Very cool. Open source too
No Frills PCB Brings USB-C Power To The Breadboard
Submitted 1 week ago by fne8w2ah@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/06/no-frills-pcb-brings-usb-c-power-to-the-breadboard/
Comments
HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
solrize@lemmy.world 1 week ago
This is spammy and there are already plenty of USB-C power conversion gadgets, e.g. on Adafruit. No crowdfunding needed.
tenacious_mucus@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
That’s not what this is…this isn’t a breakout board or a development board. This is just straight up, drop-in power supply for bare breadboards. If you dont know what breadboards are….well…
solrize@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I know perfectly well what breadboards are. I even remember the Continental Specialties brand. They have power supply strips, like the ones on the edges in this pic. You connect power there.
HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
Hard disagree what I find spammy in this community is all the Elon and Twitter garbage
Cris_Color@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Thats pretty sick!
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
TL;DR - It’s a nice and pretty run of the mill breadboard power adaptor which happens to support USB-C connectors, but the article and its title insanely oversell the thing.
This is not exact as amazing an achievement as the headline implies since the necessary stuff to talk the to the USB PD host upstream is already integrated so you just need to a chip that does it (and even without it, you’ll get 150mA @ 5V by default out of the USB 3 host upstream and up to 900mA with some pretty basic USB negotiation in a protocol that dates from USB 1.0 and for which there have long been integrated solutions for both the device and the host sides).
Further, the converting of those 5V to 3.3V just requires a buck converter or even just a voltage regulator (though this latter option is less efficient), for which there are already lots integrated solutions available for peanuts and where the entire circuit block needed to support them is detailed in the datasheet for that converter.
Looking at the circuit diagram for this (linked to from the article), they’re not even doing the USB PD negotiation or any kind of USB 1.0 negotiation, so this thing will be limited to 150mA for a USB 3 host or whatever current your traditional USB power source can supply (as those power sources really just do power supply of whatever amperage they support over a cable which happen to have USB connectors, rather than including a genuine implementation of an USB host with current limiting depending on negotiation with the USB device, so such power sources don’t require the device to do any USB negotiation to increase the current limit above 150mA).
This is really “yet another run of the mill USB power breadboard adaptor” only the USB plug is USB-C rather than mini-USB or micro-USB (so, a different plug plus a handfull of minor components as per the standard of the circuitry to properly support it), so pretty much the same as the cheap chinese ones you can get from Aliexpress, though this one uses a Buck Converter rather than the $0.1 Voltage Regulator in most of the chinese boards, and actually does proper filtering of power supply noise and proper protection against over current, so it is a quality design for such things, though it’s not really a major advancemnt.
What would really be nice would be something that does talk USB-PD to the upstream host AND can convert down from the 20V at which it supplies peak power, so that you can take advantage of the juicy, juicy (oh so juicy!) capability of USB-PD to supply power (up to 100W right now, which will be up to 250W with USB 4), though if you’re pulling 100W (which at 5V means 20A, which is a stupidly high current that will melt most components in a typical digital circuit) from you breadboard power adaptor, then I’m pretty sure magic smoke is being released from at least one of the components on that breadboard and, by the way, you’re probably damaging the power rail of that breadboard (aah, the sweet smell of burnt plastic when you turn the power on for your half-arsed experimental circuit!!!)
486@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Missed opportunity there, not being able to select all the other available USB-PD voltages. Not every circuit runs on 3.3 or 5 V.
9point6@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Yeah, 9v at the very least, but 15V would be a useful option too
nous@programming.dev 1 week ago
That is a bit more expensive and complex. Looks like this is configured with a couple of resistors for 5v from USB which is simple to get and a voltage reg to drop down to 3v3 optionally. Full PD requires a chip and active negotiation for higher voltage levels. Though there are chips that do that it does increase the complexity and cost and soldering skills a bit. Might not be worth it if all you work on is 5v or 3v3.