I know this is a pretty old post, but I am at least now, so that it can be of any help in the future:

The buttons should work with the PowerBlock! Also the PowerBlock already comes with a resistor on the LED signal line so that you should be able to directly connect the LED pins with the corresponding LED pins of the button.

Hi! Sorry that I missed your post. I messed up my watching settings of this thread.

It sounds as if the one PowerBlock somehow got broken, I am sorry for that!

Unfortunately, I only have the PowerBlocks already assembled. Too few people were asking for the bare ones so far. However, I am planning for a next revision that offers more variants when it comes to the connectors, e.g., no connectors, Molex connectors, etc.

I could offer to desolder the header(s) for a small allowance. Please get in contact with me if you are interested in that.

@gerb45 I did a little bit of testing with Raspberry Pi OS on a Pi Zero 2w and a PowerBlock. This should work for a RPi4. You can add the following to config.txt to emulate the driver. (This way you don't have to worry about startup scripts.)

dtoverlay=gpio-poweroff,gpiopin=17,active_low=1,inactive_delay_ms=0 dtoverlay=gpio-shutdown,gpio_pin=18,active_low=0,gpio_pull=down

It seems to work identical, except that it indicates boot finished before boot actually finished. (Can anyone confirm this please?)

I am glad to hear that!

@blacknell Hi! I have just replied to your email.

Generally, the default PowerBlock firmware does not return to the previous power state upon power loss. However, I did work on this feature some months ago and I built an updated firmware version for the PowerBlock that contains this feature: Upon switch on, the PowerBlock persists the ON state as target state. When in ON state and a power button switch off event is observed the OFF state is persisted as target state. When a power-reset event occurs the PowerBlock returns to the previously persisted target state.

If you have a programmer for the ATTiny85 microcontroller on the PowerBlock you could just download this other firmware.

I am happy to provide this firmware upon request. New batches of the PowerBlock might get this firmware per default, eventually.

@StuMcBill Glad to hear that!

Got it working without the GPIO expander,

I used GPIO19 for the status pin, which really needs a 'regular' GPIO, not an I2C pin.

Then I used a gpio= statement in config.txt to set GPIO3 (which is an I2C pin) to low on bootup. GPIO3's then used as the shutdown pin for the PowerBlock.

This arrangement works fine.

@petrockblog -- perhaps the documentation could be updated to make clear that GPIOs with hardwired pullup resistors (such as the I2C pins) cannot be used as the status pin?

Thanks,
Chris

@petrockblog

No special hardware set-up other than a breadboard, LED, and monetary button. Have the ControlBlock directly connected to the Pi. Have a button (monetary button for a breadboard) and LED (standard 5v red LED) connected to a breadboard for initial setup and troubleshooting. I have not hooked up the arcade buttons to the unit yet. Would that somehow effect it?

Next I'm going to try it without the button and just ground out the wires to see if the button is somehow effecting it. If you have any other suggestions please let me know. I won't be able to try it for a couple more weeks but will report back here how it went.

@petrockblog Thank you for this. I wasn't sure and I couldn't find any direct information on it.

@Drobec Good to hear that the shutdown works as expected when you use only a cable. Maybe the rebounding on the PowerBlock is not fitting the characteristics of the button. If possible, you could try and improve the switching the behaviour of your button with a capacitor in parallel to the switch cable for a simple low-pass.

@sstallion Hi! Yes, the PowerBlock does some software debouncing. Please contact me at contact (at) petrockblock.com and I can send you a firmer with the momentary button support disabled. I have this, in fact, already prepared.

Thanks @petrockblog
Just wanted to be sure before roasting the brand new hardware. 😁

Thanks, I thought that might be the case. Bit of a shame cos I really like the hifiberry dac so don't want to lose that. Looks like hifieberry were doing something with this to, but it looks like they've not release their power controller. https://www.hifiberry.com/shop/boards/power-controller/

@bpugh Ah, yes. I misread your previous post and had the 5V IN pins in mind. I bet higher gauge wires from 5V OUT to the Raspberry 5V IN and GND will do the trick.

Thanks for your help @ByteThis . I tried for about 3 hours yesterday and simply couldn't get it to work. I have decided to abandon the Powerblock and build my own from scratch. thanks agin for you help. regards Cliff

@StuMcBill Glad to hear!

I finally got the driver to enable through the retropie config screen without shutting the whole thing down. I had to update all drivers, packages and everything on the pi through the retropie config screen and then I was able to enable the ControlBlock driver. When I edited the controlblock config file it was blank so I added all the code that is usually there and configured it to work with arcade and a power button. I restarted everything and it's like it's not even there. jtest doesn't even pull up, ControlBlock isn't on services running. I'm at a loss. I've been messing with this for a week now and it doesn't work like it should.

Anyone willing to take a look at my boot and see if they can see what I'm missing?

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ec2vitua6pg23rk/AACaonRDQT7RdW_Ed6iUC7bSa?dl=0

Glad to hear that!