HATs and other add-ons • 52Pi vs Waveshare PoE+NVMe HAT for RPi5 CephFS/Docker Swarm Cluster – Cancel Order? (Power Reboot Issue)

Original Purchase:
Just ordered the 52Pi P33 M.2 NVMe 2280 PoE HAT (with official cooler) for my 8-node Raspberry Pi 5 cluster:
52Pi Product Page

Now Second-Guessing After Watching This:
Jeff Geerling’s video shows that when you power down the Pi with the 52Pi HAT, it often reboots instead of staying off due to how the HAT sources power from the PoE pins.
Jeff's Video

Alternative Under Consideration:
Waveshare PoE + M.2 HAT+ (B) – claims better power isolation and clean shutdown behavior:
Waveshare Product Page

Main Questions:

1. Has anyone directly compared both HATs on RPi5?
   • Shutdown behavior (does Waveshare actually stay off?)
   • PoE stability under load (NVMe + Docker Swarm)
   • CephFS performance (I/O, heat, throttling)
2. Is the 52Pi reboot-on-shutdown issue still present in current firmware/BIOS?
   • Any known workarounds (e.g.,

     Code:

     poweroff

     scripts, jumper mods, GPIO control)?
3. Worth canceling the 52Pi order and switching to Waveshare?
   • I can still return within 30 days, but want to avoid downtime.

Use Case:

• 8-node RPi5 cluster
• Running CephFS (distributed storage) + Docker Swarm
• 24/7 operation, remote management
• AI workloads already handled by Jetson Orin Super Nanos → this cluster is for storage/orchestration

Side Quest (Bonus Ideas Welcome):
What else could I run on an 8-node RPi5 cluster?
Already have AI covered. Looking for fun, useful, or educational projects:

• K3s / MicroK8s lab?
• Distributed monitoring (Prometheus + Loki)?
• Low-power media transcoding farm?
• Retro gaming cluster?
• Anything else?

Appreciate any real-world input, benchmarks, or “I did this and regret/swear by it” stories.
Thanks in advance!

Statistics: Posted by PiFly — Sun Oct 26, 2025 9:51 pm — Replies 1 — Views 53

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