do a smaller batch to estimate demand, such as 10-25units and if they sell out within 3-4 days do another larger batch of 50 but don’t make batches larger than 50.
Will that work though? The cost difference between 25 and 50 (or even 10 and 50) will probably be quite significant. It might be difficult to estimate demand if the price will be substantially higher…
Nope, most price breaks are between 10 and 50 and occasionally 5 and 25 so very slightly (dollar at max.
Found something by chance for those, who are looking for a PD breakout:
Sadly, there’s no info about the PD-wattage supported and if the data-port also works for displays…
Also unsure, if it actually fits into the expansion card slot.
All those interested, should contact the vendor for that information.
$3-$5 USD seems a bit sus…
It should be at least 2-3 times what they are selling those for…
I’ve seen those things around. If I recall, they are 100% “dumb” / no hub or active electronics. It just splits off the power pins to the “charge only” port, no data, no PD, no negotiation, nothing. If you put a high power PD charger on the “data and charging” port then the power pins on the “charge only” port would be at higher than 5v and can kill devices. Presuming that PD is accepted on the “data and charging” port / that the cc lines aren’t cut for safety sake. That’s why the price is so low, there is no hub, no electronics.
I got curious and contacted a vendor on the german ebay, gonna report back the answer I got.
Unfortunately, in my experience, a lot of direct-from-china sellers know little, if anything, about some products they sell. They are just resellers / drop-shippers. Too often they will pass along incomplete or just wrong specs. Disassembly, to verify what’s going on inside, is a must. Looking up a datasheet if there is any chip inside.
Looks like someone else tried it out way back in this thread:
Looks like it was too good to be true. I also haven’t received an answer yet. Sorry for building up false hopes unnecessarily.
This would be really cool to have! Even if I can’t charge with it, I’d still use this as one of my expansion cards.
Hello again, some quick update on the enclosure:
One version of the enclosure parts just came in a few minutes ago (the MJF parts) , the color is the “I don’t care” option . They look pretty nice, some minor refinements to the design won’t hurt but in general it fits nicely:
@tbe is there somewhere list what it can do like left can do PD 3.1 and USB 2.0 right USB 3.0 and DP?
The list is relatively short tho ,
- both ports can do USB 3.1 Gen 1 and that’s it, no PD or display
@tbe great work here, I just have a couple questions: is their any hope of PD or is the circuitry too big for the expansion card. Anyway to better color match your expansion card to the OEM ones? and have you worked out rough pricing for these yet?
Does “no PD” refer to no PD charging of the laptop or no PD charging of an accessory (like a phone), or no to both?
If no PD charging of an accessory, will it charge an accessory at up to 5V 3A under the USB C spec? (I think this is correct)
@gaben
It doesn’t support PD in both directions, you can charge things on the ports but at a maximum current of 1.5A and at 5V, that’s how the ports are configured (it also doesn’t advertise itself as battery charging capable to connected devices). So it charges them but at a lower rate.
Since it’s powered by one USB-C port on the laptop that can provide 3A I don’t think it’s clever to allow the whole 3A on one hub-port when you can plug in two things (and the hub itself also uses some power).
You can only pull 1.5A without a PD controller.
Hm, seems you are right, I did read somewhere it can provide 3A but haven’t thought that might be PD .
I haven’t measured what it is actually willing to give but the port says it’s 1.5A capable.
Edit: It provides around 2A before the OCP trips. So I probably have to go into implementing a PD-IC for that. There are luckily relatively inexpensive chips out there.
It would be awesome if it could pull 10V and then split 5V 5A for each split but I have no idea how hard that is because it would need to be in series and it would need to manage to swap 10V into 5V if something is unplugged, which can cause a disconnect of the 2nd thing plugged in.