When the USB standard was first revealed, a few peripherals here and there adopted it but it was far from the “universal” standard implied by its name. It was slow, had limited ability to power anything, and its plug-and-play capability was spotty at best. The modern USB standard, on the other hand, has everything its predecessors lacked including extremely high data transfer rates and the ability to support sending or receiving a tremendous amount of power. [LeoDJ] is taking that latter capability to the extreme, with this USB-C power supply that can deliver 1.7 kW of power.
The project was inspired by the discovery of an inexpensive USB-PD (power delivery) module which is capable of delivering either 100W or 65W. After extensive testing, to see if the modules were following the USB standard and how they handled heat, [LeoDJ] grabbed 20 of the 65W modules and another four of the 100W modules and assembled them all into an array, held together in a metal chassis that also functions as a heat sink. The modules receive their DC power from two server power supplies wired together in series.
There was some troubleshooting, including soldering difficulty and a short circuit, but with all the kinks ironed out this power supply can deliver nearly 2 kW to an array of USB-capable devices and, according to the amount of thermal testing done, can supply that power nearly indefinitely. It’s an over-the-top power supply with a small niche of uses, but to see it built is satisfying nonetheless. For more information on all of the perks of working with USB-C, check out this tell-all we published last year.
“…a small niche of uses”
I’m having a hard time thinking of one, anyone else have any ideas?
DC Fast Charging EVs over USB-C with 24 USB-C cables
At 1.7kw? A 15 amp 120v circuit can already provide more power.
That is why I dislike using watts instead of amps. The article never mentions the voltage. At 12v this thing is about the size of an 100 amp car battery. Could be useful.
At 120v it’s about the size of 5 AA batteries and not worth the effort. See how using watts instead of amps is deceiving? See how watts can be WILDLY misleading when the voltage is not clear, or not mentioned at all like in this case?
That’s why I prefer watts to amperes when comparing power output.
With amperes, you have to specify the voltage to know how much power you can get.
With watts you know how much power there is.
5 AA batteries is in no way comparable to 120V. If I draw 1 ampere from those five AA cells, thats at most 6 watts. At 120V, it’s 120 watts.
The current alone is not sufficient. You need current and voltage, or watts. Preferably watts and voltage.
I think you’re missing that this is delivered power – this talks about using server power supplies, and thus will be running off a mains input, not a battery. It can simultaneously power/charge 24 USB-C-PD devices. Each port can independently output 5-20V.
I just hosted a 3 day hiker event in the Everglades. We had a total of 40 hikers (and another 20 volunteers) and we also had access to two 15A outlets. This would have been a great way for hikers to keep their devices charged. Having another event in a few weeks. There are uses for such a beast!
I’m struggling too. Maybe powering a farm of Raspberry Pis or something? He’s got a server PSU and those are bidirectional usb psus.
One use would be to eliminate all the A/C wall-wort adapters assuming the devices they power can run off of the standard USB-C voltages. Get a bunch of the “USB Type C 3.1 PD to yyymm Barrel Jack Cable – xxxV zzzzA Output” (search Adafruit) where xxx is the voltage needed and yyy is the barrel jack size for the device.
Just near my TV, I need an adapter for the cable box, the router and the modem. I have another high power one for my company laptop, another for an external backup device, another for an LED lamp. There are several more for some reason powering devices that I don’t recall (oh one is for the RF to IR remote, couple for the lighthouses for the Index, and a few others for I don’t know what)
24 is overkill but I could eliminate a lot of 1 to many outlets and the associated A/C adapter with something a 12 port 300-ish watt PD device.
Powering a small class c radio transmitter would give fairly decent coverage.
How about a free charging corner in some establishment. Or /the/ charging corner of a big family.
USB kettle
Fun Fact:
A 120V 1500W kettle has a resistance of around 9.6 Ohms.
Which means, with the current maximum USB-C PD 3.1 voltage of 48V, that should pull around 5A.
So, theoretically, you could make that a 240W USB-C kettle (though as of now, no consumer-grade 240W chargers exist to actually use it with and on a 20V charger the power would be limited to ~40W, which is probably not enough to make the water boil)
Supplying power to many Devices Under Test (DUTs), such as done in Development. Place 24 widgets in an environmental chamber, plug them into power, and cycle them through 95 to Minus 25 degrees C for several days.
Then test them for compliance, before putting them into another chamber that cycles them through 100 to 20 % humidity for a similar duration, retest,
Drop/impact them, retest, spill Cola, dish soap, coffee, Jello on them, retest,
Ad nauseum .
This power supply would be very useful for that purpose.
Selling lithium batteries and USB trigger boards.
You take that reverse it and use power banks to charge your e-bike or e-car, just off the top of me head.
