Give a man a battery powered electric blanket and he'll be warm for a day. Give a man an incendiary electric blanket and he'll be warm for the rest of his life...
These are going to be all over Amazon in a month when a manufacturer in China sees this video and realises they can make them quickly and easily. Nice project, glad it works.
They would probably just use the cheap 5v to 12v upconverters which they already make for USB2. Or connect three 3.7v standard batteries (the kind in these USB battery packs) in series.
The funny thing is there’s a couple of power tool companies that make heated jackets that use power tool batteries which can be pretty light. I think Milwaukee and makita do them
@@1990drewman This is better though, no need to be sarcastic and insufferable about this. My Makita tool battery has a capacity of 54Wh, my RAVPower PD power bank is 100Wh, twice the capacity, yet a similar weight, and while both are similar in overall size the PD bank is much thinner and easier to pocket (being longer instead) than the bulky tool battery. There are smaller tool batteries but they're still much bigger than equivalent PD power banks because they're optimised for high current draw which precludes high capacities and requires large, bulky heat dissipating designs, features not required when you're powering a weedy resistive heater instead of a high current inductive load. Not only that but this can also plug straight into an appropriate mains adaptor, including many modern laptop adaptors that your friends might have laying around. Tool manufacturers make all sorts of silly things powered by their batteries not necessarily because it's the best way to power something but instead just so you've got more stuff that forces you to use their brand of battery, that doesn't make them the best approach to solving the problem of powering something, particularly if you aren't already at a job site as a contractor with dozens of spare tool batteries lying around.
The only thing I would have done differently is that I wouldn't chop the connector of the blanket and instead found a corresponding one and made a cable with usb-c on one end and a 12v barrel plug on the other. I'm assuming that the connector is of the barrel type of course.
@@beebware if I'm not wrong the connector on the blanket is a standard barrel plug. Like on a laptop. And I was thinking about putting the father side on a cable. It is a lot more compact. And is easier to source. Edit: father not farther
I actually had a look recently before this video and Makita makes one and there's a few that also plug into USB power packs. They are expensive though especially the power tool ones.
@RevdKathy Uh, hi! I am 3-4 years late, but there are USB powered heating vests! Search around a bit, you should be able to get a good one for about 40-50 quid ☺
Thoughts at the beginning: I can't imagine a small power pack would be able to run a blanket for very long at all. The blanked probably pulls 15+ amps, so it might run for an hour if you're lucky.
If you want a marginally less janky setup, there's actually a few extra-chunky USB power banks which include built in 12v cigarette-lighter output (or even conversion to 120v AC). So you could achieve something like this without having to modify cables or push things too far out of specification
You could have got a car booster (jump starter) pack. They have a 12V output (often with a cig lighter adapter as well for an even simpler hookup). They usually have 5V USB output also (don't buy one that doesn't!). They will jump start your car when your battery is flat. TBH they are the ultimate battery power banks.
i've got this engineering friend, his primary role is to shoot down bad ideas by idiots (me.) I can already hear his groans and sighs in my head just reading the title.
There is Something like this, Bosch Profesional sels Heated Jackets which are powerd with an Adapter from there 12V or 18V Power Tool Bateries. To connect those to components they use a Plug that locks fairly simular to the one on your Blanket, so powering an Blanktet with it seems posible. Those Adapters are also sailed seprat as GAA 12V /18V and have one or two USB A Charging Ports in adition to the 12V Plug, so this could be a good Option if you alredy own the Batteries needed. If you´ve got both 12V and 18V, buy the 18V adapter since it is cheaper, has two USB ports, alows you to use bigger Bateries, and dosen´t discharge your Baterie when it is not used (thats a known Problem only with the GAA 12V)
This is how humans will evolve eventually not the other way around, where big fat cat CEOs and corporations reverse engineer things so we can never unlock their true potential
I found myself thinking the same thing - a car jump-starter pack's 12v-output. You would want to use extreme caution if using the Big Chunky Connector on one of those because they can dish out an absolutely gargantuan amount of current if you accidentally shorted them - probably best to add a fuse!
