The Fusion USB PD Power Box Snags Up to 100W for Five Handy, Fully-Monitored Outputs

With an SCPI-compatible control interface and on-board display, this is a multi-output bench-top PSU with style.

Gareth Halfacree
2 months agoHW101

Mononymous electronics engineer Suleyman has built possibly the most feature-packed USB Power Delivery (PD) bench-top power supply yet, featuring support for up to 100W input power and five independent power outputs — alongside a Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments (SCPI) interface for remote control.

"[The] Fusion USB PD Power Box is equipped with USB Power Delivery technology," Suleyman explains. "It supports dynamic power negotiation up to 100W (20V, 5A), ideal for powering multiple evaluation boards, chips, modules, 12V HDD disks, and a wide range of other devices all at once."

"This device converts any USB Type-C input," Suleyman continues, "such as those found on mobile phones or power banks, into a configurable power source capable of supplying both fixed and adjustable voltages. It can be used for a range of applications, from basic electronics projects to more specialized engineering tasks that demand precise power control, as well as troubleshooting devices with specific voltage requirements."

The custom power supply, like its many predecessors, takes advantage of the Power Delivery (PD) extension to the USB standard — allowing it to negotiate higher voltages and amperages than a classic 5V 0.5A USB connection. In the case of the Fusion it asks for up to 20V at 5A for a total of 100W, when connected to a suitably-beefy USB Power Delivery power supply.

What it then does with this power is interesting: rather than having just one or two outputs, the Fusion includes an impressive five. Three of these are fixed voltages: 3.3V, 2.5V, and 1.8V, all at up to 4A. A fourth low-power programmable output can be set from 0.5V to 5V at up to 4A, while a high-power output can be configured for 1.2V to 35V — and can, if nothing else on the board is loaded, deliver the full 100W itself.

Configuration of the programmable outputs, as well as monitoring of all outputs, is handled by an on-board display or through a control panel app, which includes historical graphing capabilities. For automation, there's also support for sending commands to control the outputs via the Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments (SCPI) protocol.

More information on the project is available on Suleyman's Hackaday.io page; design files and source code had not yet been made public at the time of writing.

Gareth Halfacree
Freelance journalist, technical author, hacker, tinkerer, erstwhile sysadmin. For hire: freelance@halfacree.co.uk.
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