How to power ANYTHING using USB-C Power Delivery and the ZY12PDN PD Trigger Board

These USB-C Power Delivery trigger boards allow you to negotiate any USB-C PD voltage available on a port to deliver to the rest of your project! They're available on Amazon (amzn.to/408Ds3n) as well as various vendors on eBay, etc.
USB-C PD allows you to negotiate 5V, 9V, 12V, 15V, or 20V over the standard USB-C connector. The colors used on the ZY12PDN board for these are:
Red: 5V
Yellow: 9V
Green: 12V
Teal: 15V
Blue: 20V
Purple: Highest voltage possible
White: Cycle through all the possible voltages changing every few seconds.

[@RaveTracks]

Kenneth, I can't tell you how useful this video was. You were correct, there's very little clear information about these board on the net, especially on the sellers listings. Your video was well filmed with clear audio and articulate explanation. Thank you very much!

[@deepakchamm193]

Yes!

[@quentinwolf]

Came here to say this as well. I've had 2 of these little boards for a year or two now and knew about how to program it (and confirmed voltage by using a multimeter) but had no idea what those last 2 modes were, especially the one to negotiate the highest possible voltage, as I didn't think to try it on different USB C power adapters, although appropriately I have the same RAV Power Battery Bank Kenneth has, so I could get a wide variety of voltages from it. Only just came across this video so now I know, thanks!

[@crocodiledondii]

Agreed. I see different voltages on charger supplies, but never understood how they were selected. Very educational. Thanks

[@rogerthomas368]

Since this video the market has started to provided what are often called a "PD/QC Decoy Board", these are fixed voltage boards, with the result that they are a lot cheaper and smaller so work very well for when trying to create a usb to power jack cable solution. The one I ordered even came with a plastic cover for the board/cable as standard.

[@bigfatfoot]

This video is just the right explanation for me on a project I have been working on and keep being confused why I cant power up my device using PD. Thank you.

[@brentfitzgibbon]

Glad to see others excited about this nuanced feature of USB C. I did something similar using a TC66C USB C “tester”. Bonus is that it has an LCD to show voltage/current, minus in that it’s significantly more complicated to use than the single button on your pcb.

[@laytonmiller5865]

I have been looking for a solution like this FOR A YEAR. Thanks you so much. I'm really excited to try this.

[@voice4voicelessKrzysiek]

Thank you very much for this video, it solved my problem with using my PD Trigger board. I was going crazy trying to figure out whether it was my board, my multifunction charger, or the wrong cable. Turned out, some time ago, when I just got the PD T board, I have put it in permanent 5V mode and forgot about it, so it was always outputting 5V. Only, after I re-watch your video, I figured out how to "handle" this little board. Also learned, that pressing the program switch a little too long (like maybe 1/2 sec instead of 1/4 sec, will not switch to the next voltage output level). That's an excellent video. Thanks again.

[@VarkaTheDragon]

THANK YOU for giving the full explanation of the modes, and most importantly, the model number!

[@vince086]

Great video, didn't know about the mode that will negotiate for the highest voltage the supply can provide, it's just what I needed for a project.

[@INSTRUMANROBOT]

Awesome demo there. I was going nuts about how to fix the voltage to a preset and this made it super clear. Very appreciated especially since there isn't really an instruction set coming with these circuit boards

[@jameswoll]

Awesome explanation! Thank you, Kenneth! Happy I found your video, I've been wondering about this for ages!

[@AcCeSsDeNiEd65]

Thanks buddy. Knew something like this would exist and kept googling with different keywords and your video was on top of the search. Needed to power my goto mount scope. Didn't want to purchase a separate powertank with a specific 12v output. I can now re-use my PD portable powerbank. Saved me lots of money, and one less item to carry.

[@jimoberhofer4108]

Kenneth, nice explanation and yes, looking forward to more implementation ideas

[@Inkling777]

Thanks for an excellent explanation. Those who don't want to risk the wrong voltage being programmed in for a specific device can get USB-C to barrel connector converters designed for that device's voltage-9 volts, 12 volts or whatever.

[@dalendru]

Wow!!! So helpful. Thank you very much. I really didn’t understand this aspect of the world of USB-C. Very helpful.

[@PouyaNia]

Thanks for this! Very informative. You are a gifted teacher!

[@loren481]

These will be great for charging ham radios that have barrel plugs. Ordered a couple today to give them a shot, thank you for the video!

[@marin.aldimirov]

This video couldn't have been better! Thank you for answering all the lingering questions one might have when looking to buy one of these.

[@Nifty-Stuff]

Didn't know these existed. Gonna buy one. Thanks for letting us know how to set it!

[@axk1]

I was looking exactly for such a board and couldn't find it. Thanks a lot!

