Faulty 65W USB-C fast charger analysis and fix 

Great troubleshooting; many techs forget to test the cable. Always consult with your cat to determine what "low-hanging fruit" to test first 😊

A quick way to see if a switchmode power supply has started up without measuring anything, is to place an AM radio next to it and listen for interference.

"The fault is the last thing I tested" or finding something in the last place you looked, always make me smile. I said that once and a friend of mine said that if you found it you would be a fool to look further 🙂. Thanks for a grate channel, always worth watching.

Excellent video! I just love that even though you aren’t that familiar with Type C, you are able to figure it all out.

15:40 There is a straight connection. One way to test without the cable is connecting the CC wire via 2 10K resistors in parallel to the GROUND, this will cause the VBUS transistor to turn on and apply power. Never do this with any device being plugged into the cable and it creates an undefined situation

when you started testing it and tested the most obvious components and everything seemed normal, I immediately suspected the cable. Said and done.

I've dealt with so many broken cables before that it's the first thing I look for, visible signs like sharp angles on bending or that knobbly, lumpy appearance in the cable usually indicate the wire inside has given up due to excessive strain right at the ironically named strain relief, saves a lot of headaches just cutting the end off and testing the wires directly before anything else... :)

Great work. This always happenes to the best engineer. Nobody told me about PD and there seem to be too many ways to implement it. As a general rule: The harder the case is to open the further away the trouble will strike.

i like that design with the heatsink wrapped around the E-cap. this way the E-cap will never get to cold in the winter and will always be heated right up to its 105 C rating which i am sure the electrolyte will be very happy about long term. very nice.

These kind of power-bricks can be opened easily with alkylate gasoline. Just a few drops into the seams will weaken them within a minute, and the shell can be pried open with little force. Alkylate gasoline is much safer to handle than ordinary gasoline because it contains no aromatics or olefins. I got mine from Biltema ... you should get it in other places that also sell lawn mowers and chainsaws. But ... of course, a hammer is more photogenic 😁

The new FINRSI tester has PD Sniffer that you can use to analyse the signals on the blue wire. You can also use it to test what protocols and voltages the charger supports (PD, QC etc).

Love these "no stone unturned" troubleshooting videos! No matter how many times I work on something similar... I always enjoy watching your process and explanations

As always great informative video. All the best from a long-time subscriber and neighbour 😊 from Serbia. 👍👍

That was extremely informative, and as always, very entertaining. A textbook class on basic troubleshooting! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experience with us.

Your video helps me to relax and understand more of a power that im trying to fix , thank you .

Great autopsy with clever analysis! Broken Cables or solder connections are often cause of a failure - but often hard to find!

The hammer method is great. I use that all the time when opening power supplies. A few quick blows around the seams usually breaks the glue.

Well, as users tend to misuse their stuff, I always check the plugs first. Burned plugs and broken cables are quite common, even with "good brands" like Apple, Samsung or Motorola. Stumbling across a power cord or forgetting that the device is connected for charging when lifting it up happens every day to everybody, that's why I really like plugs with a magnetic connection.

Blue cable is connected to CC pin in the usb C plug, it communicate with the device the charge speed required. 👍

Very good video. The blue cable most probably is connected to pins CC1 and CC2, which communicate the Power Delivery protocol.

Brilliant video!!

Danke! Thanks! The charger series goes on! Looking for magic smoke or simple expected/unexpected failures... Thanks to you we can stay safe and learn from reality..

17:31 barehanding live conductors, you got to love it ☺

Handling energized aligator clippers with bare hand looks safe for professionals like this guy

You're amazing, Diode 🤩

I love your voice. I hope you continually sing while teaching electronics.

That multimeter has a very fast update rate, super niiice

Love this type of videos !

@6:15 that date will be the manufacturing date of the enclosure, it is very commonly used for traceability in the plastics industry for ISO9001 compliance.

Rubbing turpentine around the glued sections will loosen the glue... you may be able to pull the casing apart and re-glue it later. Some plastics will become brittle and crack with turps, but makes it easier to open.

great work, thanks man

Hi Danyk, actually you made mistake at 0:46. I see that on USB tester you kept PD COM jumper in OFF position. This does not short blue CC (channel configuration) wire to GND so even if power supply was in pristine condition, you would not see any voltage on the tester. The same applies for Power Z KT002 and KM003C tester (however for latter one you have press one button to do that same). Actually you might like a lot KM003C, which can be connected to PC and it can all activity on CC line of USB-C used for Power Delivery and its optional extension PPS. 16:18 there is straight connection without active circuit, actually in this case there are even ommited USB 2.0 data lanes, as protocol Power Delivery does not need, only legacy QuickCharge, Samsung AFC and Apple 2.4A needs them

