Category Archives: rsts11travel

Quick Take: Charging with the Monoprice 80W USB-C/USB-A wall charger

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[Update below from Monoprice on the USB-A ratings.]

I recently bought the Monoprice 33467 wall charger, and got a question about charging wattage on the site a little while afterward. Since Monoprice does not provide specific rates for the ports on this device, other than 60 watts on USB-C (standard for USB Power Delivery chargers) and 80 watts total, I decided to get out some thirsty high-draw devices and USB power meters to see what the rates would be.

Testing kit

This device has a removable two-pin power cable, a USB-C port, and four USB-A ports. The USB-C port is rated for up to 60 watts with USB-PD, and the total adapter is rated for 80W.

Update: The vendor confirms 2.4A per USB-A port, with full capacity available across all four ports simultaneously. See end of post for more.

It gets a bit warm when you load it up, so I wouldn’t put it on a container of ice cream or on bare skin, but it’s not too hot for an 80 watt device.

These are bidirectional-capable testers that show voltage, amperage, milliamps of current, and direction of power. I believe these are identical devices, either licensed or flattered by one or the other vendor. I bought the Satechi almost two years ago, and wrote about it here); the Plugable came out afterward, I believe.

Satechi told me some time ago that they should handle 300W of power, and I’ve used theirs with the 130W proprietary Dell Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station charging option for the XPS 15 9550 laptops, without releasing any smoke.

The bidirectional feature is interesting, in that  you can use some USB-C mobile phones to charge other devices, and this will tell you which way the power is going. It’s also conceivable that you could charge a USB-C power bank with your laptop, as opposed to the other way around.

This is a formidable device in that it supports USB-A, USB-C, and Micro-USB input, with USB-A and USB-C output based on the input source. It’s rated for up to 30V/5.1A which should cover any USB-C charging I’ve seen.

It is large and not friendly to being plugged in next to another cable, as you can see from the picture, but it’s very convenient (even showing four wire voltage and three different English interfaces/displays as well as Chinese). It is not bidirectional, so you’ll plug the metal plug into the power source and your charging cable into the jack.

PortaPow is a UK company that came to my knowledge for their charge-only / data blocker cables. These cables block/bridge the data lines in a USB charging cable, letting you charge (potentially) faster while keeping a host or charging device from spuriously accessing the data on your device.

Their power meters offer similar functionality along with a backlit LED power display. The pictured/linked one is their third version; I’ve used the first two versions successfully, although the older ones do not to my knowledge support higher than 5V charging.

Charging targets:

All targets were chosen for capability to charge at higher than 10W rates, as well as being under half charge so that full charging rate would be realized.

  • Pixel 2 XL from Google, at around 20% charge (USB-C)
  • iPhone 8 Plus from Apple, at under 20% charge (Lightning)
  • iPad Pro 10.5 from Apple, at about 45% charge (Lightning)
  • PowerCore 26800 Premium Portable Charger from Anker, at about 20% charge (Micro-USB)
  • XPS 13 9370 from Dell, at about 40% charge (USB-C PD)
  • XPS 15 9550 from Dell, at about 4% charge (USB-C PD)

Quick and dirty test results

The Pixel 2 XL charged at 12 watts (9.33 volts) with a USB-C cable. With a USB-A to USB-C cable, I got closer to 5 watts, although the cable might be to blame.

The iPad Pro charged at about 12 watts (5.12 volts) with a USB-A to Lightning cable, and about 28 watts with the USB-C to Lightning cable.

The iPhone 8 Plus charged at about 18 watts (9.37 volts) with USB-C to Lightning, but only 8 watts with USB-A to Lightning.

The Anker battery pack charged at about 17 watts (9.34 volts) which is fair for the Quick Charge 2.0 level of input (the newer version of the pack supports QC 3.0, and the Power Delivery version of course supports USB Power Delivery at up to 27 watts input).

The XPS 13 9370 negotiated to 30 watts of input (at 20V profile) while powered down.

The XPS 15 9550 negotiated to 45 watts of input (also at 20V profile) while powered down. This would have reported a BIOS adapter error if I had booted up while connected, as would the Pixel C 60 watt charger, but it will still charge.

Where do we go from here?

In short, if you need to charge several devices at a time, but don’t want 4-5 chargers, the Monoprice 80 watt charger is probably a good choice. If you have a more power-hungry device, like a large MacBook Pro or a heavy USB-C battery pack, you may still want to keep an 87 watt charger around for it, but for modest / travel use, the power this device offers should be good enough to keep you going.

I will probably plug the charger itself into an AC power meter, and see how it handles multiple inputs (including the laptops) in parallel. My expectation is that USB-C would take priority, so with 45W going to USB PD, I could use up to 35W max on the USB-A ports. I did have the iPad, Pixel XL, and Anker battery plugged in at the same time and they seemed to have similar charge rates to each one individually connected.

Have you had experience with the Monoprice charger, or have any test conditions you wonder about? Share in the comments, and I’ll check them out if I can.

[This was intended to be a Quick Take post, and while it was created quickly, it’s not as short as I’d originally planned.]

