Product Review

The USB PowerControl Board is a digitally controlled power switch for your Arduino or Raspberry Pi. Anything you can plug into a USB port can be controlled with USB PowerControl. It's easy to hook up. You connect a control line (a GPIO line or the output of a LiPo battery) to the LIPOBATIN line and if the line is LOW (< ~3.3V) the USB Port is off. If it is HIGH (above 3.8V) the USB Port is turned on and you have 5V of power to the USB plug. This board was initially designed to sit in-between a Solar Power Controller (such as SunAir/SunAirPlus) and a Raspberry Pi / Arduino. The input to the board was designed to come directly from a LiPo battery so the computer won't be turned on until the LiPo battery was charged up above 3.8V. We provide a hysteresis circuit so the board won't turn off until the voltage goes below around 3.3V. This is an excellent board to shut on and off USBpo wered devices like a Raspberry Pi and Arduino. It works just like a conventional relay.