All About USB-C: Introduction For Hackers

December 6, 2022 by Arya Voronova 53 Comments

We’ve now had at least five years of USB-C ports in our devices. It’s a standard that many manufacturers and hackers can get behind. Initially, there was plenty of confusion about what we’d actually encounter out there, and manufacturer-induced aberrations have put some people off. However, USB-C is here to stay, and I’d like to show you how USB-C actually gets used out there, what you can expect out of it as a power user, and what you can get out of it as a hobbyist.

Modern devices have a set of common needs – they need a power input, or a power output, sometimes both, typically a USB2 connection, and often some higher-speed connectivity like a display output/input or USB 3. USB-C is an interface that aims to be able to take care of all of those. Everything aforementioned is optional, which is a blessing and a curse, but you can quickly learn to distinguish what to expect out of a device based on how it looks; if ever in doubt, I’d like to show you how to check.

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Throwback: USB Hotplate Used 30 Whole Ports

December 1, 2022 by Lewin Day 22 Comments

Once upon a time, USB was still hip, cool, and easy to understand. You could get up to 500 mA out of a port, which wasn’t much, but some companies produced USB cup warmers anyway which were a bit of a joke. However, one enterprising hacker took things further back in 2004, whipping up a potent USB hot plate powered by a cavalcade of ports.

The project was spawned after a USB cup warmer sadly failed to cook a decent fried egg. To rectify this, a souped-up version was built. The cup warmer was stripped of its original hardware, and fitted with six 2-ohm resistors instead. At 5 volts, each would draw 2.5 amps and the total power draw would be on the order of 75 watts. Each resistor would thus need five USB ports to power it to stay under the 500 mA limit, for a total of 30 USB ports in total. Six PCI-to-USB cards were installed in a motherboard for this purpose, providing the requisite ports. A 500 watt power supply meant the computer had plenty of juice to run the hot plate.

Cooking proved successful, generating a decent amount of heat to brown up some beef. Served with some white rice, it proved an adequate meal, though apparently with a noted taste of electronic components.

This wouldn’t be such a challenge today. USB-C is capable of delivering 100 watts through a single port at 20 volts and 5 amps. However, there’s something joyous and charming about cooking on a ridiculous hotplate running off 30 USB 1.1 ports. The ingenuity is to be applauded, and it is truly a project of its time.

A Handy OSHW USB Cable Tester For Your Toolkit

November 20, 2022 by Tom Nardi 22 Comments

There’s no shame in admitting you’ve been burned by a cheapo USB cable — ever since some bean counter realized there was a few cents to be saved by producing “power only” USB cables, no hardware hacker has been safe. But with this simple tester from [Álvaro Prieto] in your arsenal, you’ll never be fooled again.

It’s about as straight-forward a design as possible, utilizing nothing more than a two dozen LEDs, their associated resistors, and a common CR2032 coin cell. Simply plugging both sides of your cable into the various flavors of USB connectors on the tester will complete the necessary circuits to light up the corresponding LEDs, instantly telling you how many intact wires are inside the cable. So whether you’re dealing with some shady cable that doesn’t have the full complement of conductors, or there’s some physical damage that’s severed a connection or two, you’ll know at a glance.

A sage warning for most of the devices we build.

Obviously the tester is designed primarily for the 24 pins you’ll find in a proper USB-C connector, but it’s completely backwards compatible with older cables and connectors. We appreciate that he even included the chunky Type B connector, which we’ve always been fond of thanks to its robustness compared to the more common Mini and Micro variants.

Keep in mind though that this tester will only show you if there’s a connection between two pins, it won’t verify how much power it can actually handle. For that, you’ll need some extra equipment.

Automate Your Desk With The Upsy Desky

August 28, 2022 by Bryan Cockfield 33 Comments

It might be surprising for some, but humans actually evolved to be long-distance runners. We aren’t very fast comparatively, but no other animal can run for as long or as far as a human can. Sitting at a desk, on the other hand, is definitely not something that we’re adapted to do, so it’s important to take some measures to avoid many of the problems that arise for those that sit at a desk or computer most of the day. This build takes it to the extreme, not only implementing a standing desk but also a ton of automation for that desk as well.

This project is an improvement on a prior build by [TJ Horner] called the WiFi Standing Desk Controller. This new version has a catchier name, and uses an ESP32 to run the show. The enclosure is 3D printed and the control board includes USB-C and a hardware UART to interface with the controller. The real perks of this device are the automation, though. The desk can automatically lift if the user has been sitting too long, and could also automatically lift if it detects no one is home (to help keep a cat off of the desk, for example). It also includes presets for different users, and can export data to other software to help analyze sitting and standing patterns.

