Maker Stefan Wagner has designed a software for testing USB Energy Supply (PD) and Programmable Energy Provide (PPS) energy provides and cables, providing a easy USB Kind-C connection at one finish and doubling as a helpful benchtop energy provide: the USB PD Tester.
“The USB PD Tester is a monitoring and triggering system designed for USB Energy Supply,” Wagner explains. “It lets you take a look at a variety of USB Kind-C PD energy provides and their corresponding cables.
“This software not solely shows the capabilities of the facility provide on an OLED but in addition lets you choose one of many obtainable fastened or programmable voltages for output on the screw terminal. With this, it can be used to energy your initiatives with numerous selectable voltages and excessive currents, serving as a flexible variable energy provide.”
The compact board is designed to be easy to make use of: a USB Kind-C connector hyperlinks the tester to the facility provide, which boots and shows the obtainable USB Energy Supply modes on its OLED panel — voltage and most present.
Along with the USB Energy Supply modes obtainable, the gadget also can request the newer USB Programmable Energy Provide mode — with user-set voltage and present limits. Whatever the mode used, the chosen provide is handed via to screw terminals on the far finish — prepared to be used by exterior {hardware}.
The tester is constructed across the low-cost WCH CH32X035, a RISC-V microcontroller with built-in USB PD help. (📷: Stefan Wagner)
A key function of the USB PD Tester is that it is constructed across the WCH Electronics CH32X035, a low-cost 32-bit microcontroller that makes use of the free and open supply RISC-V instruction set structure. Regardless of being obtainable in small-order amount for round 30¢ a chip, the microcontroller additionally gives USB 2.0 and USB Energy Supply help — lowering the variety of elements required to construct the tester.
Design information, firmware, and a 3D-printable case for the USB PD Tester can be found on Wagner’s GitHub repository beneath the Inventive Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
