New USB Specification Promises 100W of Power 287
Blacklaw writes "The group behind the USB 3.0 specification has announced a tweak which could lead to impressive new devices, including large-format displays, printers, and even laptops that are powered entirely from a USB port."
Finally (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Funny you say that, but in the past I had a small electric shock from a broken USB port. I suppose because the voltage is 5V, this could never be serious but the electricians can tell us about that.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Funny you say that, but in the past I had a small electric shock from a broken USB port. I suppose because the voltage is 5V, this could never be serious but the electricians can tell us about that.
That problem will be solved by the new specification as well, since the voltage will go higher.
Re:Finally (Score:4, Informative)
If you got a shock from your USB port it most likely means you have a broken/disconnected ground lead on your power supply.
Re: (Score:3)
Mod parent up.
I have had this problem as well and traced it to missing ground connections on my screen (poorly designed 2 pin switching power supply) so when the laptop charger is not in and my external screen is connected, any groundplane on the laptop gives me a shock. If you look between "ground" on your port and ground on your mains supply with a CRO, you will probably see a fairly big signal...
Re:Finally (Score:4, Informative)
It had nothing to do with 5V, nor with the port being broken. It was an issue with electrical wiring (lack of proper PE - Protective Earth a.k.a. "ground"), most likely. Alternatively, there was no PE connection at all, and you were shunting power supply's leakage current to ground. Most PC power supplies have filtering capacitors between the case and the Live and Neutral conductors. Those capacitors form a voltage divider that puts the case at 50% of live voltage in absence of PE connection, that's the source of the leakage current.
Re:Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
That's nothing. You should see what it feels like when you dip a plugged-in USB cable into conductive gel and stick it about 4 inches up your ass.
I mean. Not that I would do such a thing.
Not 4 inches at least...
Re: (Score:2)
That's only part of the story. What you say is true, but to add to it, as I recall from my EE books back in university, 1A is too much current to kill. It apparently has something to do with the fact that the electrons repel each other, and they will then travel across your skin instead of penetrating to your heart. Of course, that current will likely leave burns and hurt like hell, but this likely is related to why so many people survive lightning strikes.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
What you're refering to is called skin effect [wikipedia.org], but it is commonly seen at high frequencies. With 1A at either 50 or 60Hz you're pretty much dead if that much current crosses your heart.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't even need anything that complex. Take an inductor and run a current through it. Then turn off the current. The voltage across the inductor will increase to whatever voltage is necessary to discharge the magnetic flux. see Lenz's law...
Re: (Score:3)
you could cover the keyboard in fire ants, crushed glass, or hot coals
that would result in negative reinforcement
Re:Finally (Score:4, Funny)
I for one won't be happy until I can weld from my netbook.
usb is a poor bus for a display to much cpu load (Score:2)
and display port is better and put's the load on the video chips / gpu. Maybe use usb for power and not data.
Re: (Score:3)
USB 3.0 should be less CPU intensive, because IIRC they switched from a polling protocol to an interrupt based protocol.
Re: (Score:3)
At higher speeds the OS stuff starts going back to polling to be less CPU intensive :).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_API [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
USB is not really CPU-intensive. The host chip does most of the hard work.
Re: (Score:3)
Bandwidths (Score:3)
USB 2: 480 Mb/sec theoretical, real world half that
USB 3: 5 Gb/sec theoretical, real world about 3.2 Gb/sec
DVI: 4 Gb/sec single link, need dual-link for more than 1900x1200 resolution
DisplayPort: 1.6 to 5.4 Gb/sec per lane, four lanes, for 17.3 Gb/sec max, real world is 80% of that (enough for four 1080p60 displays), plus a 1 Mb/sec auxiliary channel.
Thunderbolt: 20 Gb/sec bi-directional, can carry the four lanes of DisplayPort data with room to spare.
So you have less bandwidth than a single-link DVI and fa
Re: (Score:2)
this is stupid. There are explicitly reasons to not want to put the load on the video chips/gpu. Part of that is of course, things that don't involve graphics. Really are you that shortsighted? What the hell does a printer need a gpu for? Printers need a CPU to process the data, mostly.
In related news ... (Score:5, Funny)
Netbook battery life drops to an average of 12 minutes.
Re:In related news ... (Score:5, Funny)
But the beauty of this is that you can power the netbook from its USB port, too!
Get a loopback cable (Score:2)
And charge the netbook from itself!
