Electrical engineer Vincent “CentyVin” Nguyen is engaged on a “a lot simplified” board which goals to decrease the barrier to entry for powering your initiatives via the USB Energy Supply (USB PD) and Programmable Energy Provide (USB PPS) requirements — negotiating arbitrary voltages set by way of a potentiometer.
“PPSTrigger Board [is] a a lot simplified USB-C PD and PPS set off board,” Nguyen explains of the mission, which builds on his work with the sooner PicoPD set off — based mostly on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 and Diodes Included AP33772. “[It will] permit customers to pick arbitrary voltage from PPS-capable energy brick by way of potentiometer.”
The PPSTrigger goals to make negotiating a USB Programmable Energy Provide voltage as straightforward as turning a pot. (📷: CentyVin)
The USB Energy Supply (USB PD) commonplace was introduced again in 2012, providing the power for appropriate units to barter greater than the same old 5V at 3A accessible from a USB Kind-C port — not solely asking for extra present but additionally negotiating larger voltages, as much as 5A at 48V within the USB PD 3.1 commonplace. The third revision additionally introduced with it an extension, Programmable Energy Provide (PPS), which allowed the negotiated voltage to be adjusted in steps as little as 20mV moderately than discrete jumps between outlined ranges.
It is PPS which Nguyen’s set off board makes use of to supply a highly-adjustable regulated energy output to arbitrary units — not by requiring any complicated programming or modifications in gadget firmware, however by merely turning an onboard potentiometer till the output throughout the board’s screw terminals is on the voltage stage you want.
Prototype boards have been examined delivering 20V at 5A for quarter-hour with out exceeding secure temperatures. (📷: CentyVin)
Jumpers are offered on the board to lock the board at 5V, 9V, 12V, 15V, or 20V outputs, or to permit use of the potentiometer — which is learn through the board’s boot-up course of, negotiating a voltage set by its place as soon as then ignoring any changes till the subsequent time the board is booted.
“[A] 15 min stress take a look at at 20V 5A displaying that the board temperature rises to 62°C [143.6°F] with the board in nonetheless air,” Nguyen writes of assessments carried out on prototype boards. “That is throughout the working temperature (85°C) of all ICs on the boards.”
Nguyen plans to launch a small quantity run of the PPSTrigger boards on Tindie within the close to future; extra info is out there on his Hackaday.io web page.