Noticed that as well, to be honest it was done only using one hand on conductive parts while in 12V mode so it's not anything like the worst thing that could happen with electricity. But I agree that it's definitely important to be aware of what you're touching when working with electronics, even in these relatively low voltage and power limited scenarios.
Is no one going to mention that this idea came from Matt meeting up with some friends in a park? Is there any chance we may see a park bench video soon? I love the ingenuity of this idea regardless!
I haven’t tried it yet! But the battery is 20Ah, and it says it can supply 3A at 12V so I suspect at least an hour! (If the blanket doesn’t self-destruct before then!)
@@beef_enchilada3384 To get the most out of it, one should plan for the blanket to catch fire just as the battery is about to run out. That way you stay warm/hot the longest possible time.
@@MattGrayYES you should have measured the ampere usage before (On the car-module). These USB-C adapters can not transfer more than 2 amps permanently without breakting (use them for multiple projects). Either the adapter burns away or the powerbank is strained too much. Please feel if the powerbank or the adapter gets hot when using the blanked. Don't want a slightly burned Matt.. :/
If it's bad enough to be using mains cable with mains standard colors for a relatively low voltage DC system, *never* trust the colors to be anything sensible. In fact, even if they're red and black, don't trust it. Always test.
I'm not in the UK, but I am somewhere with a very similar climate. My great uncle moved to Australia, and when I was growing up it seemed like every year we'd get a letter from him in July or August complaining about the cold winter weather...which was roughly the same temperature we had at the height of summer.
I know someone who would do this if I tell him about it. My son, your dopplegänger, also a radio audio engineer. He's a warmth-lover. Now, do I dare tell him about it...?
No no, there's a much faster solution: 1. Find a fully charged lithium-ion battery. 2. Stab something completely through it, like a knife or ax. 3. Jam the battery into your pocket. Instant warmth! Job done.
They now make USB-C PD trigger cables that would let you plug from the power bank straight into the electric blanket's connector. I choose to believe that those are the result of this video.
Have you used it outside yet? wondering A) how effective it is and B) how silly you look (warm and silly, better than cold and silly). Also, is it much use if you're the only one with one and all your friends go home because they're cold? shop dot mattg I guess :P
We need a "two months later" report on this... Did it burst into flame? Did the batter bank melt? Or did it just work? I wondered just how many amps it wanted vs how many the batter bank could supply.
Awesome project.! I am going to be one of those people and say what "you should have done" what I mean is what I would do. For the pcb I would have coated it in hotglue to keep the button from being pressed that way if I ever need to reuse that thing or it some how loses its program I can take the glue off with alcohol. I also have a 3d printer so I might have designed and printed a housing for it instead of heat shrink but I know not everyone can do this. Otherwise I don't know what else I would change as this is such a great project. I also might have just been really lazy and built a 12 volt nicd or nimh battery pack for it as I have access to cells and a tab welder at my job. While this does mean you don't need a special pcb for it you will be stuck with a custom battery that would be hard to use for other things. Compared to the lithium battery pack in this video its an easier method for me personally but not as versatile. It would also weigh more to get the same mah capacity/energy density. Matt if you read this I highly recommend getting a 3d printer. If you do a few more projects like this and reach out to creality or anycubic I am sure they'd send you one to review for free.
I’m not an engineer, but I’d have tested the blanket to see how it reacts if it gets different voltages. At the very least to see how the red “on” light behaves if fed 5 , 9 or 15 volts.
I'm 2 years late to this video, but are coats in the UK really so poorly insulating that you need blankets on top? Honest question! (I'm Canadian, our winter gear is reliable.)
