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USB Charger Doctor / USB Detector Teardown, Reverse Engineered and Tested

Gough Lui

Seeing as some people enjoyed one of my posts, I thought I might as well share these posts I did a short while ago on USB Charger Doctors / USB Detectors, which are little plug-in LED displays which show USB voltage and USB current consumption. I went the whole hog with it, dismantling it, desoldering it, tracing the circuitry and testing it for accuracy using the Tektronix PA1000 (another RoadTest item I managed to get) since my Keithley 2110 was busy at the time.

 

The parts are as follows:

 

I hope you find this informative and interesting image.

 

- Gough

  • Hi Gough,  I really enjoyed your reverse engineering blog on the USB Doctor. This is also what I too like to do. I will get a circuit board and draw the schematic from the board to try to understand how it works. Sometimes I just salvage interesting components and then I will hook them up in a small test circuit just to see if I really understand how they work. I am now retired but I have spent my life repairing one type of electronic device or another. In honesty the items I worked on were on the simpler side. It is really good what you are doing, inspiring the guys that want to get in and learn more about electronics. I also find your writing to be extremely clear and easy to understand. I will be following your posts as I can see I have a lot to learn from you.

    John

  • in reply to jw0752

    Thanks for that. I'm glad someone out there appreciates it, as it can get quite technical for some. I enjoy many different things - some electronics, some computing, photography etc. so things to get a bit random from time to time. My main interest was to see whether the units could be modified, or had any unusual undocumented pins which could lend themselves for modification. Sadly not. But from time to time they do throw out surprises - like how the decimal point segment drive works on the blue USB charger doctor (I never saw anything like it before).

     

    Needless to say, I'm learning myself as I go as well. It's never been better given how easy it is to look up information online.

  • in reply to Gough Lui

    The availability of information and education on line is both a blessing and a curse. In the past I could blame lack of good information for my failure to produce and accomplish. Now I have nothing and no one to blame except myself. It's 12:20 AM here, you must be around Noon on your side of the world.

    John

  • in reply to jw0752

    I think one shouldn't be afraid of failure and making mistakes. I've done stupid ... and by that I mean really stupid and costly ... things in the past and even in the present. Some of it doesn't make it online, some of it does - but it's how we learn. Sometimes you only "solidly" learn the lesson having done it for yourself (mistakes and all) as compared to watching others do and write about their experiences. There's always a value with doing something with your own hands, or seeing something with your own eyes.

     

    It's part of the reason I don't let the fact that "it's been done before" deter me from trying something. Sometimes it's nice to have someone to follow image, but it's very satisfying to diverge and add your own "flair" to something as well.

     

    P.S. It's about 5:25pm here in Sydney, Australia, and thanks for the nice discussion image.