or top of the case, and a simple 3D printed push button mounted on the side to reach the UPS' function button.
@@MichaelKlements how much would you charge to print a case with the display cutout at the front and a push button for the function switch? i don't own a 3D printer. i love your video
@@odiliomartinez4338 if he cant do it I believe there are some companies that print stuff for you and ship it to you so you would just need to get the file with the design on or make your own
For temporary isolation during assembly, you could put a small plastic ribbon or other low-friction insulator between the contacts, similar to how some electronics are shipped. When you've completed assembly, yank on the ribbon and the contacts meet.
I love it! Just a suggestion. Attach all hats outside the case and insert the UPS batteries last. Then using screws through the bottom of the case, screw down the standoffs on the UPS to the case. This would reduce the risks I'm seeing handling powered components during hat assembly.
This is so professional looking. My only suggestion would be to have all the ports at the back and the display should be on the same side where the SD card is inserted. Other than that it looks and is an amazing upgrade.
Hello again Michael! Just finished this project and am happy to report that it is working perfectly! If anyone is interested, I printed the case on my Snapmaker V2 and also cut the side panels with it as well. It is only a 1.6 watt diode laser, but if you use black 3mm (1/8") acrylic and the right settings (several slow passes) they came out great! Thanks again for the project!
Thanks for sharing your experiences. How do you find your Snapmaker? I've been looking at trying one out, but I've got versions of the individual machines already, so haven't gotten around to it.
@@MichaelKlements The Snapmaker is very well constructed and sturdy. That said, it takes a little while to change from one tool head to another. I don't use the cnc head now but probably will fairly soon. If a person has the room, separate machines that have the attributes you need are probably best. :-)
Thanks for the reply and feedback. It looks like a good quality product from their marketing videos and the reviews I've seen for it. The CNC head is one of the tools that I'd probably use more often as my current CNC machine is quite small (only about 150mm x 150mm to work with). I'll give it some thought again soon, thanks!
@@MichaelKlements My pleasure. Also, I bought the rotary module but not yet installed the thing. That has a lot of possibilities. And, thank you again for the Pi project. I'm retired, but still enjoy learning - and making. Your video and supporting web site were a pleasure to follow. Thanks again!!!
With skill sets like this you need to work for Apple. Once your there they will teach you how to design stuff that can't be opened cleaned and upgraded by 99% of humanity!
Great work, here are my two "quality of life" advices that might help in the long run: Add a grill in front of where you mount the fan, so it would be safer in case of something flies into it. Add a lid at the bottom of the case so you can insert batteries after you built rest of the system and you can use it in case you need to change the batteries (dead batteries etc.) in the future as well without disassembling the whole system. Also I read this in another comment, moving fan to the top of the case might result in better airflow as well. Again, great work though, I might buy one of these in the near future for my small projects. 👍👍👍
🤨 - he has also positioned the fan back to front = blowing air into the cabinet and out the lower vents with the fan at the top side….. 🙄 has forgotten that heat rises = the fan should be mounted the other way to draw the hot air out the case and cool air in through the lower vents ✅
To isolate the batteries when inserting everything in the case you can use a normal plastic sheet (like they do in new electronics that come with batteries pre installed) and pull it out when it is ready. you can also make 2 small holes under the batteries where they make contact so you can insert something between them and the contacts.
you should consider moving the fan to the top of the case, directly above the ice tower cooler, then add a duct that sends all air through the ice tower cooling finns.
What's the point of that though? The current cooling arrangement is already overkill, and the airflow needs to be free enough to pass over the batteries/ups
Great idea. I was thinking the same. Duct is not needed, but vertical airflow from the top near the cooler is nice. I wan to know what kind of noise produce the fan. I'm using a passive cooling case solution from pimorini and love it. 👍
Vertical airflow from the top will help add more battery to the bottom of the case with out much hassle. by moving the fan to the top of the case. plus it will be better for cable management also shame to waste all that space...
There are all kinds of possibilities. I'm thinking of an internal SSD and also a powered USB hub as well. It would take a bit of a redesign though to make room.
@@ninline2000 he still maximized the space and got a LOT of features into this tiny package that I wouldn't have thought of. I am curious which program he uses to design his CAD designs. I am working on getting my Pi to run a 3D printer for a class project and it looks like that one may be a possibility if it can run on a Pi 3B+.
