Power on and off

A Former User

@edmaul69 I lied. I'm 14

A Former User

I just do not like revealing personal information since I'm kinda young.

edmaul69

@itsnitro i think its cool to see kids on here. Leaves hope that the classics arent going to completely die off with a new generation. Plus your learning about computers and electronics.

Capeman

@edmaul69 said in Power on and off:

@itsnitro i think its cool to see kids on here. Leaves hope that the classics arent going to completely die off with a new generation. Plus your learning about computers and electronics.

I agree, it's refreshing to see the younger generation getting into the classics. I feel bad for all the kids who are growing up on Candy Crush, haha, the younger generations have it rough when it comes to quality gaming.

A Former User

I've always had a fascination with computers and retro games. I've built a computer from scratch and I've taken apart 2 computers. I've also taken apart a keyboard.

But soldering is something I wanna do. I'm a little nervous about it. I might do it though. Any advice?

Capeman

@itsnitro Of all the regrets i have in my setup, i am most disappointed that I didnt get an iron with a flexible cable, the cable on mine is like a standard AC cable, it's stiff, tangles a lot and tends to get in the way.

Other than that, though the precision seems tempting, don't use fine point tips (use the wedge style). Get thin solder with flux built in, and get soldering iron tip cleaner with the mesh that looks like gold brillo pads.

Also watch lots of videos on youtube, there are some really good teachers out there. Collin's lab videos, sponsored by Adafruit, are pretty good. https://learn.adafruit.com/collins-lab-soldering/video

Capeman

Ok, so i bought the ebay power button that was mentioned above. There is one comparison that i can make to the Petrock Powerblock.

When the petrock powerblock shuts down, it seems to run a longer process, I am not sure what this process is or why it's needed (i'm guessing its a script that cleanly exits emulation station so that all xml files are saved? Maybe a dev can elaborate on this). But it takes upwards of 20 seconds to fully turn off.

The ebay IR power HAT seems to simply send a SUDO HALT command to the pi, which supposedly safely shuts it off, but does so in a pretty abrupt way. I am not sure if this is safe for a retropie installation, considering it's a software shutdown that probably instantly crashes out all running apps, it's probably still safer than pulling the plug because nothing will be "interrupted" but it seems odd that it shuts off this quickly.

This seems to be the same speed shutdown as the single button GPIO method detailed in the video by ETAprime in a previous post. Can anyone elaborate on if this is a safe way to shutdown?

AlexMurphy

@Capeman As far as I know... A HALT command in Linux does not kill any process. It basically tells it to stop whenever it is safe to do so. It may or may not have finished doing what it is doing but it is sort of a semi-forced end to on-going processes. I'm sorry that is such a vague answer but you will probably get another 20 or so conflicting answers! That's Linux!

Capeman

Hmmm, it appears the service for this HAT is causing my Pi to heat up for some reason. I tried to remove the powerblock driver from my spare installation before putting on drivers for this HAT, there is probably something conflicting.

DorkVonWaterfall

installed one of those remote control suckers today...works like a charm.....

Capeman

@DorkVonWaterfall said in Power on and off:

installed one of those remote control suckers today...works like a charm.....

Must be a conflict on mine, i pull the heat icon after about 15 minutes of leaving it on, i'll try it again on a fresh install.