The Potato Power Issue Resolved…Maybe.

So my last update was short one outlining the problem of the Potato Pi project.  Shorter still, that’s a lot of potato!

Potato Pi needs too many potatoes.
I am not a potato farmer.

As a fellow hacker pointed out, we’re looking at about 200kg of potato.  Now this guy’s usually spot on but I think it’s not going to be that big of an issue.  What if I could halve it?  100kg sounds reasonable.  I mean I’m still not happy, but hey it’s reasonable.  I think I can do better than halving it though.  How can I be so confident?  1 word.  Overkill

Do you really need that much power?
Do you really need that much power?

Well, no not really.  Now I’ll have to check with my slightly more grounded colleague, but I’m fairly certain we’ve been running these calculations on continuous peak requirements of the version 1 Raspberry Pi.  Basically what I’m saying is:

  1. It doesn’t have to be on ALL the time.  Just during business hours.
  2. It doesn’t use peak power when idling.

So, if we minimise peripherals and take advantage of the after-hours power supply by adding a capacitor bank or similar, could we pull something off like NASA with their deep space projects?

I’m thinking extremely low power timer circuit used to switch the main Pi circuit.  Outside business hours (let’s say 9am to 5pm and only Monday to Friday), the Pi sleeps and the capacitor banks charge up overnight and on weekends.  During business hours the Pi get’s woken up and operates as a basic server.  Serving what I don’t know…..maybe serving a proof of half-baked Potato Pi.

We can still win this!!!

 

 

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