USB-C at the Buddy extension board
Hello,
does anyone know if you can connect a Rasbberry Pi to the USB-C port of the Buddy Extension Board? The connection should be able to supply 5A at 5V. Unfortunately I could not find a schematic. Maybe it would be enough to have a high resolution picture of the components around the connector to estimate if 5A is possible.
RE:
Hello,
does anyone know if you can connect a Rasbberry Pi to the USB-C port of the Buddy Extension Board? The connection should be able to supply 5A at 5V. Unfortunately I could not find a schematic. Maybe it would be enough to have a high resolution picture of the components around the connector to estimate if 5A is possible.
I think the guy who did a tear down of his assembled C1 did a walk through of the components of the pcb's, I'll try and find a link for you.
Scott
Edit:
There you go. Hope it helps 😁
RE: USB-C at the Buddy extension board
I think the USB-C on the Buddy board only has data pins, not power pins. And even if there were power pins, so that it would be possible to draw 5A, you can forget about it.
RE: USB-C at the Buddy extension board
Thanks for the tip. I already knew the video, but I downloaded it and was able to save this image of the board:
Unfortunately, the quality is too poor to judge the surroundings of the USB-C port.
RE: USB-C at the Buddy extension board
Hi,
I think the USB-C on the Buddy board only has data pins, not power pins. And even if there were power pins, so that it would be possible to draw 5A, you can forget about it.
The Buddy Board is not the subject of this question. It is about the Buddy Extension Board. Sorry.
RE: USB-C at the Buddy extension board
The xBuddy board’s USB-C port has data but no power. The xBuddy Extension board’s USB-C port has power but no data.
Sigh... Rumor has it that Prusa is working on another USB extension port which has +5V and data, but no ground. And yet another one which has power but only one of the two differential data lines. 😣
RE: USB-C at the Buddy extension board
The xBuddy board’s USB-C port has data but no power. The xBuddy Extension board’s USB-C port has power but no data.
Sigh... Rumor has it that Prusa is working on another USB extension port which has +5V and data, but no ground. And yet another one which has power but only one of the two differential data lines. 😣
So much for the “U” in USB…
MK4S/MMU3
RE: USB-C at the Buddy extension board
Unfortunately, the quality is too poor to judge the surroundings of the USB-C port.
The Buddy Board is not the subject of this question. It is about the Buddy Extension Board. Sorry.
You can find the schematics at https://www.prusa3d.com/page/open-source-at-prusa-research_236812/
Here's the xBuddy Extension Board schematic: https://www.prusa3d.com/downloads/Electronics_drawings/MK4-xBuddyExtension-06.pdf
RE: USB-C at the Buddy extension board
So it looks like USB connector J13 on the extension board does provide power and data lines?
RE: USB-C at the Buddy extension board
Thank you very much! I must have overlooked that last time I was on this site.
RE: USB-C at the Buddy extension board
Yes, I think so too. I found more details here:
xBuddy Extension Board support
The Prusa CORE One features a brand-new daughterboard called the xBuddy Extension, which provides additional I/O capabilities:
- Two chamber cooling fans
- Chamber temperature sensor
- Chamber light LED strip (white only)
- Status bar LED strip (RGBW)
- Powered USB-C port (e.g. to power chamber camera, data communication not supported yet)
- MMU port (acts as a passthrough from the xBuddy motherboard)
- Advanced Filtration System fan (firmware control not supported yet)
- CAN bus (for additional accessories; not supported yet)
The USB-C interface chip is a “FUSB302B Programmable USB Type-C Controller w/PD” - which can deliver up to 100W according to the data sheet. For a Raspberry Pi only 25W (5V * 5A) would be needed - so the source of “VBUS” would be responsible for whether 25W would be possible without causing damage.
RE: USB-C at the Buddy extension board
It looks like VBUS is sourced by a TPS2065 USB power switch which is rated for 5V at 1A. This is enough to supply the Buddy3D Camera for the Core One.
RE:
It looks like VBUS is sourced by a TPS2065 USB power switch which is rated for 5V at 1A. This is enough to supply the Buddy3D Camera for the Core One.