Great project, I would do similar myself (I'm an engineer, I can't see anything wrong with doing it) except for the fact that a. I don't own an electric blanket, and b. I don't have a USB power bank either. Surely its USB 3.0 that would've introduced the variable voltages? Since USB-C is just the connector type, and the power bank you have just has standard USB-A ports on the output (but blue, signifying they're at 3.0 standard)
His battery pack has a Type C-with-PD output on it. Blue USB3 "type A" connectors can't do Power Delivery, that's a USB-C specific trick. And as he noted at one point, not all C-PD outputs can do all the voltage options. I think there's also meant to be a signalling thing built in to C-to-C cables to let them tell devices the maximum current they are rated for.
just going to point this out as a biker some biker jackets have heated elements as do some insoles gloves etc they run off a cig lighter socket you can get cig lighter sockets that plug straight on to a motorcycle battery and a motorcycle battery does not need to be connected to a bike to work bish bash bosh a lot better
I'm curious how warm that chip gets running all that power through itself. I ask mostly because 3D printers tend to have big MOSFETS with heat sinks (at 12vdc) to heat up a 30cmx30cm bed to 60°C. I know the blanket won't get anywhere near that hot, but it's also much larger, so it may 'balance out'?
I think the chip doesn't convert the voltage, so it won't get hot. It just signals the powerbank to provide a specific voltage. This is possible because the powerbank is already converting the battery voltage up to 5V anyhow, so making it able to produce other voltages isn't actually that big a thing. If anything it is the powerbank that would get hot for the amount of power drawn, not the USB-C communication chip.
The chip he uses to trigger the powerbank does not actually do any power conversion. It's only function is to communicate the USB Power Delivery protocol. All of the current passes straight from the USB C connector to the points Matt soldered wires to. It is also possible to control a printer heatbed without a heatsink using a higher quality mosfet. Some chinese manufacturers choose instead to use a low quality mosfet with a heatsink. A higher quality mosfet will have lower Rdson resistance, and will not heat up significantly under load.
I really need to look into the differences between USB-A and USB-C. I just use USB-A since that was the wires I had. Then since those were the power bank i had that was the cords I bought. It is a vicious cycle.
Also important to keep in mind is it's not just if USB-C sockets are on there, these protocols can even live on a type-A USB socket! Essentially you'll come across these 3 variants: - Nothing special, just 5V output up to a certain current - USB power delivery (the non-proprietary protocol option) - Quallcomm quick charge (what a lot of phones with fast charging early on used and probably still do) There are also a few versions of quick charge out there, last time I checked they were up to quick charge 4 already. USB power delivery has also gone through revisions as well, not sure what the differences are there. But once you figured out which variant your product needs you also need to check if it supports the specific output profile, like Matt here in this video discovered: his mains USB power supply didn't have the 12V option but his powerbank does.
You say "set myself on fire", I say "damn effective heating blanket".
Give a man a battery powered electric blanket and he'll be warm for a day. Give a man an incendiary electric blanket and he'll be warm for the rest of his life...
Hey, if it gets the job done...
Damn effective. I'm wearing it in my grave right now.
These are going to be all over Amazon in a month when a manufacturer in China sees this video and realises they can make them quickly and easily.
Nice project, glad it works.
They would probably just use the cheap 5v to 12v upconverters which they already make for USB2. Or connect three 3.7v standard batteries (the kind in these USB battery packs) in series.
@@CricketEngland at least it will keep you warm if it catches fire...
They’re already invented before this video
@@caleyhall ya think? It's almost as though the comment flew right over the top of your head, isn't it...
I've added a load of info in the description, so please have a look in there! 🔋 And I’ve just added battery life info there too!
i will not try this at home :-)
yayyyy
@@maireadk5574 As you shouldn‘t.
Removing a button and breaking it, are the same thing.
I relate very much to this
Sincerely,
An Electronic Engineering Undergrad
Matt Gray: I will make the blanket talk to the battery.
William Osman: DEATH CABLE
Michael Reeves: I will make an electric blanket.
Michael Reeves will make a blanket that tasers people.
The funny thing is there’s a couple of power tool companies that make heated jackets that use power tool batteries which can be pretty light. I think Milwaukee and makita do them
And aeg/rigid, ryobi, and a slew of chinese ripoffs. 5 min of googling would have solved this.
