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I just wanted to drop by with a quick note. I recently had some trouble with my LPS-1.2 which was likely due to my own mistake in its use. I was so pleased and relieved to see Superdad step up with quick, friendly, and reassuring emails. I'm now back in business and couldn't be happier. The experience had me going deeper into the UpTone line with the ISO REGEN, which also seems to be a stellar product. Now I'm keeping my ears peeled on the rumored ethernet switch! Thank you so much to Alex & everyone at UpTone!

So I just had an interesting episode last night. I have been successfully using the UpTone LPS-1.2 to power the USBridge and the stock PSU to power the Sparky itself. Last night, I decided to try the iFi PSU on the Sparky board. So I powered down the system and replaced it, using a couple of the supplied adapters to get the micro-usb connection the Sparky needs. Some minutes later, I found both the USBridge and the iFi wallwart *very* hot to the touch. The ugly results... Now, whether I plug the LPS-1.2 into the USBridge or leave it disconnected, its indicator light always does the following on start-up: solid red, solid amber, solid green. I believe it should stay solid green, but after 5-10 seconds, it goes to a blinking red. This doesn't seem good as JohnSwenson indicated: I'm asking Alex what he thinks about this. It seems possible that I've caused harm to both the LPS-1.2 *and* the USBRidge. I noticed that the Sparky still boots and my DAC works as long as I use one of the other USB ports (not the USBRidge). To really test the USBridge, I opened it up and installed the J28 jumper again so I was then able to attempt to power both parts with the stock PSU (micro usb into Sparky). Bad news - the USBridge port does not work. And oh crap, as I'm writing this, I think I'm learning the hard way that the white DC adapter that came with the iFi PSU is a polarity inverter. I suppose using this was my fatal mistake. I'm surprised that it adapts the physical connection as well as the polarity. If it had been the same physical connection, that would have alerted to me that it must be doing something else...

@luisma I think I shared earlier how Alex mentioned to me in email, "you can’t hut an UltraCap LPS-1.2 by trying to draw too much current from it. It will simply go into over-current mode, flashing red 5 times then once green (checking to see if load lowered), then red 5 times, etc." But all the same, I would love to hear from anyone else about the potential dangers of running the USBridge with the LPS-1.2 and the main board separately. I guess the trick would be making sure that the 2 PSUs are fed together so you don't have situations where power is cut to one and not the other. It has happened it my experimentation, though: I did notice that if power is lost to the Sparky but the LPS-1.2 on the USBRidge remained live, that when the system boots, it manages to get through a bit of the text-scrolling boot before it resets and starts over, boot looping. This is very interesting as I thought that with the J28 removed that the power between the 2 parts was split! How is the Sparky booting at all!? Anyway, perhaps this has something to do with the phenomenon you describe... Btw, you have me eyeing that iFi PSU now for the main board. Somehow, I doubt it would make an appreciable difference, but how would you know unless you tried!

Why does the USBridge system offer it as an option with the J28 jumper etc? My understanding is that by separating the power supplies, you can further reduce noise on the USB output. To update, I spent some time listening to the USBridge with my Hugo2 last night. The main board being powered with the stock PSU and included micro USB adapter, and the USBridge powered with my LPS-1.2. Alex at UpTone told me he knew of a handful of folks powering the USBridge this way, so I felt more comfortable trying it out. Now I need to figure out a good way to switch everything off when not in use. How do people do this? Even if I put everything on a power strip to easily turn it off at once, how do you guys do a proper shut-down of the Sparky? I know there's a risk of corrupting the system drive if we don't do a safe unmount (shutdown of the linux system)... And I'd still like to understand what my risks are here that luisma was talking about... Alex mentioned that the LPS-1.2 has safety features, "you can’t hut an UltraCap LPS-1.2 by trying to draw too much current from it. It will simply go into over-current mode, flashing red 5 times then once green (checking to see if load lowered), then red 5 times, etc."