This is exactly what I envisioned when you first produced this type of Pi case. It's excellent to see a working version! Unfortunately, if you have to change the batteries for any reason, it's going to require disassembly of the entire unit. How many cycles do you think these will last, and under standard load (no monitor), how long do they last?
Yeah I need to look at putting a battery cover into the bottom of the case as well. 18650 cells typically do around 300-500 cycles, but in a UPS they shouldn't be fully cycled very often. I'd guess that you should be replacing them every two years or so.
@@MichaelKlements Alternatively, you could reverse the orientation of the standoffs (you might need different ones) and have everything secured with four screws that go up through the bottom of the case. That would allow you to remove the entire Pi setup without having to disassemble it.
Very nice stylish design. Ignore all the negative nannies as no single computer or design, is the best for ALL applications. You have shown an ability to design a functional device that is also aesthetically pleasing. If that enclosure was available for purchase, I'd buy it.
If you ever rebuild this, you could probably put in a battery access hatch on the bottom, to allow safer assembly of the unit, and easier means to replace batteries when they are at their end of life. Cool project though!
4:00 It's better to make the cut out at the bottom of the case for separating the battery, so it doesn't have potential short while assembly or maintenance. imo
This is actually cool project it gives me ideas a lots about what we can do on Raspberry pi and design is great. I'm willing to see more about these nice contents. awesome dude Keep it up !
stop promoting this garbage Raspberry pi, just buy a j4125 12v mini pc(router size), or a 12v ds220+ synology, a bit priced doubled but it will give you the speed, and tools you need.
@@xienjougao3131 lol you clearly do not get the purpose of the Raspberry Pi. What does that mini PC have for ports and how power and heat eifficent it is? Does it have GPIO pins, camera and display connecters? Does somehow that Intel CPU consume less power and produce less heat then that Broadcom CPU? The Raspberry Pi was originally designed for electronic projects that needs a full-fledge computer instead of a microcontroller. Its design allows it be flexable, and being a low-power server is one of its viable uses. That mini-pc maybe more powerful and modular but it consumes more power, plus where are you gonna stick that battery and stats display in? You will need task manager constantly open and as soon a blackout appears and you haven't found a way to jerry-rig a battery in there, you are going to lose your data. (Aslo the Raspberry Pi is smaller as well.)
I have been running a home NAS on a Raspberry pi 3 and recently 4 using a powered hub and 6 portable USB disks - in total I have 10TB on three Ext4 drives and rsync them to 10TB on 3 NTFS backup drives. It's been pretty good, with SMB sharing at home and FTP server access from the internet.....BUT I rarely achieve more than a few MB/s transfer rates even between ext4 and local USB drive on another port on the same RPi. Recently I have moved to a Mini PC (costing less than an RPi4) running Openmediavault. It took less effort to setup than the RPi - and uses less power (surprisingly).
Never had a Pi nor did any programming but this looks like a really nice and sleek solution ! Love it ! For the battery issue: - add a lid for exchanging the batteries or - screw the feet in from the outside (so you can pre assemble the electrics) - or just insert 2 pieces of plastic folio under the battery’s contacts and pull them after the electrics are installed
You could have used some plastic tabs to isolate the battery positives in the case until the build was complete then removed them with tweezers. Remember heat rises so the fan may have worked better in an exhaust up position in the top of the case. Great video thanks for the ride along during the build and the time it takes to make, edit and upload these videos sir.
It says "Raspberry pi server" not NAS/Media Sever. He says in the descriprion that one of it's uses could be as such, but lists 1 or 2 other uses. And if you wanted to convert it to that, the only difference is you would plug in hard drives with SATA to USB converters and download the necessary programs. Maybe print a drive enclosure
Ya I mean the titled did imply that it would be more than just your standard "watch me put together a raspberry pi build as easy as snapping lego pieces together" video everyone makes.
This is absolutely great piece of work 🙌. Keep showcasing more on these lines. For batteries I guess you could have created a separate section which would have created a partition automatically providing a chamber like design. I hope you got the idea of isolation of PCB and the power module. I guess it was doable since you're making your own 3d printed server console.
If you're worried about something like that being powered during assembly, put some plastic tabs over the battery terminals while you work like they do on toys shipped with batteries installed. Then when your work is done you can pull the tabs out. Just make the tabs from a blister pack.
A joy to watch, thankyou for sharing. For future reference, you can slide a thin plastic insulating shim between the +ve battery end and the contacts for each battery to keep the UPS unpowered. Then pull them out with tweezers when all assembled.