[@lukwagobrian5767]

This is so useful for those who want to boost their Bluetooth speaker battery I see myself using this thing on a JBL speaker and play the whole week Non-Stop

[@water-dust]

Thank you for introducing a useful module.

[@josesaumell2908]

Very nice video Kenneth, clear and detailed.

[@kevinm3751]

Nice, this is super useful to know... Thanks a ton for finding and letting us know about this!

[@rollins4484]

I'm going to use this for a mini pc, just waiting for my GMK NucBox, but I might get a slim one in the future. And thanks for the programming tips.

[@DanniieLTorres]

My dude, awesome explanation, will work for my project. Thanks you

[@pradiptabiswas2393]

Amazing!. Thank you for this demo and introducing with this resource!

[@edwardfletcher7790]

This is excellent Intel, thanks very much for sharing this !

[@pandrews01]

Totally worth watching. Thanks. A very helpful video.

[@theobserver9131]

Sweet! I've been looking for a new power source for my smelting factory. The energy bills are outrageous! This will help a lot!

[@leonardbleiziffer4098]

Thank you very much, that video was exactly what I was looking for :D

[@Th3PingasTM]

Nice man. You open my mind, this goooods idea

[@brookerobertson2951]

Did this with a car stereo. PSP. And a laptop. Have a bunch of triggers.. 5v.9v.12v.15v20v It’s good to have a power bank that charges and gives power at the same time. That way you can use it as a UPS. You can also charge the power bank with solar and keep things running 24/7. Like a mini Tesla Powerball.

[@Mandrag0ras]

Wonderful explanation/tutorial.

[@santasl]

I saw those boards before but hadn't gave it much of a thought. The option to get different voltages looked interesting, but as I dont really do much electronics I haven't look into it in that much detail. Now that I saw your video I will give those boards a try. thanks for the video!

[@rodrilea1]

Kennth, I just found this video. I have a solder station kit I need to put together. It takes between 12 and 20 volts I’m now thinking about adding this as a power option. Thanks for a great video.

[@dilipsharan8699]

Great video. I learnt something new today!

[@tonyg6827]

I was recently wondering if it were possible to actually select which voltage you wanted, in order to power various devices which do not comply with the PD protocol. Your video was most helpful, thank you.

[@WildRapier]

I have a TEC in need of this. Nice little board.

[@marksasahara1115]

Somebody watches AVe LOL. Thank you! Just starting a project and saw these boards. eBay to english translation no bueno. Much appreciated.

[@KrotowX]

Yes, sometimes these can literally save a day when you have no particular 9/12/15/20V power supply around or original power supply suddenly release magic smoke. Learned about these modules 2 years ago and already used similar modules in some DIY projects.

[@null_carrier]

Thank you for this information.

[@KF7IJZ]

These will be super handy to power various 9, 12, and 15V electronic musical instruments/effects. I can imagine this will be very popular with the Digitakt/Digitone crowd.

[@voice4voicelessKrzysiek]

Not only musical; I am thinking about a variety of electronics projects that need different voltages. This video just assured me that I am on the right track thinking about using the PD Trigger board for this kind of application.

[@RaduTek]

I found a different board online that has a set of DIP switches to select the voltage and chose it since it's much more straight forward to program and makes it very hard to accidentally put too much voltage into a device.

[@mkteku]

Would you please give us a model name. Sounds great.

[@mattcy6591]

I've been wanting to do this for years to rid my networking closet of wall warts and just use one USB C PD hub. Just now stumbled on this video. It's time.

[@MikeTrieu]

It would be even cooler if there were a more complex version of this board that ingested standard PD2/3 PDOs and output PPS at the full allowable range. Sure, there would need to be some DC-DC voltage conversion, but wouldn't that be totally rad?

[@apinuntunpan6953]

Great demo! Thanks very much.

[@russgaefe1554]

Great video! Very informative!

[@Metallaio]

thank you for this video, I was looking for a way to power some 9V music equipment like pedals and synthesizers using an usb power bank and and your video really gave me the solution, I wonder if anyone as made a 3d printable enclosure

[@danielthechskid]

I just wanted to add that most of the Linksys blue routers like the WRT54G internally run on 3.3 volts supplied by a buck converter, so it falls under the category that you mentioned where any of the PD voltages should work, or even just plain old non PD 5v USB. Some of the old 3Com network gear was even brave enough to admit this, I have a 5 port 10/100 switch that says right on it that it will take anything from 10-30 volts. In this case I would just choose whichever voltage gives you the least input wattage from the source, IE the best efficiency.

[@jonboy545]

Great vid! Thank you very helpful.

[@maicod]

love that old WRT router :) I got 3 of them here somewhere

[@MicheleHeinyScott]

Super helpful. I full-time RV and want to move many of my electric devices to DC from AC. To make use of my solar setup.

[@KennethFinnegan]

Awesome! Glad I could help. I've been meaning to actually mount a few of these inside devices so it really just looks like they're powered by USB

[@MrSkyline11]

Thank you soo much for this video. I didn't understand how to set it to primary 12v.

[@jakelowe9057]

I was wondering for so long and stumbled on this video

[@CheshireNoir]

This is SUPER useful! Wonder how many of my retro computers I'd be able to convert over to running off these?

[@nobodynemoq]

Great explanation, thanks! This tiny piece seems to be quite useful 😁 However, it would be nice it it also had - like some buck converters - lines that you can solder in order to have permanently 9/12/15/20V etc. On the other hand, we could have it set to 20V and then use the buck converter - just to be sure we won't get anything else than desired voltage. For perfect output, a linerar stabilizer at the end would give us exactly what we want 😎

[@jaromy03]

I'm pretty sure they exist with fixed voltage settings. Adding another buck converter would be kinda unnecessary as the QC power supply can deliver any voltage. There's a mode in which you don't just get a preset value but can ramp up and down in voltage, in steps of like 0.1V. I wouldn't be surprised if boards exist that make use of this to output any desired voltage.

[@jaromy03]

Found it, it was a video from Andreas Spiess in which he plays around with QC 3.0. There's a "continuous mode" in which the voltage can be stepped up and down with steps of 0.2V. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mqiWfpiegaasjbc

[@drummerdoingstuff5020]

@@jaromy03 thanks brother

[@PureGlide]

See this for other boards that can be set via soldering kzbin.info/www/bejne/nYPGg3mgitGSfc0

[@kobayashimaru8114]

Very cool. Would be nice to have a bin full of these around for projects. Doable if you buy from Ali Express as they're only couple bucks there. I'd like to pair one with a multi-barrel adapter so it can be used to power many different things.

[@NullaNulla]

With a 3v buck converter and a pair of resistors I could use this to power my Resmed S10 CPAP machine (humidifier turned off) from my laptop/phone battery pack when travelling, so this really has my interest. I'll have to check the output levels of my battery and Choetec 240v pack in my bag.

[@gieb6428]

FANTASTIC

[@phil2082]

This is awesome. I have never seen anything that can test which voltages a USB can actually use, save for a box I bought some time ago, which reads both voltage and amperage. And, naturally, I keep misplacing this little box. It is also USB-A only. I would love to figure out a HAM radio repeater with this. Honestly, I may try to power a router off of something like this, like you did, too. I would really love to be able to establish off-grid communications and file transfer.

[@rockfangd]

excellent video. So useful. Thank You

[@rahulpathania78]

Amazing explanation.. 👍

[@ziyaadmahomed2060]

Excellent video

[@kadaverf]

Awesome! I might get hooked on making most things usb c compliant at home :p

[@jmkhenka]

Was looking for these trigger boards and the description was not clear how it would work when you wanted a fixed voltage. First I found 12v specifik versions, that essentialy does this but without the added option of switching voltage (they go 12v, or the highest available ie 5 or 9). now im gonna order these with the buttons and going to use it specificly for powering 5 or 12v routers, switches and other equipment from either wallwarths or PD power packs!

[@irishRocker1]

These are pretty cool. Might be useful for some future project. I came across it cos I was searching for a solution to charge my laptop from a monitor that only has USB-C Display and data transfer. E.g. it only supplies the minimum 5W or so, and was looking for a way to inject power or something. Probably a hub but those are big and bulky and a more compact solution would be nicer, if it was possible to inject power without compromising the display/data throughput

[@DonzLockz]

Awesome, great info, thanks!👍

[@ghita0407]

Very useful information, thanks 😊

[@americanexpress888]

thank you so much for the video! You explained everything super well

[@patching-]

very useful will be checking it out

[@JessicaFEREM]

the highest voltage would be good for a multi-voltage device too. a lot of power banks will support more than one voltage via DC in if it doesn't already have a USB C charger mode

[@SheriffJackCarter]

I have some trigger boards that don't have the LED or the button. It just has 3 sip switches that you set to the desired voltage. I'm making a rack-mounted VU display that will be powered with one of these. I plan on using these bad boys for many, many projects.

[@mkteku]

Guitar effects pedals are a great use-case example too :)

[@alex-mh7ol]

Thank you!

[@mateialexandrucoltoiu7207]

There is something else to remember, if your power supply does not support the current, it will start blinking. Usually only USB c mains power supply do support greater current. For example a given power supply might support 40W by using 2A at 20V, it does not mean it will support 40W at 15 v, which would mean more than 2A.

