USB charges up to 100 watts

Re: Great idea!

Well duh, at 100W it won't power high-power devices. But having 100W on each port would allow you to power multiple higher-power devices connected via a hub.

My wife uses a netbook + keyboard + mouse + monitor + printer + occasional scanner + external DVD.

100W USB ports would mean eliminating power bricks and that would both be more convenient and more efficient.

Re: I hope they up the voltage

I managed to lose a monitor PSU and got a bargain on a second monitor, so I run them off the internal PSU no problem. The cables are fairly thin, but 100w constantly at for example 12v would need a pretty decent cable so as not to get too warm if coiled away somewhere underneath dust/rug/cat. That rules PoundLand out. Upping the voltage beyond 12V would involve faffing around with PSU standards, a serious obstacle.

Re: I hope they up the voltage

You missed the bit about the higher power versions delivering 12 and 20v as well as the standard 5?

Re: I hope they up the voltage

I would have bet a penny to the pound that they were going to use 48v befor reading the article. Very surprised.

Re: Standards

Except that didn't happen. Almost every phone now uses microUSB to charge, instead of a mess of ports we had before.

Why not?

Merging a USB hub into a laptop power brick would suit me fine. I currently have power, USB and ethernet cables tied together so they don't tangle. External 2.5" disks eat two USB ports and 3.5" need their own brick. It would be tempting to put a USB/Ethernet converter on a laptop power/hub and reduce the number of cables down to 1.

I am surprised they did not go for 48V like PoE, or take the frequency to 1000Hz so the voltage can go higher without killing people.

Re: Going to make ultrabooks look stupid

Eh?

You already have a heavy power brick with your ultrabook - have a look under the desk. With USB charging it should be capable to make it much smaller and you may have many places where you don't even need to bring power with you as you'd just be able to plug in to a universal USB charging socket. There's no reason why chargers would have to become bigger.

Re: ouch! ouch! ouch!

Having a 5amp PSU doesn't mean to say it's going to run at 5amps when you connect it to your battery.

It's going to depend on what the internal resistance of the battery is at the time and no there will be protection circuitry to either limit (or regulate) the current and if fast charging a battery, a temperature sensor attached to the battery to prevent it getting too hot (and presumably exploding).

Your 1 amp phone charge is probably also a p**s poor design, probably sourced from China and inefficient in power conversion from input to output, with the resultant heat that is generated.

I agree.

My other post along similar lines crossed.

So at least there's two of us that are on a similar page.

RE: Why not centrally power a bank of desks with one 20v brick?

Two words: Voltage drop.

As a former looser of the juice, one thing we had to take into consideration for long runs was voltage drop. The longer the run, and the higher the current the more voltage drop was a problem. One way to reduce voltage drop, was to increase voltage. In the US (where I live) typical 3 phase power is either 120/208 volt Wye or 124/240 volt Delta. Raising the voltage to 277/480 volts Wye cuts the current needed down by half or more. Since the current flow in a circuit is a component of the voltage drop, cutting the current affects the amount of drop. It is one reason why long distance transmission lines are truly high voltage (72kV, 144kV, 230kV or 460kV). You are not going to move hundreds of mega watts at 120 or 240 volts without severe voltage drops.

Now, a single 48V DC desktop distribution "brick" with short (less than 6 feet) cords is a different matter. And quite feasible.

Monitors with bricks?

Not sure where you're from sonny but here in Blighty every LCD monitor I've ever seen has an IEC (mains) socket on it, bar one from about ten years ago.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "amperage"

Power over Ethernet pretty much does all this today

If all you need for each device is an amp or two at 48V, Power over Ethernet does it today, and so does your existing LAN cabling (hopefully). A power injector at the network centre end, and either a PoE device or a tiny DC->DC adapter at the device end. Job done.

Everything from printers to TVs comes with a LAN connector these days. Another few cents of chippery and you can put power in through it, AND there'd never ever be a need for manufacturers or distributors to supply a country-specific power supply with the device (a country-specific PoE injector would do when there wasn't one already available at customer site).

Why this hasn't caught on, I really dinnae know.

Anyone?

A long time ago, many PSUs did exactly what you're talking about for G5 towers.

It was not powered from the desktop PSU, simply just wired to the PSU in -

This wasn't such a good idea either, considering the power cable requirements that would vary wildly with a PSU burning from 100 to 700 watts and more, and a screen that could also do the same, depending on your pick.

20V is bad because it implies yet another power converter to bring it back to 12V - if you want to go above 12V, be at least smart enough to use a multiple for future simplicity of build.

Re: Think of the kittens!

"Aim for the cat! Aim for the cat!"

Re: I still think Douglas Adams was right...

Until someone plugs it into an ancient car with the earth the other way round.

"standardised on a kettle style plug"

Except most laptops are not 'kettle leads', they are 'figure-of-eight' as earth is not required.

Re: Either way up!

What about a round plug, so that there isn't a "way up"? Perhaps co-axial, with a central pin? You know, like those power sockets we have on laptops, radios...