Great work! Would love to see a version with doube SSD drives. In that way a software RAID 1 can be configured. In combination with the UPS that would be awesome.
Elegant design. I wonder if the cooling ability is affected by separating the fan from the low-profile tower. Perhaps the vertical Ice Tower is a better choice?
Or remove the fan entirely and use a large heatspreader cooling block instead along with thermal pads to attach it to the components directly. Silent and cool! Then you could even stack them in rows without worry.
Doesn't seem like there's a whole lot going on at the bottom of the case. Maybe add a little door that snaps shut so you can build it and install the batteries after?
It would be interesting to install a touch screen or plain screen on the top and connect it so that you don't have to use a giant display. This would be far more efficient for a power interruption as it uses far less lower and is small enough it could easily fit. Can set a switch or a script with the ups so that the screen only comes on if you hit the switch or the power is interrupted. Just an idea when I saw the display plugged in and how much power it takes, and the fact it's not integrated. Great job on this, thoroughly enjoyed it!
At least a 4" screen would be way cool, and when you run it headless then you could still have fun displaying animations lol *Edit: obviously wouldn't be power efficient.
Awesome solution! I have a Pi running Ubuntu Server that is running a Python/Django based site. Using Python/Django to monitor/control fish tanks so I love the backup power capability of this, it would tie in nicely to the backup power for various pumps on my fish tank setup. Thanks for sharing!
I would love to see this with an added feature of an internal hdd through a sata hat. I use my pi 4 as a Plex server with a data hat and I don't think there's enough options options to add multiple different types of hats to the pi such as a sata hat plus ups hat and a case that holds it all.
Hi. Will be really nice if you make something to mont one HDD externally, our even inside the case... I have a NAS Nextcloud in my pi4 I have a tower looks like your but a made a support for HDD like a stand for whole tower.
All this effort and high risk of shorting the Pi could have easily been avoided by a simple hardware mod to include a switch to isolate the batteries during assembly. UPDATE: He mentions this later as an improvement to the design.
This is amazing!!!!!!!! Besides having to worry about the board! Really they should have some type of protection! I bought one that said it had protection and it didn't! So many uses if they made these items more friendly to use!
You could solder switches across a small double-sided PCB, then insert the PCB between the battery, and the contact on the PCB holder. Excellent design BTM.
A little more room so you can add a PCI NVME SSD. There is a dual m.2 PCI adapter that would let you use one NVME SSD plus a Google Coral board if you wanted to add some dedicated ML capability. This really showcases what you can do with the lower power ARM platforms, even if there are comparable or more powerful Intel options as they just are not as efficient or easy to hack.
Excellent work. I wish it could have 3 batteries on the bottom and 3bon the top, all of them in parallel for more autonomy. Really practical for schools specially in 3rd World Countries, and low budget solutions
Just noticed this, after pulling the power cable, battery goes automatically from 95% to 70%. This could be because it's polling the battery voltage during the CV phase of charge, which provides the 4.2v constant charge voltage and is confused as the battery voltage (or an average of both). Once unplugged, the 4.2v is no longer supplied and drops to actual voltage. Best way to poll battery voltage (via software) is to interrupt CV briefly to poll battery voltage, and then resume. At least that's what I think, I could be wrong.
This is beautiful work. From case to code, and integrating the UPS, you have created a fabulous solution.
Thank you!
I'm sorry to say its hard to pick up as your voice is not clear .
@@shavindraf Voice was perfectly clear on my end.
@@shavindraf His voice is crystal clear.
stylish body👍
Thanks! Once I found out it was you that created this even after I bought another case I thought Iowed you something
Thanks Tim, much appreciated
You could use a small piece of plastic to slide between the connectors of the batteries. Then you can just pull it out to energize the ups. Great build.
I should have read down further.
Which would help during the initial installation but not for later on if you need to be able to turn off the UPS entirely.
@@jeffumbach Just slide it back in lol
Then you have to use 2 piece of plastic on bolth battery
also piece of norml paper could do the job and is easier to pry out :D
This tiny server packs a punch with aesthetics!
This would be perfect as a home assistant server!
Could you recommend good open source home assistant software?
Or NAS maybe
@@valzzu but for a NAS I'd go with the RPi 4 CM, there you've got a PCIe interface where you'd be able to put a dedicated RAID Controller or SATA Controller in and be more or less all set :D
@@playeronthebeat good to know, propably gonna make one when i move out.