This is not supported. The USBridge is designed for Sparky, Allo's single board computer, which is similar to the Pi but different.

Is anyone else running the USBridge with the LPS-1.2? I'd love to hear from anyone about this pairing... particularly if it will work without putting any electronics at risk. Has anyone tried the ISORegen with the USBridge? Is this device likely to improve the sound, or does the fanciness that is the USBridge basically render any benefit that the ISORegen would bring moot?

Is it possible that this issue is remedied by removing the J28 jumper as it seems you're supposed to do anyway? I don't quite understand how the power delivery situation of the the LPS-1.2 to the USBridge would change if the power to the Sparky is removed... but then I don't understand many things Much thanks for the thoughts, and Happy Father's Day!

Hm! I could use some more clarity around this. I had assumed this would work, but perhaps I was mistaken! The USBridge manual seems a bit unclear: Power feed Methods for USBridge board: 1. Power feed through DC jack only (USBridge) J28 to be open Power adaptor rating : 5.2 V 3A ,+/- 5% 2. Power feed through Micro-usb only on Sparky SBC J28 to be closed Power adaptor rating: 5.2 V 3A ,+/- 5% 3. Individual power feed to Sparky and USBridge separately. J28 to be open I'm aiming for #3 and I assume this means both the "power adaptor ratings" for #1 and #2 come into play? The LPS-1.2 has a 5V setting with a maximum guaranteed output current of 1.1A. Damn. Am I on the wrong track here, then? Am I going to fry something trying to use these together? What are people using to power their USBridge with the J28 jumper removed? I'm thinking powering the Sparky with the included micro-usb adapter in this configuration would be fine...

Does anyone have any particular advice for adapting the 5.5mm/2.1mm plug of the UpTone LPS-1.2 into the required 5.5mm/2.5mm for the USBridge? Should I be wary of over voltage/current protection or anything else that could create a bottleneck at all? Will just about any properly spec'd adapter be a fine choice for me? Also, how are people turning their USBridge/Sparky machines on and off? It seems that even if I issue the `poweroff` command, I still need to unplug the power cord once it shuts down... And I'm not sure how practical the recessed buttons are if I need to use a paperclip to operate them. Do I need to resort to these DC cables with an in-line switch or am I missing something?

Thank you for that! ... who is this sparky-sbc user? Why isn't it under the official one (sparkysbc)... What's the idea with this repo?

So I wonder if someone could help me in the right direction with my DietPi system on my brand new Sparky w/USBridge. I'm not sure if there is a binary package that will work for me or if I need to compile my own kernel, but I'm trying to sort out two things: I'd like to make use of the joystick interface, and this kernel doesn't seem to include it. (`modprobe joydev` says no such module and `jstest` says `jstest is not fully compatible with your kernel. Unable to retrieve button map!`) (I've written scripts that run on a Pi and let me control Roon with a cheap, NES-knockoff gamepad.) I'd like to compile a module for my 802.11ac usb wifi adapter (https://github.com/gnab/rtl8812au) and I'm not sure how to install the kernel headers. Otherwise, this has been a pleasant experience so far! Roon is working and I am a happy camper. Looking forward to a spending some quality time with my music Should I go binary or source? Is there anything USBridge-specific in here or can I just follow DietPi's directions for the Sparky? Thank you!

Aren't you referring to the analog outputs on the Squeezebox? Of course it can sound much better when hooked up to an external DAC... (I use the Stello DA100 with mine, and am quite pleased with the sound.)

Chris, I've been following your blog for a number of months now, and I think it's great!<br /> <br /> I was especially excited (most recently) to hear that my stupid skipping USB DAC issue on my MBP is likely resolved in the new OS X update.<br /> <br /> So thanks for a great blog, too!<br /> <br /> (Does Chris happen to twitter? I'm djthread.)

Ok. This is awesome. Thank you for starting this site!