Protecting development boards against short circuits during prototyping

[bodzio_stawski]

Hi!

I would like to ask you to share your experiences. I'm talking about development boards and ways of securing them. When connecting such boards to something external, there is always a risk of damaging the board (e.g. the microcontroller on it), which will result in a short circuit.

And while other types of boards are connected to a laboratory power supply with a current limiter, development boards are almost always powered from the USB port and with a USB current meter, we can observe a sudden increase in current during damage.

Due to the fact that development boards available on the market may have varying degrees of protection - or almost no protection at all - I would like to ask you if you have any cool tricks for securing development boards from the USB port side? Something like a fuse or current limiter like below? Or any other simpler or more complicated methods?

https://www.mikroe.com/current-limit-6-click

[mawyatt]

If you can run the USB port power from a lab supply with current limit set just above normal operation and with a lab supply with low output capacitance, this should help.

Best,

[JustMeHere]

Your USB port should be protected.  After all, a fault in the cable itself is very likely to happen given enough time.  I know cheap HP boards protection is shit.

They do make USB isolators.  I had to use on some inventory scanners because they would kill the mobo if connected to anything other than USB 1.