@@valzzu I'm currently in the process of acquiring all the parts.
Since I'm into photography, I do want to have a NAS but I don't want to pay extreme amounts of money for it, when I can have it for way cheaper (or better for the same price) 😂😂😂
Interesting project, so far I haven't found anything like it. The idea of making it energetically tougher and independent is perfect, especially when it comes to use as a NAS and server.
That's a pretty slick case you've got going there. And the UPS is nice too.
3d printing ftw!
This would be perfect if the units could be stacked next to each other in a daisy chain, to allow a large number of servers in a compact form factor! Also maybe finding a way to shut down the fan when running on battery power to squeeze out an extra few Watts, like powering it via V-USB directly instead of the VCC
Thanks for the tip, that's a good idea on the fan.
@@MichaelKlements actually it would also help to only enable the fan once it comes above a certain temperature, and disable it once it comes below a certain temperature. since the raspberry pi uses quite low wattage, even under decent load, so the fan might be using as much if not more power as the rest of the setup.
the icetower cooler you used should also be capable of keeping a raspberry pi 4 around 30 degrees celcius below the throttle temperature when the fan is of. so unless you are going to run it in a hot environment or overclock it quite much you wouldn't even need the fan to be on and so it would be a safety measure just in case it gets to warm, so for example enabling it at 60 or 70 degrees and disabling it when it is around 55 for the 60, or 60 for the 70. you could also add a delay to it turning of since many compute intensive peaks tend to be close to eachother, or you could automate it using the cpu and gpu usage to predict thermal peaks, however the termal activation and deactivation with a slight offset and a delay before turning it of would be a simple solution. the delay is meant so the activation and deactivation temperature can be closer to eachother without the fan constantly needing to start and stop, so it is a optimization for if you would run it in a hot environment like a server rack.
I have also found out of my own experience with a custom soc which is quite similar to the raspberry pi 4 but older that when using it as a server for a website and with a decently compute intensive game server running at the same time the wattage of the board will easly stay below 5w when tweaked propperly. note that that speciffic sbc should have a higher power consumption than a raspberry pi. people have tweaked raspberry pi s to run at much lower wattages than that, however with the automatic clock managing in the os you used in this video you will also in general get very low wattages whenever your cpu is not fully loaded.
Very astute, almost feel like you could remove the fan entirely and use a large heatspreader cooler block instead. That is the way to get the most battery power, you could even undervolt the Pi a little too. I don't know about the software but I doubt it requires the full available power for just server stuff. That way you could have a row of half a dozen of these without worrying about the noise or the heat!
I did not know a UPS like this existed!
Welp there goes some more of my money.
I'd just been using my usb power banks whenever I needed the Pi to be portable. This will make it so much easier.
most banks don't provide 3A needed for the RPI 4, unfortunately :(
@@kkazakov Get one that supports QC3 (Qualcom Quick Charge 3). They are pretty common these days and you can run a Pi 4 from them. A powerbank with usb c PD is even better
I don't understand who can click on "I don't like" such a nice project.
Amazing concept! I can see adding a door on the bottom to allow access to the batteries whenever needed, and moving the display to the other end of the case so that all the cables come out the "back" of the chassis, then adding a door/cover for the micro-SD card, and perhaps using the other fan to exhaust out the back or top of the case, and a simple 3D printed push button mounted on the side to reach the UPS' function button.
Nice ideas!
@@MichaelKlements how much would you charge to print a case with the display cutout at the front and a push button for the function switch? i don't own a 3D printer. i love your video
@@odiliomartinez4338 if he cant do it I believe there are some companies that print stuff for you and ship it to you so you would just need to get the file with the design on or make your own
@@odiliomartinez4338 if youre in the US, check with local libraries too!
@@odiliomartinez4338 You can also ask local maker clubs, hackspaces, hobby communities if they can let you use their printers.
For temporary isolation during assembly, you could put a small plastic ribbon or other low-friction insulator between the contacts, similar to how some electronics are shipped. When you've completed assembly, yank on the ribbon and the contacts meet.
Was gonna say the same thing
I'd rather have designed a "battery hatch" to both make them easily changeable and work around the issue of keeping it powered while assembling
You should sell these. I'd buy a few of them.
Probably the coolest mini PC project on YT
I love it! Just a suggestion. Attach all hats outside the case and insert the UPS batteries last. Then using screws through the bottom of the case, screw down the standoffs on the UPS to the case. This would reduce the risks I'm seeing handling powered components during hat assembly.