[@monad_tcp]

The spec says it should cut out the device if it asks for 40W at 15v and its rated for 2A. In theory USB-IF has a protection mode to cut power to the mosfet before it burns if you ask more than what it is rated for.

[@AhrenBaderJarvis]

Thanks for the great explanation! DFTBA!

[@fer_fdi]

Excellent! thank you very much

[@hycron1234]

Great idea. Sidenote some of those wifi routers run internally at 3.3v, so they already ran off 5v usb powerbanks.

[@thatLion01]

Thank you so much for this video. I can convert my cradlepoint to run off a power bank and usb C.

[@t1d100]

Good information.

[@timb7342]

Very useful and informative video. One thing I noticed was that you read from your power bank that it supplies 5v 9v 15v and 20v, yet your trigger board seems to manage to negotiate 12v from it. Is that a feature of the board that can be used on any supply that gives more than 12v, or did they just not include 12v in the power bank specs for some reason?

[@manueltrujillo8645]

I can this as a great way to make a UPS for your router. Thanks!

[@patrickm9953]

Neat.. Had no idea anything like that existed

[@byGDur]

I love it!

[@4philipp]

This seems to be the solution to turn pretty much any device into a USB-C device, make them portable and powered by batteries.

[@DarcyWhyte]

This looks cool. I'm gonna try and power heated jacket like this...

[@DrTune]

useful, thanks!

[@mikehughesdesigns]

Sounds like a good idea for multi-device UPS...

[@quantumcadillac4748]

super cool thanks

[@eskanderx1027]

Amazing.

[@fufhi3102]

Exactly what I was looking for! Thanks. My usecase is, Im trying to live off of my solar system. Since it is producing DC, I need to convert it to AC and back again to DC to power, for example, my desktop monitor. So this would be a neat idea to power a lot of electronics without having the double power loss through converting. I hope this will work :D I have a question though: My powerbrick for the monitor outputs 19.5V, USB-C PD delivers 20V - is that a problem or is the device able to adjust how much it draws?

[@Shaker1978]

Great introduction video for very nice boards. I was exactly looking for something like this! But why did it flip back to red shortly in 8:19 ?

[@thegreatfixer]

any comment if you PD requirement is ~ 60W PD (20v 3amp) and you used a lesser power source like the 30w PD of the Rav Power bank its more rabbit hole question about PD but you might know the answer thank you your video explained this seemingly wonderful board very well

[@KeithOlson]

That's pretty cool, but, for the price of *one* of those you can get *FIVE* boards that don't use a microprocessor. (They just have pairs of solder pads or DIP switches to set the voltage.) I can see having one of those for its convenience, but, in actual use, I'd stick with one of the more basic options.

[@freewayguitar1]

good explanation, is there QC and PD both protocols support trigger?

[@eugenehuman1945]

i have an powerstation that accepts power input for solar charge of around 15v+ all the way up to 25v. I was figuring if i have a extra powerbank that has PD output of 65W and have the triggerboard. Then i can charge my bigger powerstation with some extra 40,000mah on the side (in the case i go camp or so. if i need the extra juice) but it doesn't charge it. it is set to output 20v output (which should be good for 3.25amps for 65W input). it just switches off.

[@pseudonym3690]

Really interesting board and thanks for explaining all the modes, but would have been even more helpful if you had shown with a multimeter how stable the voltage output actually is in idle and under load and whether it can actually 5A at any supported voltage.

[@KennethFinnegan]

That is entirely a function of what USB charger you plug this into. All this board does is ask the charger to deliver a certain voltage and expose two solder pads attached to the output bus.

[@pseudonym3690]

@@KennethFinnegan Thanks, you're right. For some reason I thought it would come with a voltage converter built in. But of course there's none visible.

[@bunkie2100]

I’m wondering if this would be useful for a project I have in mind to eliminate all those wallwarts that have infested my office. I could see having several of these, each programmed for a common voltage (5, 12, etc.) and then paralleling the barrel jacks for the each device that uses that voltage (being mindful of total current) and then using a single, high current switching USB adapter to power the whole thing.

[@jeromewink557]

Can make your own dc ups for hone network. Use a battery pack that allows charge and draw at same time. Hook your modem and router into it with that board. Bam.

[@hernancoronel]

At 3:05 USB-A connector maybe because we have so many micro USB cables lying around that we can re use them for our projects cutting away the micro usb and having some extra flexibility? Thank you for the video!

[@eskyde]

So, I was looking for a solution to power my HX Stomp - a digital Guitar/Bass Effect modeler. It needs 9V but much higher Amps than the usual effect Pedals used. Happens to be, that there is little to none inexpensive solution...until now.