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Clara Hobbs

539 orders since Jun 09, 2017

Chapel Hill, NC, United States of America

Ships from United States of America.

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Sorry y'all, I started feeling ill this weekend, so as part of my quarantine I'm closing my shop for the time being.

Overall Rating:

Review Breakdown

5
21 4
12 3
1 2
0 1
0

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Average Ratings

Product: (4.85)

Documentation: (4.68)

Shipping: (4.79)

Communication: (4.79)

All Reviews

B | June 15, 2020

Works great

For PD Buddy Sink

Programmed it for 15v, 3A to power a portable HF transceiver using a USB-C PD powerbank. Works great!

Robyn | Feb. 13, 2020

Quality little piece of hardware!

For PD Buddy Sink

I'm building a bluetooth speaker that I wanted powering via PD. This little thing is perfect.
I'm not familiar with the whole world of programming so I needed a little help from a friend to show me how to communicate with it, but honestly set up was so easy and now I've got 20V from my PD battery to my speaker, genius!
I don't know how many lay people end up buying something like this but a step by step tutorial would have been nice.

Paul | Nov. 4, 2019

Handy device

For PD Buddy Sink

I made a usb pd to barrel jack adaptor to power a chrome book, works a treat, only wish that the output terminals were bigger for ham-fisted people

Kristian | Oct. 31, 2019

Brilliant little thing

For PD Buddy Sink

The only product I've found anywhere to allow the constructor to set all of the parameters for PowerDelivery. Great little thing to keep a spare or two of in the workshop.

Glenn | May 23, 2019

Great little product

For PD Buddy Sink

Took a while to get through customs, but a very nice and good-working product! Only drawback is that it does not provide any power if a non-PD USB Charger is connected to it.

Shaheedan | March 2, 2019

must have if you have the usb-c PD powerbank

For PD Buddy Sink

Just configure the output voltage to 20V 2.25A to suite with my laptop charging port (barrel jack), very easy and straightforward to do using his available documents online. nice product!

Andrew | Nov. 28, 2018

Great product, does as advertised, great docs, happily own 7

For PD Buddy Sink

This is a great little hack/toy/product that I'm already heavily utilising on a daily basis. The documentation is great, and Clayton has great support as well I reached out to him a bit about a few things, and commented some feedback publicly, all met with responses. +++ would order more if I needed, but with 7 of them I think I'm good forever. Thanks again!

Kelvin | June 7, 2018

Works well when dialed in, but limited compatibility

For PD Buddy Sink

The hardware works really well once configured for a specific device. However, it may not be a great option if you need to plug into a variety of different USB PD sources without reconfiguring. I got it reliably functioning with an Apple 87W brick and a 30W Anker 26800+ battery bank, but in this configuration it would not negotiate reliably with another Apple 29W brick or an Anker 30W wall wart. There doesn't seem to be a way to make it gracefully try a few different power configurations or fallback to other configurations. Ideally I'd be able to throw any 30W+ USB PD source at it and get current in the range of my downstream device, but as it stands I need to carry one of the two very specific devices I managed to get working.
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Response from Clara Hobbs | June 7, 2018
Unfortunately, many chargers don't follow the USB PD power rules, so it's true that one configuration of voltage and current might not work on another charger with the same advertised wattage. Of the chargers you listed, my research shows that only recent versions of the Anker 30W charger (model numbers ending in 112) follow the power rules, with all the others violating them in some way.

You could still get power from all of these chargers though, by setting a range of voltages that the PD Buddy Sink can request. See the documentation on voltage ranges and alternate configuration types starting at https://git.clayhobbs.com/pd-buddy/pd-buddy-firmware/src/tag/v1.2.2/docs/console_config.md#voltage-ranges for more information.

Gavin | April 12, 2018

Does what it says

For PD Buddy Sink

Works great, and programming is effortless, just connected to my PC and loaded up Putty on COM6 and presto, console!

A couple gotchas on the firmware, when you connect it doesn't pre-load the existing config to the tempcfg so each time you connect you need to reprogram every single setting to change one thing.

If I could make a request for v2 it would be to sacrifice as many features as possible to get it down to an active-cable pcb size and sell it as a plug like this but just the two power pads: http://www.cypress.com/sites/default/files/inline/fckImages/myresources/Type-C_new1.jpg

The only other feature I would look to have is to activate programmable over-current and over-voltage behavior.

Chark | March 6, 2018

Works well (as advertised), would like Wye on-board

For PD Buddy Sink

I have not used all the features yet, but I did test the 9V 2.0 output configuration and it worked flawless. I used a USB A-to-C cable to connect it to a Raspberry Pi. I installed the "cu" program and connected with "cu -l /dev/ttyACM0 -s 9600" command. Typed 'help' and got the menu. I used the pyserial module to bring control of the port into python.
One improvement that could be made to the board would be to have a micro USB connector that could allow for the WYE functionality.
I presently use a QuickCharge 3.0 wall adapter and a MCP4812 two channel DAC to get custom voltages using a SPI interface, but wanted to test a USB PD 3.0 PPS adapter using the PD Buddy Sink.
Great product, no issue so far, did not need any documentation or communication yet.

Edit: Created the Wye function by modifying a type C cable (cut the D+ D- and connected them and GND to a separate USB A cable which connects to my RPi). Was able to query the adapter realtime, set the output on/off and set the new voltage.
Edit2: The output pad (GND and PWR) hole pitch is smaller than 2.54mm. FYI. I needed to bend my 2.54mm pins to solder it down.

Boris | Feb. 19, 2018

Board has intermittent contact to power socket

For PD Buddy Wye

Seems my board slipped quality control. Power socket won't work without applying pressure on the top.

I hope I will be able to fix it with a heat gun.
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Response from Clara Hobbs | Feb. 19, 2018
Ahh, sorry! I tried to clean the excess rosin flux off some of the earlier boards I built, and in the process some may have made its way into the connector. You could try cleaning the connectors by soaking the board in a small dish of isopropyl alcohol for a few minutes, then blowing the connectors dry with compressed air to remove any dissolved flux. If that doesn't fix the problem, please contact me for a replacement. I don't try to clean the excess flux from the boards anymore, so the problem shouldn't happen with new units.

Boris | Feb. 19, 2018

Recommendable

For PD Buddy Sink

Works flawlessly in combination with an Aukey PA-Y10 and a RAVPower RP-PB058. It's smaller than I expected. I found it a little bit hard to bridge the solder pads for upgrading the firmware, but this shouldn't be a problem anymore for new units that ship with the integrated software flash-mode.

There should be a link in the README to http://dfu-util.sourceforge.net/ as I accidentally installed dfuse from STMicroelectronics that is incompatible with the instructions. Please note, that the official STMicroelectronics drivers for windows are incompatible with this tool and need to be replaced as described here https://github.com/libusb/libusb/wiki/Windows#How_to_use_libusb_on_Windows

The configuration process was fast and worked well as described in the documentation.

Lastly i tried to protect the board with insulation tape, but I'm still looking for good ideas how to do it right.

TLDR: It's great :-)
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