Re: (Score:2)
Just plug them in to each-other and they'll just pass the energy in a loop. Trust me, this is totally how electricity works.
Re: (Score:2)
Turn them all off.
Connecting in a ring, each one powering the one next to it, and powered by the one behind.
Turn them on.
Observe the frantic beeping and relay clicking.
Re: (Score:2)
stop your whinin' (Score:2)
you liberals and your fancy pants words and regulations.
we need 1000 watt USB ports, then we can run a BBQ grill and piss off the vegetarians
Re: (Score:2)
I think someone is already selling a USB-powered BBQ. It takes six 5-port powered USB hubs to run it if I remember the advertising blurb correctly and it probably can't cook half a hog in thirty-five seconds from cold like a Real Man's turbo-LOX BBQ can.
What I'd like is a USB-to-mains charger, an small electronic brick that plugs into a USB port and can provide 100V (DC will do fine but 50/60Hz AC should be achievable) for things like camera battery chargers and other low-current electronics where the man
Re: (Score:2)
Fire hazard? Huh? You seem like you know just about enough to be dangerous, but really just spew meaningless babble. You work in marketing?
My friend's gaming laptop has a 120W power brick. Nobody gives a shit. The supply provides a limited current, and the low-voltage cable has properly sized conductors and connector. That's all there's to it.
I can't see how providing a 100W, power-limited output from a USB port will cause a problem. The cabling obviously has to be designed to cope with the rated current of
At last (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Taking bets on how long before a USB powered vacuum cleaner comes out of Asia!
Like this [firebox.com]?
Re: (Score:2)
Taking bets on how long before a USB powered vacuum cleaner comes out of Asia!
Like this [firebox.com]?
Please Note:
This is not a USB device
Yes, like this, only USB powered... like he said...
Re: (Score:2)
You mean like this [amazon.com].
Troll science now possible (Score:2)
laptops powered by USB? (Score:2)
So where is the power coming from a AC to usb power only box?
Why not just keep what they have now? works in more places. Also some kind of standard car power jack in put will be nice to for laptops.
Re: (Score:2)
Why add an extra port to charge the device, and why limit USB to 1W which would only power very small devices.
That is an error in the article, where they indicated current USB has a 900mA, 5v limit, and then stating that that is equal to .9W.
Wattage is amps * volts, so USB3 has a 4.5W limit. This would not be a 100x increase, but a 22x increase.
Re: (Score:2)
Current USB has 500mA current limit at a fixed voltage of 5V. That's 2.5W.
USB3 won't have a 4.5W limit, where did you get that.
This is exactly what we need! (Score:4, Interesting)
So now, I can hook my computer to my car to jump-start it!
You know? Long ago, Apple made a display that was powered through the display cable. It worked but it was not popular in the end as they stopped doing it. So they are talking about bringing it back again?
I can see power enough to power some devices, but 100W?
You know, whatever USB standards come out, it should work equally well on a battery powered laptop and a desktop as well. People will get confused and frustrated when they buy a fancy new USB 3.0 display unit only to find they can't take it with them on the road because it doesn't work well with their laptop and the tiny travel power adapter they use while on the road.
Re: (Score:2)
So now, I can hook my computer to my car to jump-start it!
You can't jump a car without some serious amps; but virtually anything that can put out 12-14volts for a while without keeling over dead will allow you to trickle-charge your car's own starter battery and then start normally. Doing the math for how long a trickle charge will take to shove enough amp-hours into an automotive lead-acid for it to start your engine(particularly on the bitter, freezing, late evening in the sleet when this is inevitably occurring) will tell you that this isn't a method for the im
Re: (Score:2)
Youre not seeing the big picture. Think of this scenario:
You have a monitor, mouse, keyboard, and printer at work. All the peripherals are plugged into the monitor's USB hub. When you bring your laptop into work, you plug a single USB3 cable from the monitor into the laptop; this delivers 90W of power (for charging), and also hooks in all of the peripherals.
THATS what theyre shooting for.
Re: (Score:2)
They're talking about increasing the power by increasing the voltage as well as the current. I doubt anyone is stupid enough to push 20A through a USB port without a serious design change in the connectors. More than likely we'll be seeing less than 5A at 20V or less. Even that is pushing it a little...