That's why my pd supplys have only connectors - no Hard wired cables

Great repair!!! Thank you.

thanks for your videos ! I like your way to talk english, this is so different 🙂

This is power supply meant to charge only new devices. Some chargers are legacy compatible, as they put out 5V on the output, and then if there is request for different tension, they can put out. Some 5V devices, even if they have USB-C connector, have only V+ and GND connected and they would not work with charger like this. Good thing about this charger is that it can put out less than 5V. Last week I repaired HP charger. It is interesting, as DELL uses same plug as HP, but does not need ID line to work and it worked with laptop just fine (also had 19V output at the connector). Cable is coaxial, with ID line in the middle, then positive and ground is top layer. I cut the cable, soldered it to connector and put heat shrink on the connector.

I am late but seeing how intergrated that little cypress chip is at the secondary end doing the usb comminucations is pretty cool and probably way to overcomplicated/intergrated. It has a full 32bit arm cortex m0 with 64kb flash and 8kb sram. It supports usb pd3.1 and has a lot of protections built in, an adc, charger detection, low side csa, serial, gate drivers for fets, timers counters and pwm, io subsystem.

an easy way to open glued power adaptors: You can use petrol on the joints and leave it for a minute. the glue will loosen and easily separate the two halves.

Fantastic job! Congrats! For the future please use a petrol for opening the charger. regards

Nice work and a smart kitty...!!!

Vďaka za video z opravy, ani mňa pri sledovaní nenapadlo že by to mohol byť kábel.

10/10 your videos are better than everyone's videos😀

Another great vid DGW! Thank you! And a kiss for you sweet cat 😗🐱☺☺

The easiest way to opening these kind of welded plastic cases for me is to squeeze them with a vice (or even freeze them first to make the plastic more brittle) from multiple sides and multiple angles. This way they tend to crack open at least on one side.

I took a European 65 watt gan charger and cut the plug off and set up a switch to the input attached to a fual rail linear supply I built today. I was going to put it in an emi shield but I ran it with 14awg cable to another part of my bench. I tested it with my isolation transformer with a load and it never got hot after hours of use. I live in nova Scotia and got it on sale on ali for 8 dollars. I've had luck with the brand before so I said eff it.

Good job!

As usual fantastic explanation, @DiodeGoneWild is among the very few best channels on youtube, thank you sir for another great video 👏👏👏

Disassembling the glued charger brick only to find that the charging cable was broken. It happens :) Anyway thanks about demonstrating the innards of regular USB PD charger and how tto quickly diagnose it.

Well done.

Nice video 🙂

I wish diode gone wild will brought and review the safety of common quick charge/turbo charge/flash charge of nowadays phone, some of them have more than 4 cable connector between charger and the phone, i want to know how does is work

Dziękujemy.

great video as usual thanks a lot , can you also show us how the control chip on the secondary controls the optocoupler to change the voltage output on oscilloscope

Nice pick up.

A tip for anyone wanting to open these things...A hammer and a large flat head screwdriver is all you need. Usually they're clicked together, but also superglued. So using the screwdriver as a chisel...hit the screwdriver with the hammer directly along the seam until you hear a crack...then move along...hit again...and continue all the way around. Obviously discharge capacitors immediately before touching anything inside with bare hands or metal objects!

I love your cats comments!

i usualy use a vise to crack them open. clamp it into a vise and increase the pressure of the jaws till you hear cracking sounds. then repeat in various directions and this way you crack the ultrasonic welds and you can easily open the device.

A trick to open such housings is to put something like a long nail on each side of the box, over the entire length of the seams and then put it in a vise. When slowly closing the vise, the pressure from the vise goes to the nails, and this cracks open the seal in clean way.... mostly

I'm sure your cat knew where the problem was from the start :-)

Use acetone (after apply wait for 2 min) between the plastic joint to open quickly. It will open with very little force.

When I have had one of these supplies fail, I opened it up. Most of the time I found bad capacitors. Replacing the bad caps fixed it most of the time. Rarely, it has been a transistor, or a diode that failed. If it was one of the specialty ICs that failed, then I disposed of the supply. I have a power supply with a defective MOSFET driver IC. The cost for me to have this IC is expensive in relation to the replacement cost of the complete power supply that was made in China.

Nice Sir 👌👍

Excellent 👌

it's always the easiest thing and it's always the last thing I check. good to know that somebody else is afflicted with this bass-ackwards ailment.

Nearly always the last thing you get to is where the fault is. Carefully put back together, it makes a useful PSU for comparison. I have very recently done an intermittent fault find on old house Mains power. It took up FOUR days to find it. The fix is a pain but not so bad as the fault finding, chasing an intermittent fault is the worst kind.

