[CentyLab]’s PocketPD isn’t just adorably tiny — it also boasts some pretty useful features. It offers a lightweight way to get a precisely adjustable output of 0 to 20 V at up to 5 A with banana jack output, integrating a rotary encoder and OLED display for ease of use.
PocketPD leverages USB-C Power Delivery (PD), a technology with capabilities our own [Arya Voronova] has summarized nicely. In particular, PocketPD makes use of the Programmable Power Supply (PPS) functionality to precisely set and control voltage and current. Doing this does require a compatible USB-C charger or power bank, but that’s not too big of an ask these days.
Even if an attached charger doesn’t support PPS, PocketPD can still be useful. The device interrogates the attached charger on every bootup, and displays available options. By default PocketPD selects the first available 5 V output mode with chargers that don’t support PPS.
The latest hardware version is still in development and the GitHub repository has all the firmware, which is aimed at making it easy to modify or customize. Interested in some hardware? There’s a pre-launch crowdfunding campaign you can watch.
This is very nice,and it might become my next portable power supply.
I have an AliExpress special ATX power supply breakout board that I’ve been using.
What I think would be neat is it those ATX breakouts actually had PD functionality it’s got to be the cheapest way to have a 650W PD power supply?
I suppose that’s actually this in reverse to some extent.
The PD standard doesn’t support that much current. The maximum is currently 48V5A, 240W.
Pro-tip folks, if you want a higher power (65W/100W) mains adaptor for charging your phone or whatever, you are better off buying a newer USB laptop charger than a wall wart.
The laptop chargers are more durable since they have more thermal headroom because of their bulky size
Be careful with this. Some laptop chargers get lazy about the full USB PD spec. In particular I’ve seen Dell chargers that offer 5v and 20v and nothing else. So any device that can’t handle 20v, a lot of phones fast charge at 9v, will have to fall back to slow charging at 5v.