@@1990drewman then you wouldn't have this video to enjoy.
@@1990drewman This is better though, no need to be sarcastic and insufferable about this. My Makita tool battery has a capacity of 54Wh, my RAVPower PD power bank is 100Wh, twice the capacity, yet a similar weight, and while both are similar in overall size the PD bank is much thinner and easier to pocket (being longer instead) than the bulky tool battery. There are smaller tool batteries but they're still much bigger than equivalent PD power banks because they're optimised for high current draw which precludes high capacities and requires large, bulky heat dissipating designs, features not required when you're powering a weedy resistive heater instead of a high current inductive load. Not only that but this can also plug straight into an appropriate mains adaptor, including many modern laptop adaptors that your friends might have laying around. Tool manufacturers make all sorts of silly things powered by their batteries not necessarily because it's the best way to power something but instead just so you've got more stuff that forces you to use their brand of battery, that doesn't make them the best approach to solving the problem of powering something, particularly if you aren't already at a job site as a contractor with dozens of spare tool batteries lying around.
The only thing I would have done differently is that I wouldn't chop the connector of the blanket and instead found a corresponding one and made a cable with usb-c on one end and a 12v barrel plug on the other. I'm assuming that the connector is of the barrel type of course.
Yeah, I was think just make a generic USB-C to cigarette-lighter/accessory port: then Matt could use it on the electric blanket, a portable kettle etc
@@beebware if I'm not wrong the connector on the blanket is a standard barrel plug. Like on a laptop. And I was thinking about putting the father side on a cable. It is a lot more compact. And is easier to source.
Edit: father not farther
I'd replace them for XT6 connectors or similar
@@SamValiant that is also a possibility
@@beebware you’d fry the battery bank trying to power a kettle
Just put gaming laptop on blanket and run crysis remastered
For soldering I always use a blob of blue tack to stop everything moving around :)
D'oh! Why didn't I think of that?!
I use blue tack instead of solder
Someone who knows Latin: I've got chills they were multipy'in, now this blanket it's electrifying...
Colin Furze is now drawing up plans for a pulsejet powered version.
I remember a while ago seeing coat warmers that plug into drill and power tool batteries. No idea if they still exist but they could be a good option!
I actually had a look recently before this video and Makita makes one and there's a few that also plug into USB power packs. They are expensive though especially the power tool ones.
On behalf of NHS community staff forced to see clients outdoors... I WANT ONE! Seriously, there would be a heck of a market for this thing.
Something like a cape or cloak, not so much a bed-size blanket, which could get cumbersome to handle.
@RevdKathy Uh, hi! I am 3-4 years late, but there are USB powered heating vests! Search around a bit, you should be able to get a good one for about 40-50 quid ☺
Thoughts at the beginning: I can't imagine a small power pack would be able to run a blanket for very long at all. The blanked probably pulls 15+ amps, so it might run for an hour if you're lucky.
As a fire restoration tech I'd have to say like 20% of the fire I went to where because of heated blankets.
Mains though, right?
i am. absolutely incredibly atechnical but this was rly fun to watch! would not be opposed to more 'matt making things'
this man makes me happy
The button breaking is a real "Task failed successfully" moment.
Helping hands are pretty fiddly, I find just a bit of masking tape often does the trick. Ace video and stay safe! :)
A large blob of blu tack works wonders 😉
I very much remember brown is live for U.K. because of Tom's review of British plugs from forever ago.
I'd love to see any more electrics projects you'd care to upload.
I am happy to say I have the same multimeter as Matt Gray
If you want a marginally less janky setup, there's actually a few extra-chunky USB power banks which include built in 12v cigarette-lighter output (or even conversion to 120v AC). So you could achieve something like this without having to modify cables or push things too far out of specification
You could have got a car booster (jump starter) pack. They have a 12V output (often with a cig lighter adapter as well for an even simpler hookup). They usually have 5V USB output also (don't buy one that doesn't!). They will jump start your car when your battery is flat. TBH they are the ultimate battery power banks.
i've got this engineering friend, his primary role is to shoot down bad ideas by idiots (me.)
