[HN Gopher] I need more USB power
___________________________________________________________________
I need more USB power
Author : iamflimflam1
Score : 125 points
Date : 2023-11-04 16:36 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (atomic14.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (atomic14.substack.com)
| nolist_policy wrote:
| That's a lot of DCDC conversion per Dollar!
| jtriangle wrote:
| Aliexpress is a treasure trove of this sort of thing.
| Unfortunately, product listings don't last that long, and often
| things get relisted under different names, so, you have to dig
| for what you want.
|
| Price is right though to be sure.
| solardev wrote:
| What's that device that is being used to test whether something
| supports USB PD?
| jprd wrote:
| https://www.aliexpress.us/w/wholesale-fnb38.html?spm=a2g0o.d...
| solardev wrote:
| Cool, thanks! Not bad for $12.
|
| The lack of safety features and warnings about blowing stuff
| up are a bit scary though, lol.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| If you want something in lab quality, the Power-Z KM003C
| [1] is a decent model. I use mine to troubleshoot USB-C PD
| docks.
|
| You can, however, blow up stuff with the Power-Z, too.
|
| [1]: https://www.chargerlab.com/introducing-the-brand-new-
| power-z...
| fragmede wrote:
| The "blow stuff up" is a specific mode where you tell the
| source and sink to ignore what they negotiated and do
| whatever you program the decide to fake instead. Which, if
| you're not careful, could be out of spec for either or both
| devices, causing said damage. In normal use, it's a semi-
| passive monitor/reporting box.
| firmnoodle wrote:
| Why not use 110V AC for a hotplate and the soldering iron? USB
| seems silly.
| Animats wrote:
| USB-powered coffee makers are a thing. There's a USB-powered
| fondue maker. A USB-powered mini-fridge. A USB-powered toaster.
| bloopernova wrote:
| There's also USB heated fingerless gloves for cold winter
| days. And I have several USB powered fans.
|
| USB-C power delivery cables are pretty useful and better than
| a dozen transformers fighting for space on a power strip.
| PennRobotics wrote:
| I think the nice Weller irons are using 24 volts DC between the
| box and the tip. Why deal with filtering and conversion to run
| a PID temperature controller, which you'll need anyway to get a
| mains iron to run as precisely as a high-end device?
| oakwhiz wrote:
| Thyristor/SCR control works too.
| wepple wrote:
| Can't speak for the OP but having USB C devices is far tidier,
| and allows you to go portable.
|
| I've always had a 110 soldering station, but recently bought a
| Pinecil portable iron for soldering in the field, and damn that
| thing is so convenient and fast to heat and accurate, I hardly
| bother with my full solder station any more
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| It's actually good? It's so inexpensive. My soldering station
| was $200, and I thought that was on the cheaper side. It
| looks like Pinecil V2 is only $25 at the moment.
| noman-land wrote:
| It's strangely good. I also haven't used my Weller since
| getting the Pinecil.
| graphe wrote:
| What do you need it for? I've used $4 ones that were
| "good". Once you go hot air it's different.
| wepple wrote:
| Repairing crashed drones, so maybe nothing fancy. If I'm
| doing precise SMT I prefer to be at a desk
| graphe wrote:
| I think these will do fine my nice soldering iron was
| $70ish when I got it and has temperature control. You
| don't need a weller or anything that was nice from back
| in the day, I think the in general temp control is very
| good from my experience with cheap ecigs too.
| xnyan wrote:
| My electronics background is that I worked under
| Underwriters Laboratories where I've used some very nice
| soldering irons.
|
| The pinecil is unbelievably good for what it costs. I find
| myself using it more than any other soldering iron, only
| pulling out bigger more expensive models when I need more
| thermal mass. I can't recommend it enough.
| hobs wrote:
| Just a mention that if it isn't working up to spec you
| probably dont have a power source capable of delivering
| what it needs, it truly blew me away how good this thing
| is.