Found a new channel i can binge watch. Cool diy projects and relaxing presentation
This is so professional looking. My only suggestion would be to have all the ports at the back and the display should be on the same side where the SD card is inserted. Other than that it looks and is an amazing upgrade.
_To ease of use, he implemented all the inputs in front. Practically it is more useful._ Thanks *The TekChef*
Hello again Michael! Just finished this project and am happy to report that it is working perfectly! If anyone is interested, I printed the case on my Snapmaker V2 and also cut the side panels with it as well. It is only a 1.6 watt diode laser, but if you use black 3mm (1/8") acrylic and the right settings (several slow passes) they came out great! Thanks again for the project!
Thanks for sharing your experiences. How do you find your Snapmaker? I've been looking at trying one out, but I've got versions of the individual machines already, so haven't gotten around to it.
@@MichaelKlements The Snapmaker is very well constructed and sturdy. That said, it takes a little while to change from one tool head to another. I don't use the cnc head now but probably will fairly soon. If a person has the room, separate machines that have the attributes you need are probably best. :-)
Thanks for the reply and feedback. It looks like a good quality product from their marketing videos and the reviews I've seen for it. The CNC head is one of the tools that I'd probably use more often as my current CNC machine is quite small (only about 150mm x 150mm to work with). I'll give it some thought again soon, thanks!
@@MichaelKlements My pleasure. Also, I bought the rotary module but not yet installed the thing. That has a lot of possibilities. And, thank you again for the Pi project. I'm retired, but still enjoy learning - and making. Your video and supporting web site were a pleasure to follow. Thanks again!!!
With skill sets like this you need to work for Apple. Once your there they will teach you how to design stuff that can't be opened cleaned and upgraded by 99% of humanity!
Great work, here are my two "quality of life" advices that might help in the long run:
Add a grill in front of where you mount the fan, so it would be safer in case of something flies into it.
Add a lid at the bottom of the case so you can insert batteries after you built rest of the system and you can use it in case you need to change the batteries (dead batteries etc.) in the future as well without disassembling the whole system.
Also I read this in another comment, moving fan to the top of the case might result in better airflow as well.
Again, great work though, I might buy one of these in the near future for my small projects. 👍👍👍
I thought the same thing bout having some kind of open space in the bottom so you could replace batteries. I liked this project.
🤨 - he has also positioned the fan back to front = blowing air into the cabinet and out the lower vents with the fan at the top side….. 🙄 has forgotten that heat rises = the fan should be mounted the other way to draw the hot air out the case and cool air in through the lower vents ✅
To isolate the batteries when inserting everything in the case you can use a normal plastic sheet (like they do in new electronics that come with batteries pre installed) and pull it out when it is ready.
you can also make 2 small holes under the batteries where they make contact so you can insert something between them and the contacts.
Thanks for the tip
This may just be my first Raspberry pi project. very nice, thank you.
you should consider moving the fan to the top of the case, directly above the ice tower cooler, then add a duct that sends all air through the ice tower cooling finns.
What's the point of that though? The current cooling arrangement is already overkill, and the airflow needs to be free enough to pass over the batteries/ups
Great idea. I was thinking the same. Duct is not needed, but vertical airflow from the top near the cooler is nice. I wan to know what kind of noise produce the fan. I'm using a passive cooling case solution from pimorini and love it. 👍
Vertical airflow from the top will help add more battery to the bottom of the case with out much hassle. by moving the fan to the top of the case. plus it will be better for cable management also shame to waste all that space...
One of the best RPI projects on the Planet, hats off dude, really impressive.
Thank you!
Wow what a neat case. Thanks for putting this up on Etsy. If a Raspberry pi 5 comes out soon and you make a kit for it then I will definitely buy it.
Thank you! Yes, I'll definitely make up the kits for the Pi 5 when it comes out.
Wow, it's so tiny that you can have a whole room of these. Might build one!
@4:04 simply put a strip of paper over both battery contacts. Once mounted, pull the paper out.
My friend this box looks amazing.
The cutest little project. I now know what is next on my to-do list! Thanks for sharing.
Very cool sir. Thank you for also showing the entire process. The UPS is good for Loadshedding.
It would be cool to add a 2.5 inch bay for a hard drive or SSD
There are all kinds of possibilities. I'm thinking of an internal SSD and also a powered USB hub as well. It would take a bit of a redesign though to make room.