I can already hear his groans and sighs in my head just reading the title.
Love it when a plan comes together
A big blob of Blu-tack is a very handy ‘helping hand’ when soldering
Thanks, mate. Needed some smiles and chuckles. And a bit of wiring how to. Off to the closet to find the blankets!
I love how silly and goofy you are while being extremely intelligent.
There is Something like this, Bosch Profesional sels Heated Jackets which are powerd with an Adapter from there 12V or 18V Power Tool Bateries. To connect those to components they use a Plug that locks fairly simular to the one on your Blanket, so powering an Blanktet with it seems posible. Those Adapters are also sailed seprat as GAA 12V /18V and have one or two USB A Charging Ports in adition to the 12V Plug, so this could be a good Option if you alredy own the Batteries needed. If you´ve got both 12V and 18V, buy the 18V adapter since it is cheaper, has two USB ports, alows you to use bigger Bateries, and dosen´t discharge your Baterie when it is not used (thats a known Problem only with the GAA 12V)
Trying to decide if this beats the glittery shoes or not. Bloody brilliant either way.
Modifying cheap electronics to function in unintended ways... this video has strong Big Clive energy.
This is how humans will evolve eventually not the other way around, where big fat cat CEOs and corporations reverse engineer things so we can never unlock their true potential
You want the voltage to remain? Better keep that button away from any referendums then!
Why is this more relevant now than when it came out
Talking from experience this is the true sound technician way of doing things quick and brash but it works
Now that was a warming story
I had the same idea... and I have the exact same RavPower battery bank.
You can get some pretty small 12V jump packs now which could be a simpler alternative.
I found myself thinking the same thing - a car jump-starter pack's 12v-output. You would want to use extreme caution if using the Big Chunky Connector on one of those because they can dish out an absolutely gargantuan amount of current if you accidentally shorted them - probably best to add a fuse!
Mat grabbing the USB from the positive and negative to disconnect it at 4:40, please don't get shocked
Noticed that as well, to be honest it was done only using one hand on conductive parts while in 12V mode so it's not anything like the worst thing that could happen with electricity.
But I agree that it's definitely important to be aware of what you're touching when working with electronics, even in these relatively low voltage and power limited scenarios.
Very nicely done. Yes, often a car battery gives more power, for example CB radios and CB mains PSUs are 13.8 volts.
Matt flexing that fluke multimeter and all us plebs with our middle of Lidl multimeters
That was also thanks to everyone who bough merch :D
@@MattGrayYES it would take a fair bit of merch to buy a fluke😁
As winter weather is starting to roll in. I would so buy a Matt Gray USB blanket.
I'm not a big fan of helping hands as well but I find a bit of blue tac "The stuff you use to hold posters" to work really well.
Is no one going to mention that this idea came from Matt meeting up with some friends in a park? Is there any chance we may see a park bench video soon?
I love the ingenuity of this idea regardless!
A warm Matt is the best Matt
How long does the battery last?
I haven’t tried it yet! But the battery is 20Ah, and it says it can supply 3A at 12V so I suspect at least an hour! (If the blanket doesn’t self-destruct before then!)
@@MattGrayYES On the bright side, if it catches fire, it'll keep you AND your friends warm.
@@MattGrayYES I will expect an update...
@@beef_enchilada3384 To get the most out of it, one should plan for the blanket to catch fire just as the battery is about to run out. That way you stay warm/hot the longest possible time.
@@MattGrayYES you should have measured the ampere usage before (On the car-module). These USB-C adapters can not transfer more than 2 amps permanently without breakting (use them for multiple projects). Either the adapter burns away or the powerbank is strained too much. Please feel if the powerbank or the adapter gets hot when using the blanked.
Don't want a slightly burned Matt.. :/
If you don’t have helping hands, blue tack the wire down!