| wepple wrote:
| If they'd charged me $85 I'd be a very happy buyer. But I
| paid like $45 or something crazy?
|
| The one downside someone pointed out is that replacement
| tips are pricey because they seem to include the actual
| heating element, but even then it's still such a great
| device IMO
| duskwuff wrote:
| > The one downside someone pointed out is that
| replacement tips are pricey
|
| And, at $25 for a set of four, they aren't even that
| expensive.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| That's a strong endorsement. Do you know how long does a
| tip normally last?
| stavros wrote:
| It's amazing, both in general, and especially for its
| price. I have four of them (not exactly Pinecils, but two
| Pinecils, a TS-100, a TS-80, etc). I love it.
| tiagod wrote:
| I carry mine in my backpack, uses as much space than a couple
| pens and I can use it with my powerbank and usb-c charger which
| I always carry anyway.
| rainbowzootsuit wrote:
| The TS 100 / pinecil type irons can be run off an RC lipo
| battery or USB PD power bank. For small field repairs work they
| are fantastic.
| usrusr wrote:
| Because then you can only sell to countries that have 110V
| mains. All three of them.
|
| If your product is more complex than a light bulb, dealing with
| mains power can be quite a hassle. It requires bigger and more
| expensive parts than negotiating for 20V DC with a USB PD
| source.
|
| You might want to take a look at USB-C to barrel connector
| adapters intended to run older laptops on modern chargers. They
| are tiny and cheap, I use one to liberate a thunderbolt 4 hub
| from the massive power brick it came with.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > It's not a massive problem, but I do only have one 65W USB-C
| supply coming into workbench. I want more, I want much much more!
|
| >There don't seem to be any powered USB-C hubs, so I went
| shopping on AliExpress and eventually came across this nice
| board:
|
| Are they UL listed? With that kind of watts, seems like they are
| capable of starting a fire and burning down your home if not
| properly designed, manufactured, tested, etc.
| Saris wrote:
| No, but workbench stuff like this would be powered on when
| you're actively there and working on something, so if it did go
| pop and potentially catch fire at least you're nearby.
| fragmede wrote:
| Both soldering irons and multimeters, tools typically used on
| workbenches have time out/auto off features because EE work
| is performed by fallible humans that accidentally leave
| things plugged in and turned on when not actively monitoring
| things. Sometimes even intentionally, to test things like
| battery discharge rates.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| I don't understand how you can power all of these at full power
| when the input voltage is a single ~30v DC wall adapter? Isn't
| that your bottleneck right there?
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| That's not the issue. 24VDC power supplies with tens of amperes
| are not hard to find, they won't be wall warts though.
|
| I'm not sure though, if the board can actually put out high
| power from all 4 ports at the same time. Does anyone know?
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| The supply wire looked like 14awg-ish which seems a little
| dinky for 20a @12v
| popol12 wrote:
| https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm
|
| looks fine, if it's AWG 14 then it's rated for about 32
| amps
| undersuit wrote:
| How many amps? Genuine question, I can't find the info.
| throw0101b wrote:
| Is 240W not enough?
|
| > _Announced in 2021, the USB PD Revision 3.1 specification is a
| major update to enable delivering up to 240W of power over full
| featured USB Type-C(r) cable and connector. Prior to this update,
| USB PD was limited to 100W using a solution based on 20V using
| USB Type-C cables rated at 5A. The USB Type-C specification has
| also been updated to Release 2.1 to define 240W cable
| requirements, and with the updated USB PD protocol and power
| supply definition, this extends the applicability of USB power
| delivery to a large number of applications where 100W wasn 't
| adequate._
|
| * https://www.usb.org/usb-charger-pd
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| That's not what the article is talking about. The article is
| talking about needing more outputs, not higher powered output.
|
| I do look forward to future iterations of boards like this that
| support usb-c input. Weird as that is. Basically a power
| breakout board. And heck, why not throw some usb hubs on it all
| too?