@@ninline2000 he still maximized the space and got a LOT of features into this tiny package that I wouldn't have thought of. I am curious which program he uses to design his CAD designs. I am working on getting my Pi to run a 3D printer for a class project and it looks like that one may be a possibility if it can run on a Pi 3B+.
It has storage A MICRO SD CARD
@@Guillie641 not good for NAS applications.
This is exactly what I envisioned when you first produced this type of Pi case. It's excellent to see a working version!
Unfortunately, if you have to change the batteries for any reason, it's going to require disassembly of the entire unit. How many cycles do you think these will last, and under standard load (no monitor), how long do they last?
Yeah I need to look at putting a battery cover into the bottom of the case as well.
18650 cells typically do around 300-500 cycles, but in a UPS they shouldn't be fully cycled very often. I'd guess that you should be replacing them every two years or so.
500 cycles then with 80% of capacity remaining seems to be fairly common on a good brand cell.
@@MichaelKlements you can modify it to charge up to 80%
@@MichaelKlements Alternatively, you could reverse the orientation of the standoffs (you might need different ones) and have everything secured with four screws that go up through the bottom of the case. That would allow you to remove the entire Pi setup without having to disassemble it.
Very nice stylish design. Ignore all the negative nannies as no single computer or design, is the best for ALL applications. You have shown an ability to design a functional device that is also aesthetically pleasing. If that enclosure was available for purchase, I'd buy it.
Thanks for the great feedback Mike!
If you ever rebuild this, you could probably put in a battery access hatch on the bottom, to allow safer assembly of the unit, and easier means to replace batteries when they are at their end of life. Cool project though!
One of the reasons why I love YT is because of this content😄
4:00 It's better to make the cut out at the bottom of the case for separating the battery, so it doesn't have potential short while assembly or maintenance. imo
incredible vision, designing and polish. wow, i am so jealous right now
You could isolate the ups with a folded over bit of tape during assembly
Common practice by now with all sorts of electronic equip :)
This is actually cool project it gives me ideas a lots about what we can do on Raspberry pi and design is great. I'm willing to see more about these nice contents. awesome dude Keep it up !
Thank you!
Adding a SSD turns it perfect.
adding nvme is a very bad idea, it still can give you 30MBps same speed when using nvme connected to usb then nas via LAN
Adding sata disque SSH or HD
stop promoting this garbage Raspberry pi, just buy a j4125 12v mini pc(router size), or a 12v ds220+ synology, a bit priced doubled but it will give you the speed, and tools you need.
@@xienjougao3131 Bruh...
@@xienjougao3131 lol you clearly do not get the purpose of the Raspberry Pi. What does that mini PC have for ports and how power and heat eifficent it is?
Does it have GPIO pins, camera and display connecters? Does somehow that Intel CPU consume less power and produce less heat then that Broadcom CPU?
The Raspberry Pi was originally designed for electronic projects that needs a full-fledge computer instead of a microcontroller.
Its design allows it be flexable, and being a low-power server is one of its viable uses.
That mini-pc maybe more powerful and modular but it consumes more power, plus where are you gonna stick that battery and stats display in? You will need task manager constantly open and as soon a blackout appears and you haven't found a way to jerry-rig a battery in there, you are going to lose your data.
(Aslo the Raspberry Pi is smaller as well.)
I have been running a home NAS on a Raspberry pi 3 and recently 4 using a powered hub and 6 portable USB disks - in total I have 10TB on three Ext4 drives and rsync them to 10TB on 3 NTFS backup drives. It's been pretty good, with SMB sharing at home and FTP server access from the internet.....BUT I rarely achieve more than a few MB/s transfer rates even between ext4 and local USB drive on another port on the same RPi.
Recently I have moved to a Mini PC (costing less than an RPi4) running Openmediavault. It took less effort to setup than the RPi - and uses less power (surprisingly).
Suggestion - make a removable cover on the bottom to be able to replace the batteries
There a lithium ion batteries it would be a long time before you needed to replace them.
@@tbyoda9475 Not the point
I had the same suggestion
@John T Smith yup
Never had a Pi nor did any programming but this looks like a really nice and sleek solution ! Love it !
For the battery issue:
- add a lid for exchanging the batteries or
- screw the feet in from the outside (so you can pre assemble the electrics)
- or just insert 2 pieces of plastic folio under the battery’s contacts and pull them after the electrics are installed
Thanks for the suggestions
@@MichaelKlements pleasure 😎 thx for providing such great content !
