An update on my own experiences, I’m somewhat sure there is something wrong with the power on my board since things don’t work for me like they seem to work for others.
The adafruit cables never worked.
When plugging in to a “high power” USB-C charger such as a macbook power brick or two different 60W Anker adapters, using a usbc to usbc cable, and the batteries are fully charged, it seems the corner of the laptop gets hotter than I would expect.
When the reform is running, and the batteries are partially discharged, and I plug one of the above in, the red light will blink (at different rates for different cables and adapters), and i don’t think any charging or powering happens.
When I plug a UsbA to UsbC cable in, while the Reform is on, I’m able to power it, but no charging occurs, and no red light.
This also seems to run cooler than when running a usbc to usbc cable.
After I shutdown it will then slowly charge back up.
I have no problems with the power brick that shipped with the reform, I’d just like to use my smaller adapters for travel.
Edit: in hindsight I don’t think the temperatures feel any different between the different cables
Sorry for resurrecting old thread, but I think it’s better to keep related topics together.
Recently I have similar problems with USB-PD. Normal charger (24V, with barrel-jack) works, and OLED shows around -1.4A when charging. When it’s connected, red LED D8 shines; when batteries are full, D9 also shines, but it stays off during charging.
But when I connect AdaFruit 20V cable, MNT Reform is not charging. I tried 2 different cables, so I treat failure of them as low probable. OLED shows no external power, and 0.0A. D8 initially is on, but after few seconds starts blinking. I tried to analyze firmware, but haven’t found code responsible for LEDs. Not sure if it’s there, or if they are managed by hardware.
What makes it strange: I tried 15V cable and it was working! It started charging, LEDs were on. OLED was showing -0.5A; lower than with normal charger, but IMO still usable.
Don’t know yet what to think about that. I’ll be trying different combinations and should let you know if find something interesting. If someone has tips regarding firmware, please share. At the same time, this is not project with high priority, so I’m taking care of it in free time.
Not only the original PSU comes with a 5.5/2.1 plug, the reform itself comes with a 5.5/2.1 jack. I already said this in an earlier message of mine in this thread:
The reform barrel jack has an inner diameter of 2.1 mm
The reason I got the 2.5 mm inner diameter plug is because @Martin asked for a source that is not amazon and I found the delock products but they only come with 2.5 mm inner diameter.
To make sure that there are no confusions, I filed this MR against the Reform handbook about a year ago:
Since I got a powerful PD PSU now I ordered some noname adapter that is readily available locally.
There are some Polish adapters that Conrad carries but the availability is bad: Akyga USB-C Adapter 100 W 5 A kaufen P/N AK-ND-C02 Although the adapter has something like 19.5V written on it the PSU says it selects 20V, maybe it does not have decimal places for voltage.
With batteries drained(? the capacity is not listed, voltage shown as 3.5V) the Reform draws around 70W from the PSU when powered off. Powering on increases power draw to around 80W. After a few minutes of charging the power draw drops to around 75W when powered on.