So, I have mounted the PowerBlock and I have tested it for some days. It works almost as expected, spordically it shows unexpected behaviour. I will create a separate thread explaining my observations.

Anyway, thanks for supplying me with a replacement device.

Edit: So as to what mitu and the others spoke of, I feel so dumb. Like I said earlier, I was able to boot into noobs just fine, and I had raspbian full installed at the same time as my retropie. I tried accessing the files for retropie that way earlier to see if I could recover my retropie or change configs or remove powerblock drivers, etc... But the issue I had was nothing showed up under the Raspbian desktop file manager earlier. I reinstalled everything after having lost it all earlier, and when I reset up my raspbian desktop just now, I got a link for retropie on the desktop. GO FIGURE, it only showed up after updating and rebooting raspbian desktop....
Since i rarely ever use the desktop os and mainly only ever use retropie, it didnt cross my mind to try updating and rebooting raspbian and see if I could access those files again. So to reiterate, as the others have mentioned if anyone ever stumbles across this and is in the boat I was in, if you're lucky enough to have raspbian installed as well as your retropi, you CAN access your retropie files and fix the mess as mitu said. Hopefully this saves someone else 6hrs+ of recovering lol.

Hello Florian,

I just wanted to share that I have managed to swap the cooked component for a new one, and it’s fixed the powerblock back to working order.

Thanks for your help. Managed to desolder the old one with some flux, desolder wick and some patience. Getting the new one in was easier than expected.

That looks like it would do the trick, but it also looks like a daunting endeavor. I'd have to modify the design to work in my case with a full size NES case. All those mini jump wires between contacts is going to suck for me too. Plus I have no idea what those other parts (diode, resistor, capacitor, etc) are used for. I wish I knew more about electronic circuits. That's why I liked the Mausberry circuit so much, plug in, put the wires where they need to go, and you're done (after getting the script obviously). The PowerBlock was useful too because you just attach it to the GPIO pins. I still think doing something like the Mausberry would work best, but I'm not sure if they can support the amps. Waiting for them to reply.

From: https://blog.petrockblock.com/powerblock-raspberry-pi-power-switch/

bd36f6ce-eb6a-4a71-bfa3-60e918fde773-image.png

Do you maybe have the micro-USB connector attached to the Raspberry Pi or the PowerBlock? It needs to be attached to the PowerBlock. Could you send me a photo of your hardware setup?

Can you tell me which version of RetroPie and which version of the Raspberry Pi you are using? I could try to reproduce the issue at my site.

Sorry or this late reply. Could you please contact me via email and send me your order number? I will make sure that you get a replacement!

If you power the RPi using the microUSB of the RPi itself you will loose the power switch and reset functions on the Powerblock. When the Powerblock is used as designed using its microUSB connector, power to the RPi is controlled by the Powerblock and routed to the Power and Ground pins of the GPIO connector. When the RPi is booted up the driver and control service of the Powerblock will initialy interrogate the status of the Powerblock board and intitiate the boot up process. If the microUSB on the RPi is used to as power source, all of this is bypassed and the RPi will power up as if the Powerblock does not exist.

The only way to use microUSB on th RPi together with the Powerblock is to isolate the RPi's micrUSB connections from the RPi itself (cut the traces from the RPi) and rewire them to the Powerblock's microUSB connector. Doing so is a mute, waste of time, potentially damaging to the RPi exercise.

Never mind. Checked on Reddit and got a hit for the problem I believe. Just used the PowerBlock installer in the setup menu. Seemed to work at a glance.

I got everything working flawlessly with a different power supply: 5.2V, 3A. :)

Retroflag cases aren't compatible with the RPI4B but I would like to hear of someone who managed to make it work. I'm also interested if someone has integrated an RTC hat to fit in one of these cases.

Hi !

It is misteriously back to normal working.

Thanks for responding!

All right.

I took a look into the sources of the ControlBlock driver. The same issue that caused the slow shutdown for the PowerBlock also existed there. I have fixed that now.

@douga as @tba mentioned, the scientific term is PEBKAC.

I don’t know the exact pi out of the pi2scart, but you can find the used pins of the PowerBlock at https://blog.petrockblock.com/powerblock-raspberry-pi-power-switch/:

S1: pin 12
S2: pin 11

If this does not collide with the pi2scart, it should work.

Can you post the output here?

I just checked the installation script with the current RetroPie image and everything went fine for me. I have also added a screencast that shows the console output for the installation. You can find it in the "Videos" section at https://blog.petrockblock.com/powerblock-raspberry-pi-power-switch/.

@alturis I think @johnny5126 means a power strip with one "master" socket and a number of "slave" sockets. If the device connected to the master socket draws power, the slave sockets will be powered by the strip automatically.

@paulmartin Try looking into the options described in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/672/a-stop-job-is-running-for-lsb-controlblockservice-init-script/18, either boot the Pi in 'safe mode' or mount the card from another Linux system and delete the powerblock driver start script to stop the reboot cycle.

Hi mate! Nice job.
You've made what I am planning since a while, but due to lack of time (kids and work), I couldn't make it.
You've chewed me a lot of time.
Still, I have one or two questions about your wiring.
The place where the power plug was, is that a bridge that you've placed?
And had cut any circuit?
Can you make me a small schema about where to where you've plugged the wires. I am on smartphone so I can't analyse properly the solders you've made.
The led, is the original one?
Thanks for your help, and once again, nice work!

Have you been able to set it up so that the reset button works as anything other than a power button? How did you hook up the power and reset buttons to the power block?