| timenova wrote:
| I think someday it would be amazing to have 1500W to 3000W
| kettles simply being powered by Type C, and other home
| appliances too. Wall sockets in most places in the house could
| simply be the universal Type C port, and since Type C does
| power negotiation, it'll be safe to connect a low-power
| appliance to a high-power Type C outlet.
|
| The key requirement for this (after the spec comes along) would
| be high quality high-power rated Type C cables, and safe high-
| power Type C outlets. No need for each appliance to have
| different sorts of cables (mostly irreplaceable and fixed
| length) which don't fit some outlets correctly.
|
| Maybe after some regulations, it would even be easy to update
| the firmware of those home appliances to open source
| alternatives.
| gubby wrote:
| Interesting idea, I suspect it isn't possible with the
| existing connector. You either need to increase the voltage
| or the current.
|
| The new 240W spec is 5A and 50V. Assuming 5A is the thermal
| limit of the connector and that can't change, to get 1500W
| you'd need 300V, which is probably higher than the connector
| can support in terms of conductor spacing.
| buildbot wrote:
| 300V DC is also quite dangerous, 48v/50v is already up
| there.
| hulitu wrote:
| 50 V in the USB-C connector ?
|
| What can go wrong ?
| minedwiz wrote:
| In power-over-ethernet setups, you can have up to 57VDC
| at the consuming device: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po
| wer_over_Ethernet#Standard_i...
| andix wrote:
| 50V is pretty much the limit that is still considered
| safe for humans to get in direct contact with.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| And by safe it means 'won't die' not 'pleasant feeling'
| still be careful with 50v!
| andix wrote:
| With dry hands it shouldn't be bad, with wet or sweaty
| fingers it probably can become quite a "shocking"
| experience.
|
| If there is some liquid poured over the connector or if
| the cable is damaged, this could really become nasty.
| bafe wrote:
| As a teenager I touched a phone plug with my tongue.
| While it only delivered 48V it was far from being
| pleasant
| askvictor wrote:
| Touching a 9V battery to your tongue isn't pleasant.
| andix wrote:
| Licking a Nintendo game card is also not pleasant.
| askvictor wrote:
| At uni we learned that 30V can penetrate skin in the
| right (wrong?) conditions. Once it's through the skin,
| your body conducts really well, so even a tiny amount of
| current can stop your heart. But you need a path for the
| current to get across your heart, so I'm guessing that
| even if 30V gets under your skin, you'd have to be pretty
| unlucky for it to form a circuit through your heart.
| jorvi wrote:
| Maybe you can get there if the device doesn't actually
| require a steady stream of 1500W. For example, induction
| stovetops often work with cycling their coils. Couple the
| idea of a charge pump, a whole bank of capacitors and
| Tesla's trick of running cables over spec by constantly
| monitoring temperature and making on-the-fly adjustments,
| and you might get somewhere.
| andix wrote:
| You may be able to run cables 50-100% over spec for a
| short time. But not 1000%. Thought experiment (don't try
| at home!): Take a random USB cable and short circuit a
| car battery. It will start burning within seconds.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > I think someday it would be amazing to have 1500W to 3000W
| kettles simply being powered by Type C
|
| Please, for the love of Zeus, no!
|
| Sure, having a single standard everywhere sounds like fun,
| but there is such thing as physics...
|
| Also I really don't want people to try to run electric
| kettles over iPhone USB charging cord.
| thelittleone wrote:
| The point is that USB-C is used by a LOT of devices that
| are NOT iPhone and that draw significantly more power,
| therefore its reasonble to explore standardizing any decive
| that can fit the specs wattage limitations. The more
| devices that can be charged from the same cable and plug
| would solve several problems not the least of which is
| reducing environment waste.
|
| I have a bag at home scores of AC to DC adapters and
| cables.
| avar wrote:
| > Also I really don't want people to try to run electric
| > kettles over iPhone USB charging cord.
|
| The USB-C PD cables have circuitry in them that negotiates
| with both endpoints, and declares "yes, I'm okey with
| transporting 100W".
