PD Micro is the first Arduino-compatible board with USB Type-C Power Delivery, which allows your project to make use of voltages from 5-20 V. It’s perfect for projects that would require separate power sources if your control board only outputs 3.3 or 5 V - such as those involving motor control or high-power LEDs. The output voltage can be controlled with Arduino sketches using our new library. And it’s all open source.

Safe, Controlled Power Delivery

Protect your target device and power it only when negotiated power is ready and meets target levels of voltage and current. PD Micro has an on-board 30 V 10.4 A P-channel MOSFET load switch, controlled by MCU. This also allows the user to do programmable power sequence, like a power-timing circuit.

PD negotiation successful, ready:

PD negotiation failed, not ready:

USB Type-C Power Delivery Arduino Library

PD Micro is accompanied by our newly-implemented, simple, compact, USB Type-C power delivery library that allows you to set power delivery output levels through the Arduino IDE. While porting the code for PD Micro we ended up writing a library completely from scratch. The result is simple, compact, portable source code for USB Type-C device-only applications, which can be used on ATMega328 and ATmega32U4 controllers in addition to the PD Micro, itself.

The PD library itself consumes less than half of the total memory and flash space, leaving more than half of the space available for user code.

Standalone, Programmable PD Trigger

Even if you don’t need to integrate other Arduino functionality into your project, PD Micro can work as a standalone, programmable USB Type-C PD trigger - delivering power directly. Target voltage and current can be programmed through Arduino IDE. There are 5 LEDs available for voltage level and 3 LEDs for current level, which provides a simple, unambiguous indication of current USB PD power status.

Example PD Statuses

5 V, 3 A:

12 V, 3 A:

20 V, 2 A:

Specifications:

• Power
  • Power Delivery provides negotiable power of 5, 9, 12, 15, or 20 V at a maximum of 5 A (100 W at 20 V)
  • USB Type-C port (for power delivery and programming)
    • FUSB302 USB Type-C PHY (USB PD communication on CC pins)
    • ESD protection on D+/D-/CC1/CC2 pins
  • TPS62175 DC-DC for efficient 5V 0.5A max output
  • 3.5 mm, 2 position terminal block for power output
  • Four-layer PCB with ground plane and 3 mm wide VBUS trace
• Microcontroller: ATmega32U4 running at 5 V and 16 MHz
• I/O: pin compatible with Pro Micro
  • 9x 10-bit ADC pins
  • 12x Digital I/Os (INT and I²C bus are shared with FUSB302)
  • 5x GND pins
  • 3x VBUS pins (USB-C power)
  • 1x 5 V pin (DC-DC output)
• PD Status LEDs:
  • TX / RX activity
  • 5 LED for power delivery voltage level
  • 3 LED for power delivery current level
• Reset button
• Size: 1.6 x 0.7 inches (extra 0.3 inches for power connector pins)

• Programming: via the Arduino IDE using the default Arduino Leonardo board setting

Pinout Diagram

Layout

PD Micro is a 4-layer PCB with SMT components on both sides.

Comparisons:

Open Source

PD Micro is completely open source. You can find all hardware and software documentation in our GitHub repo.

The schematic and PCB layout were done in KiCad 5.

The bootloader uses Caterina-promicro16.hex, released by SparkFun.

Package Contents

Each PD Micro comes in an anti-static bag that includes:

• 1x PD Micro
• 1x Set of pin headers
• 1x Molex 3.5 mm rising cage screw terminal jack

Manufacturing Plan

All designs have been tested and verified. An initial small pilot batch has been produced and tested, and our manufacturer is ready for a full production batch.

Fulfillment & Logistics

All manufactured PD Micro will be shipped to the US for distribution to backers via Crowd Supply’s fulfillment service. Please see Crowd Supply’s guide for more information about ordering, paying, and shipping.

Risks & