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The USB situation continues to deteriorate. We needed some usb hubs that would charge a device (that we are prototyping) at a decent rate and at the same time a

by ajb 4y ago

The USB situation continues to deteriorate. We needed some usb hubs that would charge a device (that we are prototyping) at a decent rate and at the same time allow us to talk to it via usb. Found a grand total of one, everything else only had separate fast charge and data ports. And even that one would only charge at 12.5W, nothing does USB PD (to a downstream port) and data at the same time. Not only that, but it was really hard to tell what a hub supports from the specs (plenty will charge an upstream port, eg your laptop, but not a downstream port, but this is hard too tell from the description)

SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago
Acroname has several, though they aren't cheap. Their S99-USBHUB-3C-PRO does 100W (20V 5A) PD to each downstream port and 10Gbps data. Edit: And if you're just analyzing one device and don't need a true hub, TotalPhase has some very capable analyzers. I've used their "Beagle USB 480 Power Protocol Analyzer", it captures USB frames and monitors voltage & current. Very handy for low-level USB stack debugging. Also very pricey. Used it in combination with a 2GHz bandwidth oscilloscope, which is even pricier, try not to have to troubleshoot USB signal integrity issues it gets expensive fast.
- ajb 4y ago
  This is pretty useful information to me, but I was actually commenting that even ordinary fast charging of devices on usb hubs at the same time as data seems to be pretty rare. The only one we found that could do it was a startech HB30C5A2CSC.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago
    What's "ordinary fast charging"? USB-PD 3 or USB-PD 2 or the older Qualcomm QuickCharge? Because the older Qualcomm versions (very common, pre-dates USB-PD 3) uses the data lines to communicate and thus requires a multiplexer to disable the normal data connection for it to work. USB PD 2 works similarly to Qualcomm. There are a lot of "USB-C" devices (including hubs) that only actually use USB 2.0 signalling, and don't support USB-PD 3.
    - ajb 4y ago
      Sorry, wasn't being clear. I just mean the USB standard maximum before PD, 1.5A at 5V Most hubs only support 500mA at max on a data port.
      - SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago
        That'd be USB BC 1.2 spec. The phrase to look for there is "CDP" or "Charging Downstream Port". There are quite a few options for this, though most hubs with USB-A ports do only provide Standard Downstream Ports (500mA max) and often there are only one or two CDPs on the hub (with the rest SDPs).
mrjin 4y ago
I think I went through a similar saga and unfortunately I had to give up as none was even close to my expectations. What I was after was only a charger with 8 or more ports.
- ajb 4y ago
  Not PD, but we've had good results otherwise with an Orancgeck i10. However probably what you're getting at is that the total power output of these devices is quite limited, the i10 only gives 60W in total, each port can do 12W but it will have to limit some if everything tries to draw at once.

by ajb 4y ago

SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago

Acroname has several, though they aren't cheap. Their S99-USBHUB-3C-PRO does 100W (20V 5A) PD to each downstream port and 10Gbps data. Edit: And if you're just analyzing one device and don't need a true hub, TotalPhase has some very capable analyzers. I've used their "Beagle USB 480 Power Protocol Analyzer", it captures USB frames and monitors voltage & current. Very handy for low-level USB stack debugging. Also very pricey. Used it in combination with a 2GHz bandwidth oscilloscope, which is even pricier, try not to have to troubleshoot USB signal integrity issues it gets expensive fast.

ajb 4y ago
This is pretty useful information to me, but I was actually commenting that even ordinary fast charging of devices on usb hubs at the same time as data seems to be pretty rare. The only one we found that could do it was a startech HB30C5A2CSC.
- SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago
  What's "ordinary fast charging"? USB-PD 3 or USB-PD 2 or the older Qualcomm QuickCharge? Because the older Qualcomm versions (very common, pre-dates USB-PD 3) uses the data lines to communicate and thus requires a multiplexer to disable the normal data connection for it to work. USB PD 2 works similarly to Qualcomm. There are a lot of "USB-C" devices (including hubs) that only actually use USB 2.0 signalling, and don't support USB-PD 3.
  - ajb 4y ago
    Sorry, wasn't being clear. I just mean the USB standard maximum before PD, 1.5A at 5V Most hubs only support 500mA at max on a data port.
    - SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago
      That'd be USB BC 1.2 spec. The phrase to look for there is "CDP" or "Charging Downstream Port". There are quite a few options for this, though most hubs with USB-A ports do only provide Standard Downstream Ports (500mA max) and often there are only one or two CDPs on the hub (with the rest SDPs).

mrjin 4y ago

I think I went through a similar saga and unfortunately I had to give up as none was even close to my expectations. What I was after was only a charger with 8 or more ports.

ajb 4y ago
Not PD, but we've had good results otherwise with an Orancgeck i10. However probably what you're getting at is that the total power output of these devices is quite limited, the i10 only gives 60W in total, each port can do 12W but it will have to limit some if everything tries to draw at once.