Update: A Monoprice product specialist responded to my inquiry this morning (11/9/2018). They said that the charger “can supply at least 2.4 amps each port and all four can supply this current simultaneously. The total wattage of 48 Watts across all USB-A ports.” Based on this reading, if you are pulling 12 watts per port, you should be able to drive 32 watts of USB-C which should cover an XPS 13 or smaller, a battery pack, or the newer Apple devices with rapid charging.

Restaurant surcharges and hotel resort fees – disingenuity in action (via rsts11travel)

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[Your author Robert here… I was pondering whether this was more soft topics for my tech blog, or travel. I’ll crosspost, since I think it applies to both. And it sat around in my draft folder for about six months, but it’s still valid today.]

I recently dined with my honey at a local chain steakhouse. I’ve been going there as often as weekly for over a decade. We’ve gone less frequently in the last couple of years thanks to Nom Burger, but still once a month give or take.

Their prices have been sneaking up over the years. The dinner for two combo they have has gone from under $40 to $65 as I recall, although coupons still bring it down. Some of the choices have become added-cost items, so if you want a wedge salad, that’s an extra buck, and if you’re lucky it won’t be smaller than it was last month.

But the thing that annoyed me was the 3% “minimum wage surcharge” that was stickered onto the menu and was slapped on the bill.

Read the rest at rsts11travel.com here.

Internet on the Road, part 2 – how to optimize your travel connectivity

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rsts11 note: This is the second of a two-part series featuring mobile internet routers. The first part is posted over on rsts11travel.com, as it is a bit milder technology. The second part appears on #rsts11 since it’s a bit more POHO than random travel, and will be cross-promoted on the travel side. 

When you travel, you probably have a number of devices that demand connectivity.

Many venues limit your allowed devices, and maybe you don’t want your devices out on the open network. Additionally, you may want to use streaming devices or shared storage in your room, and that may not work with typical public network setups. Last time we looked at some battery powered routers with charging functions and other network features.

Today on rsts11 we’ll look at some choices for sharing a wired connection as well as a cellular modem. We’ll briefly revisit the Hootoo and Ravpower routers from part 1, and then dive into Meraki, Peplink, and Cradlepoint devices for the higher-power user.  Continue reading →

Resource sharing, time sharing, six years on

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Six years ago today, I hit “publish” or whatever it was called at the time on a blog post:

rsts11-first-post

With a goal to tie my technology, culture, caffeine, and gadget history, experience, and sometimes expertise together in something that was entertaining and useful to read, I launched rsts11 on January 28, 2011.

digital-microandmem

Over a hundred posts later, it’s still chugging along. Along the way, I’ve butted heads with some vendors about online behavior and firmware availability and the definition of the word “free,” shared my Tech Field Day experiences until I was no longer able to do so, announced my migration to the dark side when I retired from system administration to work in a sales organization at a vendor (which is why I was no longer able to be a TFD delegate), brought you coffee and gadgets, and most recently on New Year’s Eve 2016, spawned a travel-focused blog with a slightly less technical focus than rsts11 itself.

I’ve had a number of great experiences made possible by the blog, including participating in Interop, the Spectra Summit, Asigra’s partner summit, and a few other things here and there. I’ve managed to keep a bit of my independent presence despite working for a megalithic technology company, and it’s helped me keep my tech chops at least lukewarm in between fifty person WebEx calls to discuss whether to have another meeting with a different fifty people… you know how it goes.

So where do we go from here?

What’s ahead for the next hundred posts? I’ve decided that I really need to stop buying gear “to write about on the blog” until I catch up on the room full of stuff I have to catch up on already. Some of the next hundred posts will be on rsts11travel of course, including some hotel reviews (and some better photos, which might mean some return visits to a couple of hotels). And I’m still pondering the video blog or podcast idea, although I’d need to come up with a lot more interesting stuff to talk about off the cuff.

 

Do you have suggestions for upcoming posts? Weird gear ideas for me to investigate? A favorite post from rsts11 that’s helped you in your work or pub games? Share in the comments below.

Internet on the Road part 1 – A crossover with #rsts11travel

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rsts11 note: This is the first of a two-part series started on #rsts11travel, featuring mobile internet routers. The second part will appear here on #rsts11 since it’s a bit more POHO than random travel, and will be cross-promoted on the travel side. 

When you travel, you probably have a number of devices that demand connectivity. However, a lot of venues limit your allowed devices, and maybe you don’t want your devices out on the open network. Additionally, you may want to use streaming devices or shared storage in your room, and that may not work with typical public network setups.

Today on rsts11travel we’ll look at a couple of options for aggregating, optimizing, and even protecting your connectivity on a public hotspot, hotel network, or even on your own cellular connection.

There are three schemes we’ll consider in this series.

  1. Connecting multiple devices to wifi
  2. Connecting multiple devices to a wired network
  3. Connecting multiple devices through a mobile hotspot/cellular modem

A caveat up front with regard to security and obfuscation: Not all of these options offer the same level of security for your devices, and most will not limit visibility of your connectivity as far as the facility staff, the ISP, or others on your network is concerned. Nothing in this series should be taken as replacing your OS and application updates, antivirus and anti-malware/anti-spyware software, and of course realization that security is subjective.

Read more at rsts11travel.com