I mean, at hacker events, the power strips on the tables get used up pretty quickly if you have a bunch of people who want to use/charge their laptops, phones, power banks and other gadgets.
With this, you don’t need to use up the AC sockets with like 10 seperate USB-C chargers, instead one socket is enough to charge all devices at the table (and still have a few USB ports to spare).
Click farm, aging area in production
Dual-link USB-C seems like actually a perfectly reasonable solution in some cases. Two common cables instead of one obscure specialty cable. Maybe you have a PC using 2, and a monitor using another 2, and 1 charging your laptop?
Fast charging a bunch of laptops during homeroom in a school?
Mobile advertising click farms?
I know a few people who would buy 4-5 of these today if they were available, there are lots of companies particularly in pharma who need charging for large banks of laptops and tablets in laboratory environments. Most of the commercial solutions are boxes containing a dozen extension leads and off the shelf power bricks which are bulky and not that reliable.
Electronics repair, where needing to charge a dozen devices awaiting pickup is pretty common. You can get adapters to use USB C chargers with just about any laptop barrel nowadays as well.
Conference room when you have 20 people and their laptops and only one power outlet on the table.
highest pd voltage is 20v. for 1800 watts it means at 20v best scenario you will need to carry 90 amps from your cable and your connector. both is not possible.
Very well made, respect and honor for the hack. Also the thermal management. And the insides during building and problem solving, fantastico!!!
But one question where does this trend comes that every electronic device hast to be small and skinny as possible? I would, if could do something like this, build it in a used alumiun cosmetic suitcase. It would give more space for air circulation and cooling. And it is ergonomic made for taking with you.
I personelly turned a used suitcase into a toolbox with cardboard spacer.
my guess would be:
– many makers/hackers/tinkerers make more than one thing, making all your project big results in a lot of project space required? By making smaller projects, living space and resources are saved.
– many makers/hackers/tinkerers do not have a cosmetic suitcase (or are willing to sacrifice it for their project)
– many makers/hackers/tinkerers are not willing to sacrifice their toolbox to house “just another project”
– many makers hackers, and the difference in the execution of the project defines them. However, the best ideas always appear in the comment section, by people who would make it differently… better… faster… bigger/smaller but in many cases are unable to make anything themselves (not judging, just observing).
Thanks for your perspective! Its helps a lot to understand the different view.
I don’t see how making it bigger would make it better.
Air can be pulled through pretty well for cooling, taking it with you is easy as it is small and has a carrying handle, and it takes up little space at events, where table space is at a premium as there are often a lot of people at one table, often with more than one device (hence the many charging ports).
Also, it’s just fun to have this tiny little thing which can charge all the devices you can find, at full power, simultaneously (and still has 700W power budget left at the auxilary DC output even if all ports were in full use)
I have a few of those modules and they work really well for how cheap they are. Aliexpress also has 140W modules as well that will buck-boost and do 28v epr for charging macbooks
Pretty common to use in tablet carts for schools or event centers the issue has come up a few times that you may need to wire for USB or lightning cables hardwired into the cart or a huge power strip for individual power bricks. Thus one module is sometimes nice so you could just remove the single 32 port USB hub and replace with something like this. Could also be used in a it office to prepare a few tablets or usb-c laptops when preparing software for them.
While I agree it could be used there this seems rather overkill – the school type setup is surely much more likely to use the cheapest and slowest charging setup they can get away with.
Something with this much power I’d suggest will be of almost no real use to anybody – sure lots of folks could find a reason to have a USB charger with lots of outputs but almost none of them really need any of these ports to be the 40w+ versions, heck the dumb 5v only ports would probably be fine for most. The most likely usecase I can see for something this potent is a LAN gaming party type situation (assuming folks still do those) – a single easy to setup power supply for a whole table full of people with how common USB-PD power is becoming in portable high performance machines. But even then this seems rather too large – two or three units of with the corresponding fraction of the power throughput would it seems to me be much more practical option for almost everyone, and most folks that might need that many devices don’t need the high wattage.
But for anybody that actually needs 2kW of USB-PD in a single unit…
If anybody wants the project link, he listed it further down in the Mastodon thread:
https://github.com/RainbowLabsDE/PDBrick
Not much there atm but it looks like they’ll be adding to it soon.
The server PSUs are in series, as in one feeds the other? Or do you mean parallel?
As in using two 12V supplies to make a 24V supply.
Eh. Lemme know when we reach 1.21GW
Calibrating time circuits. I will check back in 40 years as well. ( I hope hackaday lasts at least 40 more years)
For 1.21 GW we need PU ;-)
Conference-room table.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/xtx4r/usb_toaster/