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The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
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PlainName:

--- Quote ---Do you need mommy EU to help you?
--- End quote ---

Sometimes, yes. Just look at big things that some PTB has mandated: plugs, electricity supply, car safety, glasses prescriptions, housing codes, trade descriptions, broadband protocols, there are many!

Left to their own devices, players in the market will tend to do their own thing and we'd be left with many incompatible things. The question is not whether there should be a higher authority enforcing compatibility, but what that authority should be concerned with. The wallwart field was crying out for someone to do this, but no-one did. Now they have and we're all the better for it. It may not have saved anything environmental (good things often cost in some way, you know) but we are better off because of it.

Miyuki:

--- Quote from: Berni on October 28, 2022, 12:57:42 pm ---
--- Quote ---3. In so far as they are capable of being recharged via wired charging at voltages higher
than 5 volts, currents higher than 3 amperes or powers higher than 15 watts, the
categories or classes of radio equipment referred to in point 1 letters a) to m) shall:

(a) incorporate the USB Power Delivery, as described in the standard EN IEC 62680-1-
2:2021 ‘Universal serial bus interfaces for data and power - Part 1-2: Common
components - USB Power Delivery specification’;

(b) ensure that any additional charging protocol allows the full functionality of the USB
Power Delivery referred to in point (a), irrespective of the charging device used

--- End quote ---

Yep it looks like you have to have USB-PD if you draw more than 15W, so that is well done. You are still allowed to have extra proprietary high power modes, but they still have to retain compatibility with USB-PD.


The slightly worrying thing is that this would require all laptops under 100W to use USB-C for charging (Okay those are ultralights anyway). However it also says that once 240W USB-PD becomes mature the law should be bumped up to there. This would now include the big chonky gaming/workstration laptops. Not sure if it is a good idea to have those sort of powers running trough the tiny connectors continuously (especially as these laptops get really hot too) while requiring the motherboards power input circuitry to handle 240W from a input voltage range of 5V to 48V. These boatanchor laptops could not change up any usable amount from anything less than 30W

--- End quote ---
Using USB-C for a laptop is a terrible idea. Even small barrel jacks in some smaller laptops have a short life. And the hard soldered end in the laptop ruins the board.
USB-C is even more fragile than a simple jack.
Currently, thankfully laptops keep both connectors.
And I like how Lenovo solved it with a docking cable, where you have this double cable. It can work over Thunderbolt/USB alone but with limited power.
Monkeh:

--- Quote from: Miyuki on November 01, 2022, 07:01:07 pm ---And the hard soldered end in the laptop ruins the board.

--- End quote ---

For many years all decent laptops have had the charging port off the board for easier replacement. There's no reason at all that can't be done with USB-C.

Anyway, nobody's requiring the loss of a dedicated charging port - only the provision of a USB-C port capable of charging as a universal option.
SiliconWizard:

--- Quote from: Monkeh on November 01, 2022, 07:18:44 pm ---
--- Quote from: Miyuki on November 01, 2022, 07:01:07 pm ---And the hard soldered end in the laptop ruins the board.

--- End quote ---

For many years all decent laptops have had the charging port off the board for easier replacement. There's no reason at all that can't be done with USB-C.

--- End quote ---

There is: handling USB-C is much more complex than handling a DC input. So that requires dedicated ICs, multi-layer routing, etc. And if the port (which is what users will expect) can be used for data as well, then it must also be connected to the motherboard's chipset. All that would make a separate board much harder and more expensive.

Are you really comparing a simple board with a DC barrel jack and maybe some ESD diodes with what is required to handle USB-C power delivery? Yeah. :popcorn:
Monkeh:

--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on November 01, 2022, 07:35:56 pm ---
--- Quote from: Monkeh on November 01, 2022, 07:18:44 pm ---
--- Quote from: Miyuki on November 01, 2022, 07:01:07 pm ---And the hard soldered end in the laptop ruins the board.

--- End quote ---

For many years all decent laptops have had the charging port off the board for easier replacement. There's no reason at all that can't be done with USB-C.

--- End quote ---

There is: handling USB-C is much more complex than handling a DC input. So that requires dedicated ICs, multi-layer routing, etc. And if the port (which is what users will expect) can be used for data as well, then it must also be connected to the motherboard's chipset. All that would make a separate board much harder and more expensive.

Are you really comparing a simple board with a DC barrel jack and maybe some ESD diodes with what is required to handle USB-C power delivery? Yeah. :popcorn:

--- End quote ---

Doesn't have to be co-located with the connector. What comes in on a cable can carry on in a cable, leaving a low cost module to replace if it suffers mechanical damage.

Laptops have done this for years with USB, including 3.0, and VGA, DVI, HDMI, DP, ethernet, analog audio..
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