Sudden power loss remains one of the most common causes of SD card corruption on headless Raspberry Pi deployments, and traditional lithium-ion UPS boards, while effective, come with their own drawbacks: limited charge cycles, slow degradation, and fire risk. Geekworm and Mcuzone are taking a different approach with the UPS Scap 5V5A, a supercapacitor-based UPS HAT that trades extended runtime for over 500,000 charge cycles, roughly 15-minute charge times, and zero chemical leakage concerns. Available in 22F, 60F, and 100F capacitor variants, the board is designed not to keep a Pi running for hours, but to buy enough time for a safe shutdown.
The HAT includes a built-in PD chip that negotiates a true 5V/5A output over USB-C, which directly addresses the Raspberry Pi 5's tendency to throw low-voltage warnings with underpowered supplies. It accepts input from either a 9V to 24V DC barrel jack or a 12V USB-C PD charger (one at a time), and power-loss detection happens through GPIO26 via pogo pins, while an onboard INA219 sensor provides real-time voltage and current monitoring over I2C. Geekworm provides reference scripts for automatic shutdown and wake-up on Raspberry Pi OS and Ubuntu, though the company notes these should be tested before unattended use.
Runtime depends on the capacitor size and load. The 100F version delivers roughly 9 seconds at the full 5V/5A draw in Performance Mode, but stretches to about 3.5 minutes at 0.5A in Long Endurance Mode, which uses a lower 1.6V discharge cutoff. The two modes are selected via hardware solder pads on the board. Five LED indicators show remaining capacity at a glance, and a dedicated discharge button with its own indicator LED lets you safely drain the supercapacitor. The board measures 85 x 56 mm (3.3 x 2.2 inches), matching the standard Pi footprint, and is backward-compatible with the Raspberry Pi 4B, 3B, and Orange Pi boards through its USB-A output port.
The UPS Scap 5V5A starts at $44.90 (€41) for the 22F version from Geekworm's store, with the 60F at $46.90 (€43) and the 100F at $48.90 (€45). The package includes the UPS module, standoffs, and a U-shaped USB-C adapter board for routing power to the Pi.