|
| Whereas I can trivially rewire my kettle in 5 minutes to
| use headphone wires instead of the properly sized wires it
| needs, and people routinely do the equivalent of that, e.g.
| extending their oven, microwave or kettle's cable with the
| cheapest extension cord they can find.
|
| So it would actually be significantly safer, you _can_ make
| a USB-PD wire that says it accepts 100W, but actually just
| melts, but doing so requires significantly more moronic
| perseverance than doing the equivalent with an under-rated
| extension cord.
| fragmede wrote:
| _Spec compliant_ USB-C PD cables have circuitry in them
| that negotiates with both endpoints, and declares "yes,
| I'm okay with transporting 100W".
|
| Most people aren't making their own cables and
| programming what they accept into them. They're just
| using whatever cables they have that works. If you were a
| business owner and profit was your short term motive, and
| you had a factory making different cables supporting
| different wattages, would it be easier to program the
| specific firmware that should be on each cable, or just
| program all cables so they say they "support" the max?
| Shortcuts like that are not theoretical - ethernet cards
| are supposed to be programmed with unique MAC addresses,
| but we've seen out in the wild, MACs be the same on
| batches of cards, or set to all zeros.
|
| When it's 240W the stakes are lower than when it's 3000W.
| avar wrote:
| I'm not really following this argument.
|
| Because someone released Ethernet cards with duplicate
| MAC addresses, we should conclude that a future
| hypothetical USB-PD spec capable of powering a kettle
| would be more prone to failure than the status quo of
| bringing your own extension cord?
|
| Electric cords don't need to self-declare their
| capabilities, USB-PD cables do. So the odds of a mistake
| on the manufacturer side are lower, as you'd need to pair
| an incapable wire with the wrong E-Mark chip.
|
| For an extension cord to melt and catch fire all you need
| to do is for the customer to misread a label, or more
| likely not read one at all.
|
| If we're talking about the short-term motives of
| sociopaths, your hypothetical factory will have an even
| easier time labeling headphone wires as capable of
| carrying 16A. They don't need to fraudulently manufacture
| one with the wrong E-Mark chip, just slap a new sticker
| on the box they're shipped in.
|
| I'm as frustrated with the confusion around USB-C as
| anyone, but I don't think we need to worry that the
| problems associated with race-to-the bottom manufacturers
| in the 15W space are going to extend to 100W, 240W, or
| hypothetical 3000W cables. The price point, serious
| failure modes, and potential liability will all serve as
| moats.
| nolist_policy wrote:
| Heh, the German Schuko plug tops out at ~3680W @240V. And
| that thing is chunky even compared to the US NEMA plug.
|
| To increase the wattage with such tiny wires, you need to
| increase voltage a lot. Imagine auto-negotiating at 5kV.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| 5kV would need the wires really far apart to prevent
| arcing, no?
| 0_____0 wrote:
| The cables would be chunkier but not THAT weird looking.
| The connectors on the other hand would be wild. You'd
| have a cluster of deeply shielded contacts, and
| mechanically actuated shutters might be employed. I have
| no idea how you would address wet environments other than
| "GFCI everything"
| bafe wrote:
| That's why power hungry devices are usually connected to a
| three phase plug. This aside, I think the best would have
| most outlet keeping the current national standards (let's
| not forget they deliver AC which is still need by a
| decreasing number of electric motors) and add a second
| residential DC circuit using a USB-C outlet
| ctoth wrote:
| I've shocked myself with the end of a USB C cable too many
| times to believe this (power negotiation) is implemented
| well.
| duskwuff wrote:
| The metal "end" of the cable is connected to ground, not
| power.
|
| If you're getting shocked by that, you've got bigger
| problems.
| 05 wrote:
| It's the EMI shield coupling inside the power supply, see
| [0]. Shouldn't happen with properly grounded chargers
| (but the charger in question is probably two-pronged
| without a ground pin, like the majority of chargers).
|
| [0] https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/47689
| 5/ac-to...
| NavinF wrote:
| That has nothing to do with the voltage/current inside the
| cable. You can't feel 48V on dry skin.
| lxgr wrote:
| This is assuming that only 48 V (relative to ground) were
| present on the cable.
|
| There are many ways in which low quality power supplies
| can expose up to full main power voltage on the secondary
| side. For example, with 230 V on Vbus and 225 V on
| "ground", an USB device might not even be able to tell
| the difference.
| lxgr wrote:
| A compliant USB-C device or power supply is not allowed to
| expose anything other than 3-5.5V of Vconn on one of the
| configuration pins.
|
| Only if it senses an upstream-facing port of another device
| will it expose 5V of Vbus, let alone 20 V (or more recently
| 48 V) via PD, which would require a complex handshake to
| prevent exactly that situation (i.e. electric shocks or
| arcing) from arising.
|
| As others have already said, what you're experiencing is
| likely an improperly designed power supply (that can happen
| even with plain old USB-A battery charging and has caused
| deadly accidents in the past!) or static electricity.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Sorry, I think this must remain a fantasy. Physics is
| unlikely to comply with your request, no matter how
| convenient it would be.
| jrockway wrote:
| The key is to use the USB cable itself as the heating
| element in the boiler.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| What's wrong with physics in this scenario? Tune up voltage
| as necessary, split it via several wires, I think it'll
| work.
| pshc wrote:
| If only LK-99 had panned out...
| sroussey wrote:
| I have USB-C for my blender. Well, it's battery operated, but
| recharges that way.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/07/blend-cap/
| jack_h wrote:
| > I think someday it would be amazing to have 1500W to 3000W
| kettles simply being powered by Type C, and other home
| appliances too.
|
| I've actually jokingly suggested that USB will go this way.
| You'll plug in your new induction cooktop with a USB cable
| you fished out of the junk drawer and all of the LEDs and
| screens will light up. However, the second you turn a zone on
| the cable melts and burns your house down because the cable
| didn't support the USB-HPD-IH 2.3 Gen2x120 spec.
| eigen wrote:
| > I think someday it would be amazing to have 1500W to 3000W
| kettles simply being powered by Type C, and other home
| appliances too.
|
| seems like Ki [1] is more the way to go for appliances. just
| a few hotspots around the kitchen for the kettle or pot.
|
| [1] https://www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com/standards/ki-
| cordles...
| andix wrote:
| I don't believe the tiny plugs will ever be able to do that.
| The European power sockets ("schuko", type E/F) usually run
| with 230V and 13A (even 253V/16A is technically allowed), so
| up to 3000W and more.
|
| They can get really warm when run at full power. If the
| sockets are worn out they can even get hot enough to melt the
| plastic. A few electric car owners experienced that, when
| they charged their car on a regular socket. (with the higher
| voltage in Europe it's feasible to charge a car on a standard
| socket, 0-100% can take as "little" as 20 to 30 hours.)
|
| So I highly doubt those currents could every be delivered on
| such a tiny and brittle connector. 240W already seems like
| pushing it to the limits. Higher voltages seem impossible
| too, there is not enough space for isolation. Small
| mechanical faults could easily expose those dangerous
| voltages to the user.
| gumby wrote:
| Phui. The Wireless Power Consortium (the Qi people) have the
| wireless "Ki" standard for your kitchen (Qi - Ki - kitchen,
| get it?)
|
| https://www.cookwithki.com/
|
| Vaporware boils water best.
| Galanwe wrote:
| > I think someday it would be amazing to have 1500W to 3000W
| kettles simply being powered by Type C
|
| Well this is very unlikely to happen.
|
| To deliver more power, you either need to increase voltage,
| or increase current.
|
| - The higher the voltage, the easier an electric arc can form
| between two wires. Cables and connectors are voltage rated
| depending on the clearance/spacing between their components.