Blue tack the PCB down is easier, but right idea.
If it's bad enough to be using mains cable with mains standard colors for a relatively low voltage DC system, *never* trust the colors to be anything sensible. In fact, even if they're red and black, don't trust it. Always test.
This has subtle like, james may vibes and i am here👏for👏it👏
I suppose that this creation is being quite useful this week
One of these would be... whatever the opposite of naff is while waiting for the hovercraft bar to hover by. Top-notch, maybe?
Very charming.
This is what us Aussies had to think about a few months back, although cold for us is probably a nice temperature for you.
I'm not in the UK, but I am somewhere with a very similar climate. My great uncle moved to Australia, and when I was growing up it seemed like every year we'd get a letter from him in July or August complaining about the cold winter weather...which was roughly the same temperature we had at the height of summer.
I've only seen brown and blue used with AC cables. For DC, I've always seen black and red, or black and black with stripes.
Brilliant!
@10:26 if your blanket does not have a heat control button you could use the one on the usb controller to give less power and hence lower temps..
This is actually really useful because I've been wanting to convert a 9v portable video light I have over to USB PD
I know someone who would do this if I tell him about it. My son, your dopplegänger, also a radio audio engineer. He's a warmth-lover. Now, do I dare tell him about it...?
Do it.
How many Amps does the blanket draw? I don't think the power bank would last that long ( although it is 20000mAh..)
THIS IS THE CONTENT I SIGNED UP FORRRRR
Now you’ve got to make one for all your friends!
No no, there's a much faster solution:
1. Find a fully charged lithium-ion battery.
2. Stab something completely through it, like a knife or ax.
3. Jam the battery into your pocket.
Instant warmth! Job done.
Aww, there's a framed picture of him and Tom in the shelf
They now make USB-C PD trigger cables that would let you plug from the power bank straight into the electric blanket's connector.
I choose to believe that those are the result of this video.
Alternative title: apartment fire any% speedrun
Matt, I love your videos. Keep up the excellent work! :)
12v heated jackets are a thing...I own several...and I live in Australia...our winters are only 1C.
Have you used it outside yet? wondering A) how effective it is and B) how silly you look (warm and silly, better than cold and silly).
Also, is it much use if you're the only one with one and all your friends go home because they're cold? shop dot mattg I guess :P
Where did you learn to do this sort of thing? I've always been curious about electronics but I don't really know where to start learning about it.
I mean the powerbank is an extra hand warmer i guess?
Someone who works in tech that's right handed *skeptical glare*
They make heated vests and jackets already too
Great info!
Maybe make a radium blanket next... no battery needed!
We need a "two months later" report on this... Did it burst into flame? Did the batter bank melt? Or did it just work? I wondered just how many amps it wanted vs how many the batter bank could supply.
IT'S ELECTRIFYING!
If it sets you on fire, at least you will have a fire blanket nearby.
Excellent little project! Whats the power rating of the blanket Matt?
I'd love to do this, but my experience with soldering was soldering my mates trousers or books to chairs at school...
Awesome project.! I am going to be one of those people and say what "you should have done" what I mean is what I would do. For the pcb I would have coated it in hotglue to keep the button from being pressed that way if I ever need to reuse that thing or it some how loses its program I can take the glue off with alcohol. I also have a 3d printer so I might have designed and printed a housing for it instead of heat shrink but I know not everyone can do this. Otherwise I don't know what else I would change as this is such a great project.
I also might have just been really lazy and built a 12 volt nicd or nimh battery pack for it as I have access to cells and a tab welder at my job. While this does mean you don't need a special pcb for it you will be stuck with a custom battery that would be hard to use for other things. Compared to the lithium battery pack in this video its an easier method for me personally but not as versatile. It would also weigh more to get the same mah capacity/energy density.
Matt if you read this I highly recommend getting a 3d printer. If you do a few more projects like this and reach out to creality or anycubic I am sure they'd send you one to review for free.
Exactly what I needed today :)
Your video that is!