Re: (Score:3)
Nobody in their sane mind would do 100W at 5V for a consumer standard like USB3. The USB cables would probably sell at $50 in retail, and that'd be a sale price. Connectors that can pass 20A with a very small voltage drop even after years of use are quite expensive. My bet is that they'll ramp up the voltage as needed by the load, up to 48V. 100W at 48V is ~2.1A, and that's reasonable -- merely 4x the present limit of 0.5A.
PoE replacement (Score:3)
I was hoping Power over Ethernet (PoE) was going to be successful since it would mean a LOT less cables, but this seems like a good alternative. I just hope it becomes a standard because PoE was nowhere to be found.
Re:PoE replacement (Score:4, Insightful)
I just hope it becomes a standard because PoE was nowhere to be found.
The mark up for PoE switches was/is spectacular, because the marketing guys told them to price that feature at "just below the cost of hiring a union electrician to run a dedicated AC line next to the wall plug". Which, it turns out, is a heck of a lot of money.
The marketing people forgot about extension cords. So, most of the real world uses extension cords instead. Whoops. PoE was a cool idea, but too sabotaged to ever make it.
Re: (Score:2)
yeap - still tempted to build a charge box powered off PoE so i can charge my laptop over it in meetings.
never understood why no laptop manufacture has done this.. it just seems like an obvious one to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because PoE gives you about 25W (up to 50W if you don't care about specs, standards and safety) at, usually, 47V. Converting that down to 19V probably takes quite a bit of efficiency so you'll be lucky to get 10W.
Which *ISN'T* enough to power most modern laptops even just to run, let alone run while charging the battery. So, yeah, you could probably charge a laptop from a PoE port, which requires expensive switches, expensive efficient convertors, specialised circuity for the niche case you specify (i.e.
Re: (Score:2)
Because PoE gives you about 25W (up to 50W if you don't care about specs, standards and safety) at, usually, 47V. Converting that down to 19V probably takes quite a bit of efficiency so you'll be lucky to get 10W.
It would take a miracle to get less than 10W because thats what you'd get out of a linear regulator, the least efficient form of commercially available regulators.
lots/most AC switchers start by rectifying the incoming AC ... the question is, can you get it to start off only 47 volts. A working switcher would deliver near 25W out with 25W in. You can't dump 15 watts in those tiny little things, they'd literally melt.
Re: (Score:2)
Because PoE gives you about 25W (up to 50W if you don't care about specs, standards and safety) at, usually, 47V.
And that is the latest "POE plus" stuff, the older POE stuff is quite a bit lower.
at, usually, 47V. Converting that down to 19V probably takes quite a bit of efficiency so you'll be lucky to get 10W.
Only if your converter is awful, 20W should be perfectly achivable if the converter doesn't suck.
Re:PoE replacement (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The place I work bought PoE "injectors." They are rack mounted equipment that just feeds power to the device. No new switch needed. Just run the Ethernet patch out of the switch, into the PoE device then from there to the patch panel.
It looked something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833996101 [newegg.com]
But it wasn't "smart" so I can't imagine they paid anywhere near that price.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My previous company provided managed/hosted communications services and we used PoE quite a bit. When deploying 100 or so phones it ends up being cheaper to put in a PoE switch than it is to buy power bricks at $5/pop. In the consumer space you only have, what, maybe 3 devices on a switch? At home I have an Ooma, LinkStation NAS, and my computer. PoE only provides enough power (~25W) for the Ooma (maybe), so as much as I'd like to get rid of three power cords it just isn't possible or cost-effective.
100
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
PoE doesn't help much when you're connecting wirelessly to the net. That dramatically reduces the number of devices -- in terms of what consumers own and use -- for which PoE would be potentially useful.
Re: (Score:2)
PoE is nowhere to be found? WHAT? Even I'm designing instrumentation (transducers) that uses PoE, every IP phone in my workplace runs on PoE. A decent HP 2626-PWR switch with 24 PoE ports sells on eBay for $300 BIN. It's hardly expensive IMHO.
Re: (Score:2)
Any experts want to chime in?
Sex Toys (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You could have gone with a small USB-toting microcontroller, probably not much more expensive than your ATTiny 13, and got the device to enumerate and switch to 500mA current limit.
wasn't there some article recently here (Score:2)
about using the heat form the pc to heat rooms?
are we approaching a world where we can replace our electric outlets and our heating ducts with our pcs?
when can i replace the sump pump and hot water tank in my basement with my pc?
Re: (Score:2)
about using the heat form the pc to heat rooms?
when can i replace the sump pump...