| USB-C is very compact, it is unlikely it could be used for
| more than say 20V without starting to create arc issues.
|
| - Increasing current means increasing wire gauge, otherwise
| the cables will just burn. Ultimately "beefing" USB cables
| will make them clunky and rigid to the point where it will
| defeat its purpose. The connectors would need to be bigger as
| well, to a point where these new high power connectors
| wouldn't fit regular USB-C connectors.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Great board, nice. It's so great that so many of these super
| small peripherals which would otherwise have walllwarts either
| just work with usb-c or can use a real simple trigegerboard or
| pigtail adapter. It's so convenient. And everything becomes
| incredibly easy to run off battery to boot.
|
| It'd be lovely to see a thermal imager of it under load, see how
| hot parts get & where. Total power is unspecified, but 65w out x
| 4 ports / 32V input is 8A, which may be possibly perhaps it can
| sustain but only maybe.
|
| I did try to go find this part on the website that's silkscreened
| on to the board, http://diymore.cc , but didn't find it there.
| codetrotter wrote:
| I wish more things were USB-C powered. I am currently traveling
| and among the things I have with me are two Raspberry Pi devices.
| One with a touch screen, the other with a 5TiB SATA HDD in an
| enclosure. One of the RPi devices uses 5V power, the other 12V.
| Both have the same kind of barrel connector.
|
| Guess who arrived at an AirBnB a couple of days ago, tired and
| just wanting to get things quickly unpacked and set up. And guess
| who forgot which was which of the 5V and 12V powered device and
| plugged the 12V power cord into the 5V device.
|
| That's right, this guy :(
|
| So now my RPi powered device with the 5TiB SATA HDD does not
| power on anymore, and for all I know plugging the 12V power
| supply into it may have even broken the circuit board of the HDD,
| in which case it will be very expensive to get my data back as
| HDD circuit replacement is outside of my set of skills.
|
| I wish all of these electronic I carry just used USB-C instead.
| sorenjan wrote:
| You can buy USB-PD trigger boards and make most stuff USB-PD
| powered. For instance:
| https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005006068684294.html
| stavros wrote:
| Well this is amazing, thanks! Do you know if it can output
| whatever I want by shorting a jumper, or are these fixed when
| you get them?
|
| EDIT: Oh damn, this doesn't do 5V, which is what I need the
| most :(
| SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
| It looks like you just solder the pads for the maximum
| voltage you want, and some of the pictures demonstrate what
| 12v being soldered looks like.
|
| And there are definitely 5v options, like these:
|
| https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805818718384.html
|
| https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805815622101.html
| stavros wrote:
| Thanks, I ended up buying something very similar to that!
| Goz3rr wrote:
| USB defaults to 5V, so depending on how much current you
| want to draw you might not even need a trigger module.
| stavros wrote:
| You're right, I guess I might as well just get some
| straight breakouts for a USB-C for the 5V case, but then
| I'll be limited to half an amp, which is probably fine
| for my uses, I guess.
| lxgr wrote:
| USB-C supports up to 3A without PD, using only (I
| believe) resistors/voltages to communicate the limit.
|
| That's what many simple early USB-C chargers used to do
| in order to supply 15W without full PD signalling.
| stavros wrote:
| I didn't realize that, thanks!
| p1mrx wrote:
| USB-C defaults to "off", so a 5V PD trigger would be a
| sensible product. It just needs a couple resistors, no
| chip.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| There's no such thing as 5V PD unless you mean 5V 5A,
| fyi. PD is an optionally supported standard of USB-C and
| the resistors are not part of PD, just the standard USB-C
| spec.
| MaximilianEmel wrote:
| This one can be more useful in certain situations, because
| you can much more easily change its configuration on the fly
| with the DIP switches.
|
| https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805068086690.html
| hultner wrote:
| Isn't this the reverse? Providing USB-C rather from a power
| source rather than powering from a USB-C supply.
| moffkalast wrote:
| The ironic part is that barrel jacks tried to solve your
| problem by being completely non-standard to the point of
| absurdity.