Yeah, even though the schematic page is named "USB+PD", both the TPS2065 chip (looking at the datasheet it looks like this provides both voltage on/off control and short circuit protection) and it's supply voltage of 5VDC indicate that this is only a 5V/1A USB PD port. Kind of disappointing design choice here since there is +24V supplied directly from the power supply to this board (by the red wire extension on the cable as indicated in the C1 kit build instructions) that could have been used to open up more PD voltages.
Yes, I think so too. I found more details here:
- Powered USB-C port (e.g. to power chamber camera, data communication not supported yet)
The USB-C interface chip is a “FUSB302B Programmable USB Type-C Controller w/PD” - which can deliver up to 100W according to the data sheet. For a Raspberry Pi only 25W (5V * 5A) would be needed - so the source of “VBUS” would be responsible for whether 25W would be possible without causing damage.
So, it looks like the hardware is there for comms on that USB port (note from the schematic it is only one pair (D+/D-) so no high-speed USB), but presumably it is lacking the firmware support to actually talk to anything. The datasheet for the USB-C interface chip also talks about being able to negotiate being either USB host or device. Don't know if there will ever be firmware support for that functionality either. From what I can tell, the USB-C interface chip doesn't provide the 100W, rather it can negotiate up to 100W. I may have missed something in the datasheet though.
My takeaway is, as long as Prusa expects us to only use it as a power source for the Buddy Cam, I don't see any expected further effort on this port firmware-wise.
See my (limited) designs on:
Printables - https://www.printables.com/@Sembazuru
Thingiverse - https://www.thingiverse.com/Sembazuru/designs
RE: USB-C at the Buddy extension board
so, it looks like the hardware is there for comms on that USB port (note from the schematic it is only one pair (D+/D-) so no high-speed USB), but presumably it is lacking the firmware support to actually talk to anything. [...]
My takeaway is, as long as Prusa expects us to only use it as a power source for the Buddy Cam, I don't see any expected further effort on this port firmware-wise.
That's "no Super speed" with the single D+/D- pair, right? High speed should be possible, at least from the physical wiring point of view.
I am not giving up hope yet that we will at some point see a camera that is properly integrated into the printer: Obtaining its power and sending its image data via the USB-C connection, and on through the printer's regular WiFi or Ethernet connection. Maybe if the customers are vocal enough about their disappointment with the current Buddy camera...
RE: USB-C at the Buddy extension board
so, it looks like the hardware is there for comms on that USB port (note from the schematic it is only one pair (D+/D-) so no high-speed USB), but presumably it is lacking the firmware support to actually talk to anything. [...]
My takeaway is, as long as Prusa expects us to only use it as a power source for the Buddy Cam, I don't see any expected further effort on this port firmware-wise.
That's "no Super speed" with the single D+/D- pair, right? High speed should be possible, at least from the physical wiring point of view.
Yeah, my mistake. No "Super Speed" with only one pair. High speed should be possible if the microcontroller can handle those speeds.
I am not giving up hope yet that we will at some point see a camera that is properly integrated into the printer: Obtaining its power and sending its image data via the USB-C connection, and on through the printer's regular WiFi or Ethernet connection. Maybe if the customers are vocal enough about their disappointment with the current Buddy camera...
I'm not telling you to give up hope, but I'm not convinced that the microcontroller on the xBuddy board has the computing overhead to manage both printing and video streaming at the same time. Video streaming is a very high bandwidth function. I could be thinking too conservatively though. (It's only a gut feeling, I haven't actually crunched the numbers to know if it is possible given the performance spec of the STM32 (I think) chip on the xBuddy.)
See my (limited) designs on:
Printables - https://www.printables.com/@Sembazuru
Thingiverse - https://www.thingiverse.com/Sembazuru/designs
RE: USB-C at the Buddy extension board
I'm not telling you to give up hope, but I'm not convinced that the microcontroller on the xBuddy board has the computing overhead to manage both printing and video streaming at the same time. Video streaming is a very high bandwidth function. I could be thinking too conservatively though. (It's only a gut feeling, I haven't actually crunched the numbers to know if it is possible given the performance spec of the STM32 (I think) chip on the xBuddy.)
Yeah it’s a high speced STM32F4. Perhaps an STM32H-series would be able to, but the xBuddy microcontroller is already at its limit. Even phase stepping calibration runs into memory issues, which is why that’s been delayed.