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USB-C can supply up to 100 watts of power at 20v and up to 5A current. At the moment, you can easily get your hands on 87 watt Apple charger which is a high qua

by oxplot 7y ago

USB-C can supply up to 100 watts of power at 20v and up to 5A current. At the moment, you can easily get your hands on 87 watt Apple charger which is a high quality and compact [1]. That's a huge amount of power. To put this into perspective, here are a few unsuspecting items that can be easily powered by Apple's charger (stuff around my apartment): * A fairly capable soldering iron [2] * Studio grade lighting [3] * Prusa i3 3D printer [4] * Emblaser Core Laser Cutter Each of these devices come with their own power supply unit, most of which are bricks at least twice the size of the Apple's charger, while most likely of lower output signal quality (e.g. higher ripple). It'd be great if all that waste could be replaces with a USB-C port! That's why I'm currently working on a PCB kit which can be programmed to require a certain voltage/current from an upstream USB-C power supply [7]. It can then be used as adapter for (or embedded inside) devices that don't have USB-C power input. I'm hoping to sell the kit in the future. I'll be getting rid of my power bricks one by one while making them more portable with things like high power car chargers [6]. I'm also working on an upstream USB-C power supply (as a kit) [8] that can take any input from 10-35v and provide up to 100 watt output (which is currently rare). [1]: http://k.sina.com.cn/article_1677177940_63f7b454001003fpl.html http://k.sina.com.cn/article_1677177940_63f7b454001003fpl.ht... [2]: https://www.weller-tools.com/we1010na/ https://www.weller-tools.com/we1010na/ [3]: https://www.amazon.com.au/Godox-SL-60W-Temperature-Continous-Lighting/dp/B01EA25GDY https://www.amazon.com.au/Godox-SL-60W-Temperature-Continous... [4]: https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/3d-printers/180-original-prusa-i3-mk3-kit.html https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/3d-printers/180-original-prusa-i... [5]: https://darklylabs.com/emblaser_core/ https://darklylabs.com/emblaser_core/ [6]: https://satechi.net/products/72w-type-c-pd-car-charger-adapter?nosto=frontpage-nosto-1 https://satechi.net/products/72w-type-c-pd-car-charger-adapt... [7]: https://imgur.com/a/GIia7Fo https://imgur.com/a/GIia7Fo [8]: https://imgur.com/a/ejbPBIT https://imgur.com/a/ejbPBIT

llampx 7y ago
Apple's charger is nice but it also costs a pretty penny. Are you sure you couldn't get a nicer custom-built power supply if you wanted to spend that much money?
- oxplot 7y ago
  There definitely could be one out there, but given the size of the Apple charger, power output performance, build quality and ubiquity, I think it'll be hard to find an alternative that costs less. A lot of expensive components goes into making this charger. I can tell you from my experience of trying to build a similar supply, that's not even an AC-DC circuit, that the components alone cost $30 USD. Even at Apple's production scale, it'll most likely still cost ~$20. That's 25% of the retail price. I'm constantly amazed on how they manage to make them so cheap! But all the attributes I mentioned could be irrelevant to many. If you carry a 30 liter bag around, double the size of charger won't make a difference. If you're powering lights, output ripple doesn't matter much and so on.

by oxplot 7y ago

llampx 7y ago

Apple's charger is nice but it also costs a pretty penny. Are you sure you couldn't get a nicer custom-built power supply if you wanted to spend that much money?

oxplot 7y ago
There definitely could be one out there, but given the size of the Apple charger, power output performance, build quality and ubiquity, I think it'll be hard to find an alternative that costs less. A lot of expensive components goes into making this charger. I can tell you from my experience of trying to build a similar supply, that's not even an AC-DC circuit, that the components alone cost $30 USD. Even at Apple's production scale, it'll most likely still cost ~$20. That's 25% of the retail price. I'm constantly amazed on how they manage to make them so cheap! But all the attributes I mentioned could be irrelevant to many. If you carry a 30 liter bag around, double the size of charger won't make a difference. If you're powering lights, output ripple doesn't matter much and so on.