World’s Smallest USB-C Li-Ion Charger?!

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Thanks to PCBWay for the awesome PCBs and SMT assembly! Today we're diving into a super tiny 10mm x 6mm USB-C socket with a lithium charger to reverse engineer it, test how hot it gets, and then recreate it in KiCad. The IC at play here is the LP4054. We'll tackle everything from testing a 600mA charging current to figuring out how two LEDs work on one pin, before marvelously replicating this tiny board design. Join me to geek out over this cool piece of tech and maybe even support the madness on Patreon.

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ESP32 Touch Spectrum - Battery and Expansion port test. - It's time for a bit more testing of the boards from PCB Way, and I must say, these boards have come out amazingly well. Check out PCB Way – there's a link in the description! Today, we're focusing on testing the battery charging and the expansion port. The battery charging circuit seems successful, and even when playing music, everything is running efficiently. I've looked into some optimizations for the speaker side, such as adding more decoupling capacitors. We also tested the expansion port, successfully running an emulator on the Pico that drives the display via the expansion port. Excitingly, I wired up an HDMI breakout board and now we have a big screen! This is still experimental, but it's looking promising. Next steps include more focus on EMI and EMC as we prepare for production. Stay tuned for more updates!

Simple Multi USB-C Power Module - With my growing list of USB-C powered devices and just one cable, I found myself underpowered on my bench. My solution? Scouring the depths of AliExpress for USB-C power delivery, QC2, and QC3 step-down converters. After initially purchasing individual boards, I struck gold with an ultra-convenient 4-in-one board. Paired with a Meanwell power supply, I enjoyed pushing my new setup to its limits with the MiniWare electronic load tester. Although managing to pull a decent 65W, I'm dreaming up a 3D printed enclosure and eyeing up MiniWare's display modules for future improvements. I reckon, while I'm battling delayed PCBs and dodgy components, it's certainly a fun way to help power up my bench!

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Electronic chopsticks - I recently got my hands on the HT140 Solder Tweezers from Sequre, adding an exciting new piece to my toolkit. Powering it via USB-C, these electronic chopsticks heat up fast thanks to a robust 65W power supply. Testing on a Raspberry Pi Pico board proved successful with a little flux help. Despite hoping for minimal use due to my PCB order, these tweezers are a handy backup for precise soldering work.

More Updates on the ZX Spectrum Board - I'm gearing up for production with some updates to our prototype, including switching to a 4-layer board to improve EMI, and refining USB power filtering. Check out the video for a deep dive into our battery charger and an exciting expansion port for potential HDMI output. The main goal now is to get our boards ready for manufacturing and shipping through Crowd Supply!

I Need More USB Power! - I've been accumulating more and more USB powered devices for my workbench lately, and my single 65W USB-C supply just isn't cutting it anymore. So, I've decided to source a new solution. After some digging, I stumbled upon a remarkable board on AliExpress with four USB standard sockets and four USB-C ports, which support just about every protocol there is! Oh, it easily delivers a solid 65 Watts. With this, I am finally able to fully power my gear. From mini hotplates to soldering irons, my workbench is more juiced up than ever!

No Power? No Problem! A Wireless Pi Doom Machine - In my latest wireless charging experiments, I got my hands on a set of wireless charging PCBs and dove into testing different voltage inputs and their efficiency levels. It was interesting to realise that the 5V input managed to provide a decent efficiency of 73%, while 12V input struggled and heated the receiver board excessively. With the perks and limits of this setup explored, I took a whirl at creating a wireless Pi Doom machine. It worked like a charm! However, I quickly noticed the need to split charging and boost board into two different modules - a project to look forward to. Half the fun is getting there! Check out the video [here](https://youtu.be/glCIuOoFm7U) for more detail on the project.

Thanks to https://www.PCBWay.com/?from=atomic for the fantastic PCBs and SMT assembly.

This is tiny! 10mm x 6mm it’s basically a USB-C socked with a lithium charger slapped on the back.

Let’s reverse engineer it, see how it works - and how hot it gets.

And then we’ll recreate it in KiCad - let’s see how hard it is to make something so small.

The IC used is the LP4054 (also available from Top Power as the TP4054 - and probably from other manufacturers).

You can find the board here: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_oFQcny6
And here’s the thermal camera I use: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_oEimMqE

0:00 This is tiny! 10mmx6mm
0:20 Let’s do some reverse engineering
0:50 Charing current of 600mA tested
1:04 Two LEDs one pin? How does that work?
1:38 It’s getting how in here: 92-93C
2:16 Recreate the board in KiCad - placing the components
5:56 Recreate the board in KiCad - routing
10:45 It’s a thing of beauty!

If you’d like to help support the channel and help me buy more nonsense - I have a Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/atomic14

We’ve also got a shop now! https://shop.atomic14.com

And if you’re shopping on AliExpress or Amazon then if you click on these links I will get a little bit of affiliate money:

Aliexpress - https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Ac05mF
Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/?tag=atomic14-20

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HELP SUPPORT MY WORK: If you're feeling flush then please stop by Patreon Or you can make a one off donation via ko-fi

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· · · · · Posts · Videos · Tags · Support

World’s Smallest USB-C Li-Ion Charger?!

Written by

Chris Greening

Supported by

atomic14

A collection of slightly mad projects, instructive/educational videos, and generally interesting stuff. Building projects around the Arduino and ESP32 platforms - we'll be exploring AI, Computer Vision, Audio, 3D Printing - it may get a bit eclectic...

World’s Smallest USB-C Li-Ion Charger?!

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Written by

Chris Greening

Supported by

atomic14

A collection of slightly mad projects, instructive/educational videos, and generally interesting stuff. Building projects around the Arduino and ESP32 platforms - we'll be exploring AI, Computer Vision, Audio, 3D Printing - it may get a bit eclectic...