[doug]

Some real world experience...My former RPi B+ was in my van for a year and would lose power immediately when I shut the van off a couple of times a day; often while media was playing. I didn't have any corruption during that entire time. Granted, I disabled logging to limit writes to the sd card and didn't shut off the van when a write might have occurred.

Just cut the power (and have a backup).

My new RPi2 has now been seeing the same "abuse" for a month or so.

[kfonda]

I recently read this article and am thinking about building something like it for my Pi.

Adding an On/Off switch to your Raspberry Pi

[jpcolin]

Some real world experience...My former RPi B+ was in my van for a year and would lose power immediately when I shut the van off a couple of times a day; often while media was playing. I didn't have any corruption during that entire time. Granted, I disabled logging to limit writes to the sd card and didn't shut off the van when a write might have occurred.

Just cut the power (and have a backup).

My new RPi2 has now been seeing the same "abuse" for a month or so.

That is what i was thinking.
But i knwo the RPi consumes about 2w or so, i do not really want to save by turning it off. But if it does'nt have to stay on, why not power off?
As repied here, my Rpi2 boot in less than 10s i think, this is almost slower than my receiver and TV

[MediaPi]

most times I never do a software poweroff and just unplug from the mains (for the past month i've done this daily) and I've not experienced one corruption. (I advise you do a software shutdown first)

The sdcard corruption on Pi is non existent now (and has been for over half a year or more I would say) if you do experience one I would say it has more to do with cheap and bad sdcard than the Pi.

think about it in terms of cost of keeping it on. I would assume its less than $5 extra to keep it on, If you invested in any equipment it would most certainly cost you atleast $15. so it would take you three years to recoup your cost, but in 3 years something better and faster would be out and you might migrate. also for $5 extra you have instant on, isn't that worth it?

TLDR keep the Pi on, if you want to shut it down, do a software shutdown first then unplug from main, sdcard corruption should not be an issue (from over a year of personal experience) make a weekly backup of your card

[CaptSunset]

Pop- No problem, we are all seeking best practices here.

I don't have a 'scope, and I sure can't say what people's chargers put out precisely, but the Pi people built-in the visible voltage warning for a reason, so I'd suspect the Pi is vulnerable to voltage fluctuations. It certainly isn't hiding behind a sophisticated PSU like a typical mobo.

I've read of many people using unrecommended power- that guy with the shock wasn't getting 5V from the Pi, he was getting voltage passed thru from the TV monitor.

As far as the card issue, there is another guy right here who is using the TV's USB to power the Pi and is getting very frequent corruption. Here's what popcornmix said about that:
"More advanced sdcards implement background wear levelling and aggressive write caching to improve performance.
These produce a longer window where sdcard activity may be occurring (even when Pi appears idle).

If you cut power while an sdcard is moving sectors around (for wear levelling purposes) then corruption is likely."
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=222715&page=3

As far as shutdown time, I timed it from clicking Shut Down to a steady red LED on the Pi. It's a Pi 2B.

edit: here is the thread about the shock
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewt...8&t=101738

[Claudio.Sjo]

I recently read this article and am thinking about building something like it for my Pi.

Adding an On/Off switch to your Raspberry Pi

This is interesting,
the proposed circuit can be simplified, I'm trying to get rid of the relay and understand how to add the driver to Linux.

Thanks for the link!

[hdmkv]

Or, just use something like this to power on/off your RPi/Pi2.

[speedwell68]

Or, just use something like this to power on/off your RPi/Pi2.

I use one of those on my Daughter's Model B. It works very well.

[MediaPi]

according to this
http://www.statista.com/statistics/20283...ince-2005/
I'm going to assume cost of electricity in US is 13 cents per kilo watt hour (in 2015) (im from uk)

according to this
http://raspi.tv/2014/how-much-less-power...ld-model-b
the model B consumes 2.40 Watts with a Keyboard Dongle + Edimax Wifi Dongle (pi2 consumes as much as model B)

Since the OP is interested in power savings I'm going to assume his Pi is basically on standby mode with minimal activity thus the Pi is consuming no more than 2.5 watts (its 2.40 watts with keyboard plus wifi)

lets assume the Pi is shutdown between 10pm and 12pm, so your saving 14 hours

cost = power (kW) × time (hour) × cost of 1 kWh (pence)
=0.0025*14*365*13=~166 cents or roughly 1.7 dollar

cost of that little micro usb cable =$5.99 (is that the final price with VAT? )
it'll take you (5.99/1.7)=3.52 or roughly 3 years of savings to pay of that cable

assme you loose 10 seconds on each boot/reboot thats 10*365=3650 seconds or roughly 1 hour per year
according to this
https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=u...7QaKgoHAAQ
average sallery is 7.25 dollars make it 7 dollars. So your loosing an equivalent of 7 dollars per year(if time=money) by not having pi on all the time.

TLDR it costs less than 2 dollars a year extra (high estimate) to leave your Pi on 24/7

[katsup]

MediaPi is on it. When I checked my Pi 2 for how much power it consumes, I saw no more than 2W when it was idle. The only thing plugged in was a USB IR receiver.

[CaptSunset]

MediaPi- call me impressed!

btw all, if you do still need a programmable shutoff button, there are little hockey-puck-sized gizmos available from bigbox hardwares for ~ $5 or less that digitally program their AC socket for up to 20 on/off cycles per week by day, as well as simply providing on/prog/off with a single pushbutton. They have an LCD clock screen, and if you are a maker-type, they are assembled with screws so you can get the lil circuit board assembly out... You just plug the Pi PS into the side, but I should add a caution-- practice with a table lamp or somesuch until you can avoid fumbles; I don't think the Pi likes being turned on&off rapidly. The ones I have are rated for 625 W 8A GP/resistive.

[da-anda]

@POWER consumption - there is another aspect to this - global power usage. You could probably shut down a nuclear power plant if all the PIs in the world would be powered down when unused (and even a lot more if people would turn off their lights, TVs and PCs when leaving the house/room). I'm not a greenpeace guy, but still concerned about our environment.

[retroflex]

@POWER consumption - there is another aspect to this - global power usage. You could probably shut down a nuclear power plant if all the PIs in the world would be powered down when unused (and even a lot more if people would turn off their lights, TVs and PCs when leaving the house/room). I'm not a greenpeace guy, but still concerned about our environment.

Buying a UPS might leave a bigger footprint than keeping your Pi turned on though. Best is of course to turn off all equipment with a physical switch connected to your power socket. The PSU will use some (though very little) power even if the Pi isn't connected.

[Bosse_B]

@POWER consumption - there is another aspect to this - global power usage. You could probably shut down a nuclear power plant if all the PIs in the world would be powered down when unused

Assuming 50.000.000 Pi units out there operating at 2W. (I think it may be close to the right number)
That means they use a total of 100MW (50.000.000 * 2 / 1.000.000)
A nuclear plant that will output 100MW of electric power is by my knowledge not even existing. They are much bigger than that....
So the usage from all Pi units in the world is not that significant.

[popcornmix]

Assuming 50.000.000 Pi units out there operating at 2W. (I think it may be close to the right number)

Not 50M (I wish!). There are around 5M Pi units sold.