Stop Buying Power Supplies and Start Using Your Junk Drawer

Everybody has a drawer full of USB chargers these days. Sure, having 50 chargers may seem unnecessary to some, but we hardware hackers know better. We’ll definitely need them all one day. For what? Some grand project, to be sure. No telling exactly what, but it will be grand.

I’m right there with you, and have no doubt that your future 50-USB-charger project will be super cool. But until you figure out what that will be, perhaps you could spare just one charger to make something that will be useful today? If so, TARIQ LAB has demonstrated a quick hack that can turn a typical USB charger into an adjustable power supply to use with all of your other non-charger-related projects.

There’s not a lot to it. Just crack open the case of the charger, and wire an adjustable MT3608 DC-DC step-up converter module to the regulated 5V normally generated. The module chosen by TARIQ LAB has a USB-C connector for the output, but you could of course change this to be screw terminals, or whatever else you prefer. The output of the step-up converter is also wired to a voltmeter so you know what output voltage has been selected by the converter’s potentiometer.

This simple modification turns a basic USB charger into a 5-28V power supply. Not bad for two components, an old phone charger, and about half an hour of work, huh? Be sure to give the video a careful watch before you consider trying this project out for yourself.