Need recommendation for USB power analyzer tool....

[whit3rd]

On Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 1:43:25 PM UTC-8, David Farber wrote:

On 2/5/2022 1:01 PM, legg wrote:
On Sat, 5 Feb 2022 10:54:40 -0800, David Farber
farberbe...@aol.com> wrote:

I have various USB chargers, cords, and portable devices around the
house. One of my devices, a Kindle Fire from around 2013, which works
fine, seems to have a nonlinear charging rate. Maybe that\'s OK. I don\'t
know. For example, it seems to take much longer to go from 15% to 16%
than from 95%-100%. In any case, I\'d be curious to know how much the
charging current is fluctuating and if there is any variation in
performance between the wall chargers I have in my drawer.

The deviation you\'ve noted is probably not worth the time,
trouble or expense to pursue, unless you\'re in the design/
build/test/repair/volume-trade businesses.

The under-$10 items from Banggood and other marketers are adequate to
tell if y our charge power supply can handle 100/500/1000/2000 mA currents,
and if the voltage is correct. Some low-end USB sources are low-powered, some
are not, and all the USB chargeables are different; sometimes it\'s nice to match
the best charge source with the tablet that needs it. It won\'t tell you power, exactly, just
monitors average current and voltage, but that\'s a good start.

Beware, type C connections, as well as mini-B, micro-B, B, A, OTG and USB SuperSpeed, may
not all work with any particular box; only the power current and voltage are fully compatible,
not the connectors and data-transfer particulars.

 

[David Farber]

On 2/6/2022 7:07 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Sun, 06 Feb 2022 18:54:30 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:

I found a few
references that indicate that the Kindle Fire HD 7 3rd generation
supports PD (power delivery) for fast charging.

That\'s wrong. I did some more digging and could not find any
references to the Kindle Fire HD 7 2013 3rd generation supporting PD
(power delivery). The closest approximation to a spec sheet doesn\'t
mention PD (or any other fast charging specs):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_HD
Therefore, any 5V charger that will provide 2amps (10 watts) and a USB
2.0 Micro-B connector, should work.

I bought the MarkerHawk USB tester, Model3.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DCSNHNB
I\'ve been using it for a while now and it\'s quite good though it\'s not
enclosed in a case and the buttons (which are bare microswitches) are
mounted sideways AND recessed so they\'re not that easy to press. Also,
you cannot view all the data on one screen. Most notably to view the
elapsed charging time you need several button presses to switch screens
and then several more button presses to return to the main screen. The
features are nice but I wish I had gotten the 3B model which includes
Bluetooth capabilities. This would have allowed me to use the included
software on my laptop. Anyway, I noticed the biggest effect on the
charging current was the type of cord I was using. I have a couple of
skinny micro USB cords and one thicker cord. The thicker cord will
register 3 times as much current as the thinner ones and that\'s why the
charging times were not consistent.

I performed a test last night using the thicker cord with the Kindle
registering 15% remaining charge. After two hours, the numbers were very
consistent. The intervals of my readings varied from 5 to 30 minutes but
the percent increase charge per minute varied only slightly with the
average being 2.38 minutes per one percent increase in charge. The
charging current was maximum during the first 15 minutes starting at
1.15A and dropping to 1.09A after 15 minutes. Then for the next 35
minutes, the charging current was constant at 0.86A. The percentage
charge was now at 37%. Then for the next 60 minutes, the current dropped
to 0.67A and the percentage charge was 60%. At this point, the power was
accidentally interrupted and when I plugged it back in again, the
charging current jumped back up to over 1A and the tester\'s clock reset
to 0. I felt at this point I had enough data to get an idea of how
things were progressing so I stopped monitoring the charging current.

In summary, it\'s a nice tool to use but the owner\'s manual...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZFC9TEPUBI5vD081lVSdVgsmeWRnaqi9/view?usp=sharing

....takes some time to absorb as it\'s apparently been translated from
another language. Maybe one of you could explain the importance (or
unimportance) in knowing the voltages for the DP+ and DP- (data lines
+/-)? Speaking of data lines, I noticed some of my cords will not
transfer data and can only be used for charging. The thicker cord I was
using does have the ability to transfer data so I\'m wondering if there\'s
some kind of communication going on between the charger and the Kindle
that affects the charging rate.

Thanks for your reply.

--
David Farber
Los Osos, CA

 

[legg]

On Sat, 26 Feb 2022 11:31:28 -0800, David Farber
<farberbear.unspam@aol.com> wrote:

On 2/6/2022 7:07 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 06 Feb 2022 18:54:30 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:

I found a few
references that indicate that the Kindle Fire HD 7 3rd generation
supports PD (power delivery) for fast charging.

That\'s wrong. I did some more digging and could not find any
references to the Kindle Fire HD 7 2013 3rd generation supporting PD
(power delivery). The closest approximation to a spec sheet doesn\'t
mention PD (or any other fast charging specs):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_HD
Therefore, any 5V charger that will provide 2amps (10 watts) and a USB
2.0 Micro-B connector, should work.

I bought the MarkerHawk USB tester, Model3.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DCSNHNB
I\'ve been using it for a while now and it\'s quite good though it\'s not
enclosed in a case and the buttons (which are bare microswitches) are
mounted sideways AND recessed so they\'re not that easy to press. Also,
you cannot view all the data on one screen. Most notably to view the
elapsed charging time you need several button presses to switch screens
and then several more button presses to return to the main screen. The
features are nice but I wish I had gotten the 3B model which includes
Bluetooth capabilities. This would have allowed me to use the included
software on my laptop. Anyway, I noticed the biggest effect on the
charging current was the type of cord I was using. I have a couple of
skinny micro USB cords and one thicker cord. The thicker cord will
register 3 times as much current as the thinner ones and that\'s why the
charging times were not consistent.
snip
things were progressing so I stopped monitoring the charging current.

In summary, it\'s a nice tool to use but the owner\'s manual...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZFC9TEPUBI5vD081lVSdVgsmeWRnaqi9/view?usp=sharing

1/2G Zip file?

...takes some time to absorb as it\'s apparently been translated from
another language. Maybe one of you could explain the importance (or
unimportance) in knowing the voltages for the DP+ and DP- (data lines
+/-)? Speaking of data lines, I noticed some of my cords will not
transfer data and can only be used for charging. The thicker cord I was
using does have the ability to transfer data so I\'m wondering if there\'s
some kind of communication going on between the charger and the Kindle
that affects the charging rate.

Thanks for your reply.

You have to install National Instruments VISA package, Microsoft
Studio, Labview elements yada yada and 2Meg worth of licensing
agreements to use a $22 USB power test dongle?

Depending on how you look at it, it\'s either the deal of the
century or some kind of OS invasion.

RL

 

[Peter W.]

You have to install National Instruments VISA package, Microsoft
Studio, Labview elements yada yada and 2Meg worth of licensing
agreements to use a $22 USB power test dongle?

a) Does it charge the device? - Yes. Stop there.
b) Does it charge the device? - No. Not at all? Replace. Yes but exceedingly slowly.
c) Exceedingly slowly - Will another charger charge the device? Yes - dispose of first charger. No - suspect the device.

This is not rocket science, nor is it worth any sort of brain damage, deep analysis or heroic measures. But, then this venue exists to provide overly complex solutions to simple problems after extensive discussions of picayune and irrelevant issues.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 27 Feb 2022 08:57:19 -0500, legg <legg@nospam.magma.ca> wrote:

In summary, it\'s a nice tool to use but the owner\'s manual...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZFC9TEPUBI5vD081lVSdVgsmeWRnaqi9/view?usp=sharing

1/2G Zip file?

473MB ZIP file which un-compresses to 570MB. 386 files,

The reason for the absurdly large file size is that the AC3 PC
Software v1.3 appears twice in the ZIP archive. Once as uncompressed
files and again as a RAR archive.

For those interested, I copied the device and PC software instructions
to:
<http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/A3C-USB-Analyzer/>
About 2MBytes total.

Note that all this ignores the original problem of charging the
Kindle, which I guessed was because the 5V charger was rated at less
than the required 2 Amps. It also appears that there\'s a USB cable
problem which might be attributable to excessively high DC resistance
or possibly the lack of data wires needed to negotiate a USB charging
protocol.

I\'ll play with this when time permits. Busy with firewood and dump
runs for a few days.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
PO Box 272 http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558