2026-10-09 - Final ZRDC 2026 Update, What’s New at DLARC - October 2026, Several New Amateur Radio Apps, Tailcat, eBay To Require FCC IDs For (Most?) Sales of Electronic Devices, XCL.is - AR Cellular
Supercapacitors are pretty amazing, at least for those of us who grew up when tantalums were the brand new thing. At Turn Island Systems, we make a supercapacitor "UPS" designed for use with the small form-factor / mini / NUC computers, such as the ones used in the HamSCI / wsprdaemon SDR networks. Since these computers generally use a small external switching power supply, the holdover is so brief that even with an external UPS the switching transient during power-loss can glitch the computer. Our little box maintains power during the gap:
Paul - I remember vividly in my training as an electronic tech that one of our instructors confidently said that a 1 F capacitor would have to be the size of a house. Four decades later... I'm actually well aware of your TIS SUPS. I have it queued up for purchase after we return to semi-normal life after ZRDC 2026. Cool product, and one advantage supercapacitors have is (within a reasonable range) they're not specific to a particular voltage.
Thanks, Steve. Powering the mini BeeLink computers has been interesting. They come with a 17V supply and when the wall-power dies it can takes under a second for the computer to shut down. While some "hitless" UPS are truly hitless (no glitch when switching over to battery operation), many others take long enough to start delivering power that the computer dies.
But some people are using a 12V battery (with attached charger) to run the Beelink directly. There appears to be a reasonably good margin in the operating voltage range, so instead of a UPS (of any kind, including mine) and the supplied switching supply you might be able to just connect to computer to 12V. If you are trying for high-reliability always-on operation it might be worth it to experiment with just using a big battery.
"A Supercapacitor UPS HAT for Raspberry Pi" -
Supercapacitors are pretty amazing, at least for those of us who grew up when tantalums were the brand new thing. At Turn Island Systems, we make a supercapacitor "UPS" designed for use with the small form-factor / mini / NUC computers, such as the ones used in the HamSCI / wsprdaemon SDR networks. Since these computers generally use a small external switching power supply, the holdover is so brief that even with an external UPS the switching transient during power-loss can glitch the computer. Our little box maintains power during the gap:
https://turnislandsystems.com/product/tis-1250-supercap-ups/
Paul - I remember vividly in my training as an electronic tech that one of our instructors confidently said that a 1 F capacitor would have to be the size of a house. Four decades later... I'm actually well aware of your TIS SUPS. I have it queued up for purchase after we return to semi-normal life after ZRDC 2026. Cool product, and one advantage supercapacitors have is (within a reasonable range) they're not specific to a particular voltage.
Thanks, Steve. Powering the mini BeeLink computers has been interesting. They come with a 17V supply and when the wall-power dies it can takes under a second for the computer to shut down. While some "hitless" UPS are truly hitless (no glitch when switching over to battery operation), many others take long enough to start delivering power that the computer dies.
But some people are using a 12V battery (with attached charger) to run the Beelink directly. There appears to be a reasonably good margin in the operating voltage range, so instead of a UPS (of any kind, including mine) and the supplied switching supply you might be able to just connect to computer to 12V. If you are trying for high-reliability always-on operation it might be worth it to experiment with just using a big battery.