USB-C Power Delivery Power Supply

Because the market for batteries to charge phones and laptops is so much larger than the market for batteries we 12V output, all the innovation in batteries is happening on batteries that have USB-C Power Delivery output. There are many vendors and lots of products with different characteristics. If you want to use these batteries with amateur radio gear that takes 12V, or that requires an unusual voltage (my UV-5R battery charger wants 10V input), you have to:

• buy this cable from Adafruit which asks the USB-C device for 12V
• connect it to a small buck converter or boost converter to get the voltage that you want
• live with the losses and heat of the buck/boost converter

Now there is another option, the PockedPD. This small device allows you to choose the voltage you want, and it requests that voltage from the connected USB-C power source. You need a modern USB-C power source that supports the Programmable Power Supply mode from USB PD 3.0 and later. As you would expect, there are many USB-C power sources that comply with this standard.

Instead of bucking or boosting the voltage from USB-C, this device just asks the USB-C for exactly the voltage that you want. Very clever.