USB-PD Charger

[Sunder]

Alright, this is nothing that impressive... Yet. But this is my first run of a USB-PD charger for my eBike:



The tiny device hot glued to the wall is what negotiates 20v at the highest available current the charger is willing to give. The big device below is... Actually, it's a 60A DC to DC converter, and way bigger than I needed. I ordered a tiny 3A one from eBay about 4 weeks ago, but it seems like the package was lost. I think once I get the right size boost controller, the whole package can be nothing more than a "bump in the wire", not much larger than your typical ferrite core. In fact, once it's here, I'm planning on reprinting my battery box about 1.5cm larger, and just make it part of the battery.

The USB-PD standard allows for up to 100W per channel, though there are chargers up to 136w, giving enough overhead to charge a phone, or run a laptop (without charging it). Unfortunately, all of these chargers are US ones. Australia has a limit of 65w, it seems, but all of the 100W ones seem to have been released from Nov. 2019 onwards, so I expect they are doing different countries in batches, and within 3-6 months, the big watters will be available in Australia as well.

Here's what I hope for in the long run though: I always carry a USB-PD charger with me. It's my one power source for almost everything. At 65w, it takes me a little over 2 hours to recharge my ride in to work, or 4 hours to charge the battery from dead flat. However, I'm hoping to get a USB QC3.0 negotiator in there as well. That means whether it's a dumb 5v, 500ma power from a laptop, an Apple charger at 5v, 2.4a, an old generation QC2.0 willing to give 15w, or someone else's 100W USB-PD charger, I can still get a bit of a top up almost anywhere. USB is ubiquitous. Shopping centres and cafes have them. Back of TVs, and PCs have them. And nobody things twice when they see you "guerilla" charging from a USB port.

On the other hand, if I'm intentionally planning a long trip and need rapid charge ups, I can still carry my 15A charger, and be 90% done in 30 mins through the main XT90s.

It's not for everyone, I know. But I really do believe in USB-PD as the "one charger to rule them all" in the future. I'm just jumping the gun on this one.

 

[methods]

Very cool.

I have not used Ebay in over 5 years.
I stick to Amazon, and only Prime
When building BOMS for customers I order from only 3 places:

* Amazon Prime
* Digikey Overnight
* Home Depot walk in
(With Mouser and Lowes as backups, no Ebay allowed)

...

Running a DC-DC on a bike is a great idea, and almost required these days.

Thanks for highlighting USB-PD
I love USB-C and was unaware that there is now a PD

In my world, we are desperately trying to get away from microUSB. As soon as Arduino accepts USB-C as the standard, all will be right in the world.

-methods

 

[Sunder]

Cheers. I am starting to like Amazon Prime as an eBay replacement, but I find the range on there, especially "Prime" to Australia is much more limited. Guessing the warehouse space costs too much for slow moving stock. (Amazon has a policy where like the first month an item is held at their warehouse is nearly free, but gets exponentially more expensive, to stop sellers using their warehouse space for storage, rather than a staging area to speed up shipping as intended).

USB-PD is just "Power Delivery over USB-C port". It's nothing more than a set of pins, really. If I plug the other end of that cable into a Type A port, I could get anything from 5v, 500ma, to QC3.0 (Maybe even 4.0, if I had the right negotiatior). I should point out to you since you're in the US, if you want 100W, you also need a cable that has an "eMark" on it, signalling to the charger it can handle 5A. Otherwise, the charger will limit itself to 3.25A, regardless of its capability, or the what the negotiator tells the charger it wants. Stop stupid people using cheap cables with expensive laptops, I guess.

 

[john61ct]

I would love to see links for PD chargers over 60W, as far as I've seen that's the highest released anywhere.

HyperJuice 100W GaN charger vaporware?

And voltage is not continuously adjustable, between 5V and 20V maybe only 2-3 others?

Personally I think implementing the PD spec on the **output** side and building the "negotiation spec" into every pack, I see as unnecessary myself.

I'd make a DCDC charger that did exactly what I (my cells) want, but only allow it to make use of the PD spec on its **input** side.

Those chargers will get to higher amps soon enough and prices will plummet, so great, whether from 12V car adapters or mains power sources yes a very handy standard, but will always be for little packs only.

 

[Sunder]

I would love to see links for PD chargers over 60W, as far as I've seen that's the highest released anywhere.

Sure: https://zendure.com/products/superport-4-black-us

US: - Note there is a price and you can order it:


AU: - Note it's Pre-order only:


Also, note that although it respects the USB-PD maximum of 100W per channel, the whole unit has a 136w limit. So since my laptop will run and charge on 65W, or run and not charge on 45W, I could charge my bike battery and my laptop at the same time. Throw in a mobile phone or two, and the laptop will still run and not drain the battery.

And voltage is not continuously adjustable, between 5V and 20V maybe only 2-3 others?

Personally I think implementing the PD spec on the **output** side and building the "negotiation spec" into every pack, I see as unnecessary myself.

I'd make a DCDC charger that did exactly what I (my cells) want, but only allow it to make use of the PD spec on its **input** side.

Those chargers will get to higher amps soon enough and prices will plummet, so great, whether from 12V car adapters or mains power sources yes a very handy standard, but will always be for little packs only.

Correct. QC 3.0 and QC4.0 are infinitely variable. USB PD is only 5, 9, 15 and 20.

Also, not quite sure if you think I've modified a USB PD output side. I have not. The tiny negotiator is only to tell the charger that I want 20v. The DC to DC step up, then takes that 20v, is CC limited to 3.0A, and boosts it to 50.4v @ 1.2ish amps. (I found setting it to the 3.25A setting a bit touchy - every now and then, it would trip the charger, so for the sake of safety as well as reliability, I tuned it down).

 

[fizzit]

I was inspired by your idea and decided to make my own for charging at work. I wanted it to be a bit smaller than the high-wattage boost converters on eBay so I made my own boost converter on a strip board with an LTC1624 as the driver, and a ZY12PDN USB PD adapter to negotiate 20V.

I had to do some tinkering with the resistors on board. The behavior of the driver didn't match exactly what was on the datasheet, probably because it wasn't meant to be implemented on a through-hole protoboard. I had to file the current-sense shunt down several times to get the Macbook Pro charger to stop cutting out. When I finally got the current low enough for it to run continuously I measured 2A at 72V going into the pack, meaning that the Macbook charger rated at 4.25A is happily putting out over 7A

That's a 40mm fan on the end. It's quite loud but I had it laying around. The inductor was also a spare part, it's rated at 18A which is way higher than it needs to be.

Here it is in action:

 

[cwah]

That looks great. When are we going to have compact PD charger for ebike and laptop?

 

[john61ct]

The spec is limited to 20V and maybe 100W?

Currently most sold are limited to 65W maybe 80W.

Satiator is considered small by many, and those are around 300W