OnOff SHIM (micro-USB)

Add a tiny yet convenient power switch to your Pi with OnOff SHIM!

Our SHIMs (Shove Hardware in the Middle) are a new range of boards designed to be small, affordable, and handy. They're just 0.8mm thick (the bare board, not including mounted components) and designed to be soldered straight onto the GPIO pins of your Pi, if you wish, so that you can use them with HATs and pHATs on top.

A note on compatibility. It's technically possible to use OnOff SHIM and a 2.5A USB micro-B power supply to power a Raspberry Pi 4. However, the recommended power spec for the Pi 4 is 3A, so you may run into low power issues (especially if using power-hungry USB devices).  

Usage

Just plug your micro-USB power supply into the micro-B connector on OnOff SHIM, and then press the button once to switch on power and boot up your Pi. After installing our software (details below), you can press the button again to initiate a clean shutdown and completely cut the power to your Pi.

Features

• super-small SHIM-format board
• 0.8mm thick PCB
• can be used with HATs and pHATs
• corner-mounted push button for on/off
• micro-B connector for power supply
• red status LED
• optional breakout pins to connect an external momentary button
• 2x6 female header included
• supports up to 2.5A power supply
• software daemon to shutdown cleanly
• requires soldering

Software

We've put together a one-line installer to install the clean shutdown daemon. It watches the state of BCM pin 17 and, when pulled low (pressed), it initiates a clean shutdown. The last thing, just before your Pi shuts down, BCM pin 4 is pulled low to completely cut power to your Pi.

To install the software, open a terminal and type curl https://get.pimoroni.com/onoffshim | bash to run the one-line installer.

Our software does not support Raspbian Wheezy.