Comment on USB-PD is a de-facto low-power DC voltage standard, with USB-C being the universal plug. Hurray!
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months agoThe whole USB-PD standard is massively over complicated and that makes it a lot harder to implement in home made equipment. You pretty much need a dedicated chip just to negotiate with the power supply. The whole protocol should have been made simple enough to implement on any 8 bit microcontroller and not be locked behind a proprietary standard.
There does need to be some way to negotiate higher voltages. There is just too much voltage drop when you need more than a couple amps at 5 volts.
It would be nice to have a standard for supplying unregulated 48V DC at 1KW or more without any negotiation or electronics required and with a robust connector that won’t break if it gets bumped. That would be very useful for off grid solar systems since the power would come directly from the batteries.
solrize@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I thought solar panels used Anderson connectors pretty standardly. I wouldn’t call it low power but in electronics I wouldn’t call 100W low power either. We basically need 5v 15w for phones, 12v for bigger stuff (laptops) up to say 150W. After that, AC might be better since you can use transformers. I guess we need super high power DC for charging cars. Tesla seems to be the de facto standard. There is no reason to use that connector in a phone.
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Solar panels use MC4 connectors. They are weatherproof, they lock together and they fit the thick, weatherproof cables used for solar power. They can handle fairly high voltage, but they can not be connected or disconnected under load though.
The Anderson Powerpole connectors are a good choice for DC power. I use Anderson PP30 connectors for most of my 13.8V stuff. They are robust and fairly small.
Most electronic devices will just rectify AC into DC before stepping it down with a switch mode power supply since that’s smaller, lighter, and cheaper than using a mains frequency transformer. It’s pretty rare to find a mains frequency transformer in consumer electronic equipment today.
solrize@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yeah probably true about 60 hz transformers, even for higher powered devices like desktop PC’s. They still have pretty big internal inductors though.
For permanent installations like most solar setups, I don’t think uniformity of connectors is that important, as long as it’s non-proprietary and you can order it from a catalog.
For phones and laptops, wireless charging is probably the way forward. More than additional standardized chargers, I want standardized and swappable batteries, for phones, laptops, power tools, etc. The chargers will follow.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 8 months ago
Wireless charging is super lossy though and generally far slower than charging over USB. I’m sure some of that can be overcome with more research but I have a hard time believing wireless anything will ever be as efficient as wired