Connecting multiple and more current hungry USB devices to your PC can affect the PC or devices operation and determining actual usage values is difficult. This tester breakout board makes monitoring easy using a DVM or by adding a backpack OLED board for display.
Sometimes you don’t know what you need. With the abundance and type of USB devices we are connecting to our PCs and to USB hubs to accomplish things, where from and how much power to supply the USB devices are becoming issues. Protection of your PC USB ports and power supply is important.
Figure 1: USB Tester Breakout Board (Photo credit: https://www.tindie.com/products/FriedCircuits/usb-tester/)
The USB tester breakout was created by Friedcircuits and is sold on the Tindie.com website. The tiny breakout board connects between the USB device and the USB port of the PC (or USB hub) and has holes for easy measuring of current and voltage with a meter. A board jumper allows for normal operation when not measuring current.
Figure 2: USB Tester with Base Monitoring Current
(Photo credit: https://www.tindie.com/products/FriedCircuits/acrylic-base-for-usb-tester/)
The instruction site provides the details for these measurements. The board also brings all the USB signals to pins on the board if you want to monitor data with other test equipment. An inexpensive acrylic base option provides board protection.
Figure 3: USB Tester with OLED Backpack in Operation
(Photo credit: https://www.tindie.com/products/FriedCircuits/usb-tester-oled-backpack-bundle/)
For those not having a meter, Friedcircuits (blogs about projects as Mobile Will) added an OLED backpack for the tester that displays bus voltage, shunt voltage drop, device voltage, and current usage. No meter necessary! This is available separately or bundled with the USB tester board.
Figure 4: USB Tester Board and OLED Backpack Board
(Photo credit: https://www.tindie.com/products/FriedCircuits/usb-tester-oled-backpack-bundle/)
Tindie.com is a site where electronic problems are solved, many times with small embedded systems designed for a specific problem by people with varying skills and experiences. The cost of building a small run circuit board can be prohibitive so Tindie.com brings the needs of many together for designers to meet the higher board counts to make it work financially. Kickstarter rules prohibit funding campaigns for CAD drawing level ideas, so Tindie.com filled the need.
USB devices and power requirements are not as simple a problem as they first appear but this board provides an eloquent solution to a future issue.