Beautiful setup. Love the 3D printing part of the process.
Thank you!
That is the best Raspberry Pi case I have ever seen!
You could have used some plastic tabs to isolate the battery positives in the case until the build was complete then removed them with tweezers. Remember heat rises so the fan may have worked better in an exhaust up position in the top of the case. Great video thanks for the ride along during the build and the time it takes to make, edit and upload these videos sir.
Elegant! Educational video. It's nice to see the issues and the resolution. Keep broadcasting!!
Who else was waiting for him to actually use it as a NAS or media server like he advertised?
It says "Raspberry pi server" not NAS/Media Sever. He says in the descriprion that one of it's uses could be as such, but lists 1 or 2 other uses. And if you wanted to convert it to that, the only difference is you would plug in hard drives with SATA to USB converters and download the necessary programs. Maybe print a drive enclosure
Ya I mean the titled did imply that it would be more than just your standard "watch me put together a raspberry pi build as easy as snapping lego pieces together" video everyone makes.
This is absolutely great piece of work 🙌. Keep showcasing more on these lines. For batteries I guess you could have created a separate section which would have created a partition automatically providing a chamber like design. I hope you got the idea of isolation of PCB and the power module. I guess it was doable since you're making your own 3d printed server console.
Amazing. The future of PC computing!
This is great work, Michael! Thank you for sharing this.
That is a stunning little project and really useful. Im going to save the project description for a potential home hub project
Would you share the STL for your case?
He sell the design on Etsy, so...
@@yonggor That's so dumb ngl
@@achannelhasnoname5182 not everything’s free buddy, clever of the channel owner to sell his very nice case !
@@TheLouisEric as someone who uploads his own designs to thingiverse and believes in open source, I think it's very dumb.
@@achannelhasnoname5182 yeah I do that to. But that is the creator’s choice to forego revenues. Do you pay for your software ?
If you're worried about something like that being powered during assembly, put some plastic tabs over the battery terminals while you work like they do on toys shipped with batteries installed. Then when your work is done you can pull the tabs out. Just make the tabs from a blister pack.
th-cam.com/channels/5UtyuNM4ZqR3sveUD1PWkA.html
this is something i would buy
A joy to watch, thankyou for sharing. For future reference, you can slide a thin plastic insulating shim between the +ve battery end and the contacts for each battery to keep the UPS unpowered. Then pull them out with tweezers when all assembled.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Great work! Would love to see a version with doube SSD drives. In that way a software RAID 1 can be configured. In combination with the UPS that would be awesome.
doube doube doo
Double SD cards lol
How TH-cam never show me videos like this. 😔 THIS IS awesome! 🌟
Thank you, glad you like it!
put a piece of plastic between the contacts when you install it, and pull it out afterwards.
You have some cool toys at home, I want a 3d printer too
Elegant design. I wonder if the cooling ability is affected by separating the fan from the low-profile tower. Perhaps the vertical Ice Tower is a better choice?
Or remove the fan entirely and use a large heatspreader cooling block instead along with thermal pads to attach it to the components directly. Silent and cool! Then you could even stack them in rows without worry.
Finally, a webserver I can afford!
Doesn't seem like there's a whole lot going on at the bottom of the case. Maybe add a little door that snaps shut so you can build it and install the batteries after?
I never knew you could make a special screen that shows system info like that.
It would be interesting to install a touch screen or plain screen on the top and connect it so that you don't have to use a giant display. This would be far more efficient for a power interruption as it uses far less lower and is small enough it could easily fit. Can set a switch or a script with the ups so that the screen only comes on if you hit the switch or the power is interrupted. Just an idea when I saw the display plugged in and how much power it takes, and the fact it's not integrated. Great job on this, thoroughly enjoyed it!
Its a server, so when he finished the video he probably ran it headless (without a display besides the oled one) just connected to lan and power.
At least a 4" screen would be way cool, and when you run it headless then you could still have fun displaying animations lol
*Edit: obviously wouldn't be power efficient.
a beautiful sample of ingeni, and that case uffff
So damn impressive! Well done!
Awesome solution! I have a Pi running Ubuntu Server that is running a Python/Django based site. Using Python/Django to monitor/control fish tanks so I love the backup power capability of this, it would tie in nicely to the backup power for various pumps on my fish tank setup.
Thanks for sharing!
