News USB Type-C 2.1 Cables Start to Become Available for 240W Power Delivery

[Admin]

Club3D has started selling one and two meter length cables supporting the new Extended Power Range (EPR) standard which became part of USB Type-C 2.1 nearly a year ago.

USB Type-C 2.1 Cables Start to Become Available for 240W Power Delivery : Read more

 

[Geef]

USB-C charging at up to 240W should be ample for most mainstream laptops, except those sporting the most powerful CPUs and GPUs currently available.

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Dude if you have any of those laptops laying around please give me one!

 

[saunupe1911]

USB-C charging at up to 240W should be ample for most mainstream laptops, except those sporting the most powerful CPUs and GPUs currently available.

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Dude if you have any of those laptops laying around please give me one!

LOL yep first thought came to mind is what current or future products will utilize this cable. Does it improve anything from the 2.0 spectrum?

 

[hotaru.hino]

LOL yep first thought came to mind is what current or future products will utilize this cable. Does it improve anything from the 2.0 spectrum?

My laptop needs an 180W brick to cover the worst case scenario (full power + battery charging from empty), and there are plenty of others within the same class. So it could definitely benefit from this new spec.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

When/If we get a 280w+ capable cable, I wonder if a USB-C to barrel plug would work. I have a G15 Strix with a massive 280w power supply that I'd love to see shrunken down to using a GaN brick.

Only hurdle would be finding a barrel adapter since obviously a cable and brick powerful enough don't exist hence it doesn't accept PD natively.

 

[hotaru.hino]

When/If we get a 280w+ capable cable, I wonder if a USB-C to barrel plug would work. I have a G15 Strix with a massive 280w power supply that I'd love to see shrunken down to using a GaN brick.

Only hurdle would be finding a barrel adapter since obviously a cable and brick powerful enough don't exist hence it doesn't accept PD natively.

It won't work passively. Most barrel plugs on laptops are 19V.

 

[mrbofus]

"USB Type-C 2.1 Cables Start to Become Available for 240W Power Delivery"

Where? Club3D doesn't sell cables directly and none of the retailers (at least in the US) show any in-stock, if even a listing. Should the title be something like "USB Type-C 2.1 Cables should start to become available at some point in the future"?

 

[SyCoREAPER]

It won't work passively. Most barrel plugs on laptops are 19V.

Not following why that wouldn't work passively. Not being snarky, I'm interested. Phones technically charge passively since they are on or off depending on the charge.

My laptops charger outputs DC at 20V / 14A

 

[Chung Leong]

No help to those of us who need to power our devices with bolts of lightning.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Not following why that wouldn't work passively. Not being snarky, I'm interested. Phones technically charge passively since they are on or off depending on the charge.

My laptops charger outputs DC at 20V / 14A

For one, you're asking a 19-20V input to take in 48V. That's a great way to blow something up.

The only way I can think of dropping voltage in a DC circuit passively is by using a resistor. However, this thing called Ohm's Law requires the resistor to consume current, which is extremely wasteful. Not to mention, the resistor would have to match the load of the PC at any given point so the voltage drop would remain more or less constant. In any case, trying to do this passively is largely impractical with existing devices.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

For one, you're asking a 19-20V input to take in 48V. That's a great way to blow something up.

The only way I can think of dropping voltage in a DC circuit passively is by using a resistor. However, this thing called Ohm's Law requires the resistor to consume current, which is extremely wasteful. Not to mention, the resistor would have to match the load of the PC at any given point so the voltage drop would remain more or less constant. In any case, trying to do this passively is largely impractical with existing devices.

What the holy hell are you talking about? I think you're getting watts and volts confused. 20V/14A is 280w (V x A = W). EVERY AC/DC inverter takes AC, usually 120-240v and at a fairly low amperage (not sure of the exact conversion formula) and turns it into DC. In the case of my 280W supply, it's 3.2A AC.

As of now there aren't any small form factor 280W bricks but with GaN making advances rapidly it's a matter of time.

 

[TJ Hooker]

What the holy hell are you talking about? I think you're getting watts and volts confused. 20V/14A is 280w (V x A = W). EVERY AC/DC inverter takes AC, usually 120-240v and at a fairly low amperage (not sure of the exact conversion formula) and turns it into DC. In the case of my 280W supply, it's 3.2A AC.

As of now there aren't any small form factor 280W bricks but with GaN making advances rapidly it's a matter of time.

They're referring to the fact that the new USB EPR standard capable of delivering 240W, as discussed in this article, does so at 48V. So your laptop is expecting 20V from your power supply, but you'd be supplying it with 48V if you connected the laptop to a USB EPR. Although I believe USB always defaults to 5V and then must negotiate a higher voltage, which the laptop barrel jack wouldn't do, so it might just stay at 5V resulting in severely reduced power delivery (unless the USB to barrel adapter is smart and can do the negotiation).

I believe laptops immediately step down and regulate the input voltage, so it can handle some variation in input voltage (e.g. the same laptop can run off an ~11V battery or a ~20V power supply), but I wouldn't necessarily assume it can handle 48V.

As an aside, "inverter" refers to a DC to AC converter. Going the other way is called a rectifier (or just AC to DC converter).

 

[hotaru.hino]

What the holy hell are you talking about? I think you're getting watts and volts confused. 20V/14A is 280w (V x A = W). EVERY AC/DC inverter takes AC, usually 120-240v and at a fairly low amperage (not sure of the exact conversion formula) and turns it into DC. In the case of my 280W supply, it's 3.2A AC.

In addition to what @TJ Hooker said... when did the AC side of this come into the equation? Unless you were talking about my mentioning of Ohm's Law, which my initial thinking was just using a simple resistor to step down the voltage on the DC side. But I forgot linear regulators were a thing, though those are really inefficient and are only suitable for smaller voltage differences.

So again, you can't take a USB-C with this new spec and convert it into a barrel plug that your laptop takes with a passive converter because there isn't really a practical way to convert 48V to 20V that way.