The controller design is open source and could be adapted to work on a wide-array of powered desks. As we’ve seen in the past, with the addition of a motor, even hand-crank standing desks can be upgraded. If you haven’t gotten into the standing desk trend yet, we hope that you are at least occasionally going for a run.

USB-C Charging Mod Brings In The Juice

August 16, 2022 by Jenny List 13 Comments

By now we’re well under way with the consolidation of low-voltage power supplies under the USB-C standard, and the small reversible connector has become the de facto way to squirt some volts into our projects. But for all this standardization there are still a few places where the harmony of a unified connector breaks down, and things don’t work quite the way they are supposed to. One such case has occupied [James Ide] — devices which will accept power from a USB-A to USB-C cable, but not from a USB-C to USB-C one. His solution? A small flexible PCB upgrade.

The problem lies with how different power supplies and peripherals identify each other, and quite likely in device manufacturers skimping on a few components here and there. A compliant USB-C power supply expects to see pull-down resistors on the data lines, and will thus refuse to serve power to devices that don’t possess them. Meanwhile the USB-A supply will quite happily serve juice without such checks, which is what the manufacturer is relying on. The solution is a tiny flexible PCB with the resistors, designed to be retrofitted behind a USB-C socket. On one hand it’s probably one of the simplest circuits we’ve ever shown you, and on the other it’s a cleverly designed solution to the issue at hand.

If the nitty-gritty of USB-C interests you, then we’ve taken a much closer look in the past.

Thanks to [Andrea] for the tip.

Now There’s USB-C On The IPhone SE

July 22, 2022 by Lewin Day 36 Comments

As confusing as it can be, USB-C is actually pretty good, and certainly has its fans. [David Buchanan] must be one of them, for he did a great job putting a USB-C port into his iPhone SE.

[David] didn’t want to ruin a pristine example, so set about hacking the cheapest first-gen iPhone SE he could find on eBay. His approach was simple: get a USB-C to Lightning dongle and hack it into the phone’s body.

The first step was to strip the adapter down and melt off the Lightning connector. He then de-soldered the Lightning port from the phone, and found a bunch of test pads on the motherboard corresponding to its pins. Soldering leads from the adapter to the test pads got things up and running, once he properly hooked up a connection-detect pin to ground.

With a bit more trimming, some hot glue and some enameled wire, [David] was able to cram everything inside the iPhone. Paired with a new screen and home button, and he had an iPhone SE with a working USB-C port. It works for both charging and USB data, too.

If you’re rocking an iPhone SE, you might dig this conversion as it gives you access to more chargers out in the wild. Plus, you’ve still got the regular headphone jack. Be sure to check out the iPhone 13 with a USB C port, too. It’s the hottest new hack until the new EU regulations hit Apple in coming years.

Berlin Clock Takes Inspiration From Sci-Fi Sources, Looks Incredible

July 7, 2022 by Ryan Flowers 6 Comments

What would a HAL9000 look like if it eye were yellow and sat atop a front panel inspired by an Altair 8800? You’d have today’s feature, [Stephan]’s BerlinUhr, a gorgeous little take on a Berlin Clock.

At Hackaday, we have a soft spot for clock builds. They’ve graced our pages from early times. When we saw this ultra cool Berlin Clock, we couldn’t resist the urge to share it with all of our readers. For those of you not familiar with a Berlin Clock, it’s a clock that consists of 24 lights, and was the first of its kind back in 1975.

[Stephan]’s build is notable because not only is it a beautiful design, but the work that went into the design and build. At several inches tall, the BerlinUhr is supported solely by a USB-C connection, although it can also be hung on a wall. The RTC is backed up by a CR1216, and an ATtiny167 provides the brains for the operation.

A neat part of the build comes with the KPS-3227 light sensor, used to adjust the LED brightness according to ambient lighting. Rather than being a straightforward part to insert into the PCB, KiCad’s footprint had some pins reversed, causing [Stephan] to learn how to correct it and contribute the fix to KiCad. Well done!

We weren’t kidding about clocks, by the way- check out the link to the Atomic Wrist Watch on this post from 2005, and this Russian VFD based clock from 2006- with video!

Do you have your own favorite clock build you’d love to see grace our pages? Be sure to submit a tip!