I would love to see this with an added feature of an internal hdd through a sata hat. I use my pi 4 as a Plex server with a data hat and I don't think there's enough options options to add multiple different types of hats to the pi such as a sata hat plus ups hat and a case that holds it all.
th-cam.com/video/sb7-gBqXJtk/w-d-xo.html
Small PET film stripes may be used to insulate battery terminals from holder and keep UPS board offline during assembly
th-cam.com/video/sb7-gBqXJtk/w-d-xo.html
a great and inspiring build, thanks for sharing Michael. is the stl or case model available for download?
Good job tightening the screws, you got them fully tight then when on to strip the threads.
Hi. Will be really nice if you make something to mont one HDD externally, our even inside the case... I have a NAS Nextcloud in my pi4 I have a tower looks like your but a made a support for HDD like a stand for whole tower.
Can you provide the tools or any GitHub?
Need 2hd
1 for backup
@@MrRourk Or, since they are relatively inexpensive, two servers rsync-ing between them
@@sssxxxttt some ecc mem modules would help
@@MrRourk Yes. I was also thinking about loosing a node in e.g a fire or by theft
Man, this thing is pretty dope for a pi.
this would be perfect for hosting minecraft servers.
LOL this was the first thing i though. it could probably run vanilla just fine 👌
i think it could hold 10 players at max any more then that it would probably blow up
What is Minecraft ?
I can barley keep up with one person, nevermind multiple players
Paper spigot maybe, i wouldnt push my luck with something like forge or vanilla
that's pretty neat & nice looking tiny system you got there, I like it!
All this effort and high risk of shorting the Pi could have easily been avoided by a simple hardware mod to include a switch to isolate the batteries during assembly.
UPDATE: He mentions this later as an improvement to the design.
I love Raspberry Pi! Fantastic company!
You should program animated emoticon to display on the LCD correlating to various server stats. Kind of like the robot from the movie Moon.
Got u
Edit: nevemind, i haved to do too much stuff and i hav no experience with pythin
This is amazing!!!!!!!! Besides having to worry about the board! Really they should have some type of protection! I bought one that said it had protection and it didn't! So many uses if they made these items more friendly to use!
Install a bottom plate on your case to install or remove the batteries.
This is amazing. Probably going to be ordering one very very soon. Awesome work brother!
th-cam.com/video/sb7-gBqXJtk/w-d-xo.html
Imagine if he watercooled it...
Can't believe this thing has it's own postal service!
i keep hearing "ass tower" instead of "ice tower"
idk if its just me but i can either blame on my dirty mind or his accent
It's his accent
I barely understood at all what you were doing, but it was certainly entertaining!
You could solder switches across a small double-sided PCB, then insert the PCB between the battery, and the contact on the PCB holder.
Excellent design BTM.
Thanks for the suggestion, this is a really neat idea.
This looks really cool. The display makes it look so much cooler. A vertical Ice tower would work even better and line up to the panel mounted fan.
th-cam.com/video/sb7-gBqXJtk/w-d-xo.html
Excellent video. I’m a first time pi owner, so I have much to learn. Thank you
Cool looking server.
A little more room so you can add a PCI NVME SSD. There is a dual m.2 PCI adapter that would let you use one NVME SSD plus a Google Coral board if you wanted to add some dedicated ML capability. This really showcases what you can do with the lower power ARM platforms, even if there are comparable or more powerful Intel options as they just are not as efficient or easy to hack.
Well done man, I will probably build one myself to create a personal cloud
Wow. That's a beautiful mini PC.
Excellent work. I wish it could have 3 batteries on the bottom and 3bon the top, all of them in parallel for more autonomy. Really practical for schools specially in 3rd World Countries, and low budget solutions
Nazi
This is brilliant, from design and build to code.
Me gusta mucho como te quedo, parece un pequeña pc gaming. Genial, te felicito.
Excellent work! Thanks for sharing with the Pi community.
You could use plastic tabs that sit in between the battery contact pads to isolate them
Just noticed this, after pulling the power cable, battery goes automatically from 95% to 70%. This could be because it's polling the battery voltage during the CV phase of charge, which provides the 4.2v constant charge voltage and is confused as the battery voltage (or an average of both). Once unplugged, the 4.2v is no longer supplied and drops to actual voltage. Best way to poll battery voltage (via software) is to interrupt CV briefly to poll battery voltage, and then resume. At least that's what I think, I could be wrong.
Thanks for the great video on this cool UPS solution for RPi