And your happy giggle at 13:35 made it totally worth watching this video! (I'm more of a thermos person myself...)
I’m not an engineer, but I’d have tested the blanket to see how it reacts if it gets different voltages. At the very least to see how the red “on” light behaves if fed 5 , 9 or 15 volts.
I'm 2 years late to this video, but are coats in the UK really so poorly insulating that you need blankets on top? Honest question! (I'm Canadian, our winter gear is reliable.)
Matt, how is the blanket holding up? And how long does the blanket stays warm? Thanks.
I own a helping hand. Can confirm: not useful.
Super Glue kills buttons and switches. A little dab and it'll never work again.
Now fashion the blanket into a Jacket and you've got yourself a Fashionable electric jacket
Great project, I would do similar myself (I'm an engineer, I can't see anything wrong with doing it) except for the fact that a. I don't own an electric blanket, and b. I don't have a USB power bank either.
Surely its USB 3.0 that would've introduced the variable voltages? Since USB-C is just the connector type, and the power bank you have just has standard USB-A ports on the output (but blue, signifying they're at 3.0 standard)
His battery pack has a Type C-with-PD output on it. Blue USB3 "type A" connectors can't do Power Delivery, that's a USB-C specific trick. And as he noted at one point, not all C-PD outputs can do all the voltage options. I think there's also meant to be a signalling thing built in to C-to-C cables to let them tell devices the maximum current they are rated for.
How long does that battery pack last? Is this viable for a few hours in a pub garden?
just going to point this out as a biker
some biker jackets have heated elements as do some insoles gloves etc
they run off a cig lighter socket
you can get cig lighter sockets that plug straight on to a motorcycle battery
and a motorcycle battery does not need to be connected to a bike to work bish bash bosh a lot better
I'm curious how warm that chip gets running all that power through itself. I ask mostly because 3D printers tend to have big MOSFETS with heat sinks (at 12vdc) to heat up a 30cmx30cm bed to 60°C. I know the blanket won't get anywhere near that hot, but it's also much larger, so it may 'balance out'?
I think the chip doesn't convert the voltage, so it won't get hot. It just signals the powerbank to provide a specific voltage. This is possible because the powerbank is already converting the battery voltage up to 5V anyhow, so making it able to produce other voltages isn't actually that big a thing. If anything it is the powerbank that would get hot for the amount of power drawn, not the USB-C communication chip.
The chip he uses to trigger the powerbank does not actually do any power conversion. It's only function is to communicate the USB Power Delivery protocol. All of the current passes straight from the USB C connector to the points Matt soldered wires to. It is also possible to control a printer heatbed without a heatsink using a higher quality mosfet. Some chinese manufacturers choose instead to use a low quality mosfet with a heatsink. A higher quality mosfet will have lower Rdson resistance, and will not heat up significantly under load.
These do exist already (Amazon have hundreds of them) not sure if your way was cheaper though
"Heat gun"? Sir, that's just an ineffective hairdryer
Very cool!
I really need to look into the differences between USB-A and USB-C. I just use USB-A since that was the wires I had. Then since those were the power bank i had that was the cords I bought. It is a vicious cycle.
Also important to keep in mind is it's not just if USB-C sockets are on there, these protocols can even live on a type-A USB socket!
Essentially you'll come across these 3 variants:
- Nothing special, just 5V output up to a certain current
- USB power delivery (the non-proprietary protocol option)
- Quallcomm quick charge (what a lot of phones with fast charging early on used and probably still do)
There are also a few versions of quick charge out there, last time I checked they were up to quick charge 4 already. USB power delivery has also gone through revisions as well, not sure what the differences are there. But once you figured out which variant your product needs you also need to check if it supports the specific output profile, like Matt here in this video discovered: his mains USB power supply didn't have the 12V option but his powerbank does.
Why didn’t you remove the SMD button with the heat gun?
How'd you keep that little Insta360 camera rolling, I thought it had a short clip style runtime?
I kept pressing go
I want Big Clive's opinion on this