|
| There are so many different kinds and sizes of barrel jacks
| that when I was trying to order one that matches a cable I had,
| I eventually rage quit out of exasperation when even when
| finally finding and ordering some that matched the specs, they
| didn't fit, lmao. I now power everything with XT30/60
| connectors.
| vel0city wrote:
| Every time I need to buy a new barrel type power supply I'm
| always looking for one with a pack to different tips. Now
| I've got a pile of adapter tips, I can plug just about any
| supply into any device.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Just buy a bag of 5.5x2.5 connectors with panel mount
| sockets. XT30/60s are going overboard and pretty much
| everything now under 19v that uses barrel coax is either
| 5.5x2.5/2.1 or 3.5x1.5.
| ant6n wrote:
| Back when there were electronics stores, you could just go
| and buy a tip that you could try out at the store, and match
| it to a power supply that had the right voltage and wattage.
| briHass wrote:
| My problem with barrel jacks (besides the myriad diameters)
| is that there's also different lengths and tip shapes, like
| how the insulated part of the center fits.
|
| I used the wrong tip (non original) for a network switch, and
| even though it felt like a perfect fit and worked, it must
| have been a poor enough fit to start arcing. The plug was
| completely melted, though luckily the gear was undamaged.
| hansvm wrote:
| Mine is loose enough that it won't charge without a bit of
| foil jammed in there, and arcing is a non-issue. How much
| power does it draw?
| bsder wrote:
| Do XT30/XT60 connectors actually have a standard yet?
|
| I still have issues buying them from "real" distributors and
| manufacturers. I still can't seem to cough up an actual
| datasheet.
|
| For a while, some of them had a habit of arcing and catching
| on fire, as well. Not a big deal when doing attended, high
| impact stuff like racing or robots. However, that's a _BIG_
| problem when using them for unattended power.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| It's a shame that there aren't better low cost 2pos
| connectors. I'm partial to the LEMO style push-pull
| connectors or the Neutrik style twistlock connectors for
| "real projects" e.g..when someone has paid me money for
| their thing to work and keep working.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Something that should go USB-PD is electric bicycles.
| jjeaff wrote:
| USB PD is 20v max. I think most electric bikes are 24v or 48v
| jeffbee wrote:
| USB-PD goes to 48V https://www.usb.org/usb-charger-pd
| lxgr wrote:
| It goes up to 48 V these days!
|
| That's still "only" 240W, i.e. not nearly enough to charge
| electric bicycles. The other direction would still be nice,
| i.e. for faster charging of phones mounted on the handle
| bar.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The whole line of Specialized e-bikes charge at 42V, 2 to
| 4A. USB-PD 3.1 would be more than enough for an e-bike.
| lxgr wrote:
| Oh, I wasn't aware that the charging power was so low!
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Battery pack that big will be better served by a larger
| connector for power (500Wh battery can sink more than
| basically any USB-C source can supply),
|
| But the big reason is it's just a big object, and using a
| little tiny wire and plug on a big object that can fall over
| is just asking for damage. There's a reason 120V plugs are
| the size they are, and it's not ampacity. Big connectors for
| big objects. Small connectors for small objects.
|
| That being said a dual role sink -source controller on a
| motorized bicycle battery pack would be super convenient for
| charging phones on the go etc
| leptons wrote:
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGFC77M6
|
| 5v, 9v, 12v, 15v, 20v - selectable with all kinds of adapters.
|
| I had a motorized massage gun that had a 9v barrel connector,
| this thing worked perfectly. I can also use it to charge a 12v
| usb-c tablet I have that won't work with normal usb-c PD.
| superjan wrote:
| That usb protocol tester looks nice.
|
| I recently tested what cable/adapter charged my old iPad the
| fastest. I suspected cheap clone cables to be worse but from USB
| A, all performed the same at around 11-12 watts. The best was the
| macbook usb C charger at 25 watts.
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