I really like this kind of vdo...

quick tip to open up plastic casings is just use gasoline/petrol on the joint and voila it splits up like a nut

7:46 No, it means the diode is not shorted. It could be open ccircuit

The KISS rule applies yet again.

OMG I can't believe I can contribute to a DGW video. 😊 Please tell, what is the cat's name? If you doubt a conductor like the bue one just pull it don't cut it. If there is no resistance to the tug it was broken and just the vinyl holding it together. If a little resistance then it was on it's last legs. Many years of working on low voltage tiny wire systems. Meow 😸😸

Nice teardown, can you investigate more about the prtocal, is the charger list the available voltage first or the phone send a request for a specific voltage, is that protocol common for all brand or every constructer use his own , because I have a honor 10 that didn't get 9v from some fast charger.

17:30 - my heart left out a beat or two 😬

Nice, put it back together with some cable ties around it (also reflow the soldering joints), some heat shrink over the connector (don't forget to solder the blue wire), and you can use it again. Thumbs up 😎👍👍👍

"The fault is in the last thing I tested". That my friend, is an absolutely universal statement, no matter where the fault is. Would you continue testing once you have found the fault?.... :)

Obrigado!

"The problem was the absolute last thing I tested" Who woulda thought that you stop testing after you found the problem :)

Your cat seems to have a degree in electronics 😉

Nice work! How did you calculate the power required for the light bulb at ~200W for testing the 65W psu? I am having trouble with some computer power supplies not turning on and doing weird things with my 100W light bulb in series. Should I increase the wattage of the bulb?

Murphy was an optimist.

*Your cooling fan sound feeling me wind Storm outside of my house 🤪🤪😇😐😔😌*

To unlock 5 volts, the CC pin must be pulled to ground via a 5k1 (or 4k7) resistor.

I have a 65w adapter and recently blew up I open it up and see that 5 resistors are burned right next to the MOSFET I removed and checked the MOSFET and it was totally shorted out and some of the smd caps were also showing short at the primary and secondary sides I couldn't figure out what went wrong I just have a hint that at the input mains voltage went way higher.

Lesson learned, always start from simpler to complex.

Just a tip: In future if you want to open this type of charger, just use some gasoline and you will be able to open with ease.😊😊😊

In which language you do speak bro!!! And your pronunciation!!! Really great entertaining bro :v

Probably in the connector there is a chip called e-mark, it is used for several things, from making it possible to transmit 40Gb/s to simplifying the construction of smart chargers like this one. If the problem was the e-mark, you have to change the cable

Now put it back together with some electrical tape and it's good as new

At least the magic smoke had stayed in all its receptacles ;-)

Jewel

That power supply uses the USB-PD (Power Delivery) protocol. Can you please look at some articles about it? I don't know much about it that's why I can explain it to you, you need to take a look at it yourself.

Have you seen the F-NIRSI TRANSISTOR TESTER AND OSCILLOSCOPE TWO IN ONE PACKAGE. I HOPE YOU GET ONE TO DO A REVIEW ON IT, I GOT ONE BUT THE TRANSISTOR TESTER ON MY ONE DOSEN'T GIVE RIGHT READINGS. MAYBE IT JUST MINE COZ F-NIRSI SEEMS TO HAVE GOOD PRODUCTS. I GOT IT FOR THE SCOPE ANYWAY. I LIKE TO GETBTHE GIGER COUNTER TOO THEY MAKE, I SAW THE REVIEW YOU DONE ON YOUR ONE. ANYWAY I HOPE YOU GET YOUR HANDS ON IT, JUST MAKE SURE TO GET IT WITH THE PROBE COS YOU NEED THE ADPTER THAT COMES WITH IT TO FIT THE PROBE TO IT. I HAD BUY ONE OF ANOTHER SITE FOR MINE COS IT CAME WITHOUT THE PROBE AND ADAPTER FROM BANGGOOD. THANKS FOR THE VIDOE I REALLY ENJOYED IT 👍🇮🇪

But shouldn't the power supply still deliver 5 V when there is no data line on the other end?

From Prague, yes?

This is one of the reasons why I don't like USB C chargers with integrated cables.

Amin

isn't it supposed 5v to work no matter the device? or its the control chip that don't allow the charging procedure if the data pin is missing??

Yay

Always test one more thing after a successful repair, just so that "of course it's the last thing i tried" doesn't hold.

Please make a working video on "cypd3174-16sxq" Ic used in this changer

It could be that you are unfortune.I would never after your recommendations buy an adapter from this big eastern country.I now always buy from a europena vendor with a big chain retalier market who could not afford to miss...