Does your "sump pump" boil the water till it evaporates? Mine just pumps the water to the weeping tile outside.
Does this mean that USB3 cannot be implemented on (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
USB negotiates power requirements. It could refuse to deliver such a high power output. Additionally, it could accept power over usb from a powered hub or whatnot.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks - very informative (Score:2)
oh thank god, software is so reliable (Score:2)
and never hacked.
it reminds me of the PC days of the 80s, when a DOS virus could overdrive the monitor controls and shower the user with Xrays.
Re: (Score:2)
True, but misleading. USB1.0 does nothing less than USB2.0 in that respect.
Next step (Score:2)
Mistake in Article (Score:3)
The current spec allows for about 4.5W (900mA at 5V). One of the last sentences in the article mentions 0.9 Watts.
Now, I could totally understand this kind of mistake in the past. But don't these people understand the wonder that is Google? Before I made this post, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't the dufus, and typed 900mA * 5V into Google. It's not that hard to fact check, is it?
Re: (Score:2)
Nope. It won't be 110V as that's a whole different ballgame when it comes to motherboard, connector and cabling design. It needs to be low voltage, and that means it will top out at 48V.
Does this mean bigger power adapters? (Score:2)
My laptop has a 65W power adapter.
If the USB ports are rated for 100W, I would need a 365W power adapter(3 USB ports), and a battery capable of discharging at the higher rates.
So, would only people who can easily carry 10+ kg with them all the time have laptops?
Re: (Score:2)
Power over USB is negotiated. If the supplier does not have it does not grant the device's request. Simply put this means you won't be able to use all your devices with your laptop without adding an external power supply to the device... There are other physics problems with their idea. (At 50V, 2A still seems like a lot of current to put through your small USB connector. At 100V your USB cable is not a safety hazard...)
Re: (Score:2)
*USB cable becomes a safety hazard... Need more coffee. I've been working on Bob's code today...
Re: (Score:2)
Umm (Score:2)
Thunderbolt vs. USB3 (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Alas, I have yet to see a Thunderbolt flash drive or external HD. (Granted I'm not a Mac person)
On the other hand, USB3 can handle *existing* USB2 and USB1 devices.
If Thunderbolt could handle *existing* USB2 and USB1 devices, USB3 would be in trouble but USB patents would probably kill Thunderbolt. That's progress in the USA today.
Re: (Score:2)
And just like firewire, thunderbolt is much faster than it's USB counterpart. Doesn't mean it's going to win.
Re: (Score:3)
Thunderbolt is Intel's technology.
Don't let facts get in the way of good Apple bash though.
This seems like a mess in the making... (Score:5, Informative)
This new standard seems like it would simply be a polite codification of this confusion. Particularly at low voltage, 100watts is nontrivial current(and nontrivial power generally, most non-DTR laptop bricks are less than that...) Many PCB layouts would burn a trace trying to deliver that, and you can bet that your garden-variety 10-USB-ports boring desktop isn't going to ship with 1000watts of PSU headroom...
This will mean that, in effect, devices will be able to demand up to 100 watts in a 'compliant' way; but the capabilities of USB ports on the market will vary enormously by device. A laptop with an 85 watt power brick is hardly going to be good for 100watts out of a port. Worse, it might be good for 50 when lightly loaded and fully charged; but only 5 when charging its battery and flogging its CPU... Having a device that only intermittently functions is near worthless, even if it is all entirely standard... A desktop might ship with the ability to push a single port to 100; but then it will either have to beef up its traces significantly, or have the always-confusing-to-dumb-users-and-people-fumbling-behind-desks '1 special blessed "high power" port, and 9 identical-feeling-but-low-power ones' configuration. Fan-fucking-tastic...
While a bit more power on the bus certainly would expand the number of viable, bus-powered use cases, I'm just not sure that such a high 'standard' number can ever be usefully 'standard'. Hooray, it is now officially standard for specialized devices to shove 100watts across a USB bus. Doesn't change the fact that it won't work in 90+% of ports, and will probably burn a fair percentage of cheaper cables. Unless they come up with some sensible set of "tiers", so that people actually know what works with what, this seems like it is going to end in a mess of nominally-USB powered docking stations with wall warts and mini-B connectors, at best.
