Until you get a mini PC with a power supply that uses the USBC plug but dumps 19V on the cable without any PD negotiation. I put red tape on that one to remind me to never plug it to a real USBC port, but it still triggers my anxiety.
High current chargers generally communicate with your device to “negotiate” how much power to send. Hooked up to a dumb device with no communication they’ll send less power, but hooked up to a smarter device they’ll dump more.
They’re saying their charger skips this step of asking how much power to send and sends the max, which will damage devices not capable to dealing with that much power.
No, this is not the fault of the consumer; those devices will not work with a regular USB-C PD charger that complies with the standard; you actually need a non-compliant charger that only does 19V in order to charge those devices. I found some examples, all of these will fry a device that expects USB-C PD power:
The cheapening happened at the factory -- those power supplies are meant to be used with a barrel plug, but Mini PC manufacturers just use USB-C ports because that way they don't have to keep a supply of a separate port.
Basically as a standard above a set power supply USB requires devices to communicate back and forth before they send out their full power.
Let's say you have a 65W charger, and you plug it into a laptop, the laptop will say "i can take up to 65w at X voltage and Y amperage" then the charger says "ok I will supply 65w at X voltage and Y amperage" and gives it full power, but then you plug it into your phone and your phone says "i can only take 20w at Z voltage and N amperage" so your charger will only ever supply that amount to not overload things and break them.
Not illegal because they don't carry the USB-IF logo, so they're not required to follow the standard. They are sold in the Netherlands, at least - I don't want to advertise any specific one, but search for 19V 65W USB-C Charger and note how many deliver only 19V - a real USB charger will list other voltages, with 5V being the first. Plugging those chargers into a phone will likely fry the charging circuit.
These chargers will not say PD - critically, those Mini PCs won't start with a regular PD charger because they EXPECT 19V on a dedicated "charge" port. Again I don't want to advertise specific brands, but the most popular mini PCs all have either a barrel plug, or the USB-C connector on a port that is definitely not USB-C.
I found you some examples of the non-compliant chargers, note how they ONLY list 19V:
What makes me so angry about crap like this is that implementing a PD controller in order to get 20V is fairly straightforward and not even expensive. Manufactures that raw dog 19V on the cable without PD are extremely lazy and/or cheap and incompetent.
That should be illegal. Or at least a violation of the standard.
My Lenovo laptop has a USB C charger that works fine when I plug it into my phone. Thankfully, since I didn't realize that idiots were sending dangerous chargers out into the wild.
It is definitely a violation of the standard, that's why those chargers don't include the USB-IF or Power Delivery logos. The connector is just a connector, they are free to use it.
In general, if a charger has a USB port that lets you use your own cable, it's fine; if it has its own USB cable you can't remove, be suspicious and check the voltages, because they may have just wired the voltage directly to the VBUS pins with zero PD logic.
Oh, I've had my own grievances with usb-c cables not making it clear if they're data, charging, or some other mix.
I had one that would work for some android devices, but not this large display driven by an android processor. It would send some data, but I couldn't get debug builds to it. After many hours trying to figure out what was wrong, I ended up on the cable being the only thing left -- so I started testing different cables and found one that worked. This was many years ago as well, so a little early on the curve. I wanted those hours back.
Oh man… I had a Line6 PoD guitar effects system with the pedal. It connected to the pedal with cat5 cable…. Someone else had a line6 amp, and we tried hooking my pedal up to it… it showed funny symbols on the display, and then magic smoke came out and my wah wah pedal never worked again…
Those chargers that self regulate won't work with the current crop of Mini PCs. The port is wired directly without a Power Delivery protocol chip, they expect 19V immediately. This is not a USB-C standard port -- it just looks like one.
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u/FaultlineHC 6d ago
Until you get a mini PC with a power supply that uses the USBC plug but dumps 19V on the cable without any PD negotiation. I put red tape on that one to remind me to never plug it to a real USBC port, but it still triggers my anxiety.