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Almost all your USB-powered devices have voltage converters with varying inefficiencies. It should also be noted that a switched mode voltage converter can hav

by nickff 13y ago

Almost all your USB-powered devices have voltage converters with varying inefficiencies. It should also be noted that a switched mode voltage converter can have well over 90% efficiency, even with large changes in voltage. You should also remember that those microwaves and kettles are getting up to 15A @ 120VRMS continuously, which works out to 1800W. You can verify the actual power output of a kettle by timing how long it takes to boil a liter of water, and calculate power from this time and the specific heat capacity of water.

dfox 13y ago
USB delivers 5V power and has 3.3V signaling levels, so any reasonable bus-powered device has to contain some kind of voltage conversion. Most common solution is LDO, voltage limits in USB specification even seem to imply that solution. Designing switched mode power supply that meets all the USB 2.0 (don't know about 3.0 but it is probably mostly similar) requirements on minimal voltage on input, current draw in various states and so on is not exactly trivial.
kyzyl 13y ago
There are some practical limits to voltage conversion if you want to keep that high efficiency. Probably most important is that your switching frequency shouldn't be as high as it is in most small devices (because high freq. allows you to use smaller components). In any case, as dfox mentions, most internal voltage level conversions won't be switched, because it adds complexity. They will be some form of linear regulation s.t. they can move between logic levels. That's different than moving from whatever high voltage is on your 150W USB line into a level that won't fry CMOS circuitry. There's a reason that the wall-->DC plug conversion usually happens in a brick on your power cable. Switched mode will be used as sparingly as possible, such as when you also need AC signals rectified, if you need both buck and boost depending on a battery or something, or if you need to be able to modify the control loop dynamically. > those microwaves and kettles are getting up to 15A @ 120VRMS continuously, which works out to 1800W Well that's kind of my point. Even at 1.8kW those devices don't need to draw 20A continuous (or even pulsed, because of the fuse). Basically no matter what you're doing, the copper losses are roughly fixed by the hardware. What you can control are heat dissipation and current levels, and it's a lot more fun to play with Ohm's law than try to fight against thermodynamics.

by nickff 13y ago

dfox 13y ago

USB delivers 5V power and has 3.3V signaling levels, so any reasonable bus-powered device has to contain some kind of voltage conversion. Most common solution is LDO, voltage limits in USB specification even seem to imply that solution. Designing switched mode power supply that meets all the USB 2.0 (don't know about 3.0 but it is probably mostly similar) requirements on minimal voltage on input, current draw in various states and so on is not exactly trivial.

kyzyl 13y ago

There are some practical limits to voltage conversion if you want to keep that high efficiency. Probably most important is that your switching frequency shouldn't be as high as it is in most small devices (because high freq. allows you to use smaller components). In any case, as dfox mentions, most internal voltage level conversions won't be switched, because it adds complexity. They will be some form of linear regulation s.t. they can move between logic levels. That's different than moving from whatever high voltage is on your 150W USB line into a level that won't fry CMOS circuitry. There's a reason that the wall-->DC plug conversion usually happens in a brick on your power cable. Switched mode will be used as sparingly as possible, such as when you also need AC signals rectified, if you need both buck and boost depending on a battery or something, or if you need to be able to modify the control loop dynamically. > those microwaves and kettles are getting up to 15A @ 120VRMS continuously, which works out to 1800W Well that's kind of my point. Even at 1.8kW those devices don't need to draw 20A continuous (or even pulsed, because of the fuse). Basically no matter what you're doing, the copper losses are roughly fixed by the hardware. What you can control are heat dissipation and current levels, and it's a lot more fun to play with Ohm's law than try to fight against thermodynamics.