While its comparative obscurity, and the general lack of bus-powered devices made it less of an issue, Firewire flirted with this problem in its early days: Both available power and available voltage on a given 6-pin port were widely variable: A desktop could, if it so chose, be pumping out 24 volts and reasonably credible wattage. One of the(almost exclusively Apple) laptops with a 6-pin port might be limited to a handful of watts at whatever voltage its battery was set to provide. In practice, much firewire gear just skipped bus power entirely(despite the fact that charging over firewire would have been a very popular consumer camcorder feature, if today's flip-likes are anything to go by), the mixture of widely variable power availability, and the 'i.link' or just 'IEEE1394' connectors entirely without bus power pretty much doomed the widespread availability of bus-powered peripherals. USB's pitiful 2.5watts was rather limiting; but at least you could reasonably assume that it would be there...
Re: (Score:2)
This of course leads to a question:
What the hell made you think this comment had any place on slashdot?
Hot new idea (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Finally... (Score:2)
Finally I see a purpose for the 1.2Kilowatt PC power supplies.
One hundred watts per port? That's insane! I could run a nicely-equipped Atom ITX MB, HD, DVD drive, and ION graphics adapter off such a port!
I see USB hubs getting much more expensive if this standard gains traction...
Re: (Score:2)
While technically you could implement it as 100W per port, any affordable host will probably limit the overall USB power consumption to 150W or so, across all outputs. That lets you power a monitor, a hefty external hard drive, and a few small devices like mice, keyboards, flash drives. Power management is called just that for a reason, you know...
This article wins at making people jump to silly conclusions. I'm bookmarking it and will reference it every time someone asks why engineering is hard. It's "hard
Secret plot to capture federal funds? (Score:2)
I wonder if they are hoping to get these new super-power USB ports classified as Electric Vehicle charging stations, thus eligible for several thousand dollars in federal subsidies and grants [hybridcars.com]? Imagine charging your Chevy Volt from your laptop USB port!
Interesting (Score:2)
I don't know how this would ever work on a laptop, or what this will mean for power supplies (probably have to double in size to realistically even use just a small percentage of your USB ports) but the ability to not plug in printers/other high power peripherals to the wall would be nice.
plugs (Score:2)
Hopefully they'd design several new "standard" plugs too.
This will be great! (Score:2)
I bet it's just a tweak to the protocol (Score:3)
As several people have pointed out, 100W seems like too much. I bet this is just a specification tweak to provide headroom for devices that need more than 4.5W (like 8W or 10W or 15W). In other words, the spec is no longer an artificial limit on how much power you can provide.
Re: (Score:2)
Powered USB is essentially a USB connector stacked with a seperate power connector. This makes the port more than twice as tall which afaict prevents it being placed on a standard expansion slot backplate and considerablly reduces the number of ports you can put on say an ATX backplate. Worse there are three voltage variants which are all incompatible with each other.
The result of these defeciancies is that it has only found niche appeal.
Re: (Score:2)
From the beginning that sucker was basically just a nominally-not-quite-proprietary connector for IBM and partner POS system peripherals. Now that you need an IBM patent license...
Re: (Score:2)
Niche: you mean possibly millions of POS systems :)
you challenge the communist party? (Score:2)
all chinese power supplies are 100% best quality. it says so right on the big box they ship it over in.
why would they lie? the people's interest are automatically represented by the party representatives. why would the government ever allow a shoddy product to be shipped overseas?
it just doesnt make logical sense.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, at least it IS keyed so you can't mess it up.
I don't see it as much of a problem, to be honest (and Mini-USB fixed it). Most USB devices have the USB logo on the top part of the USB adaptor. More stupid are those manufacturer's that fit USB sockets upside-down in their computers.
It's like complaining that the PS/2 adaptor were round and could be put in any orientation (I have sat with paperclip and straightened god-knows-how-many PS/2 device's connector pins)... yeah, if you don't bother to check the
Re: (Score:2)
Probably compromise. And a change in connectors. I doubt they'll exceed a couple of amps. But the voltage could conceivably reach 48V, which is a very useful voltage. Still, 2A through a standard USB connector...? I dunno. That could still be a fire hazard..
It is all a bit silly, because to get more than 12V out of a PC, you'd need an inefficient step up converter. Or a redesigned power supply, which may be what they're looking at.
Re: (Score:2)
Ever saw what connectors are used for PoE? RJ-45, no less. And that provides up to 90W in most recent incarnations. So obviously, if you choose silly numbers, you'll get silly results. I claim that they will spec cable and connectors for 2.2A, and the voltage will be negotiable up to 48V.
There's so much silliness in the comments on this article, it's beyond me.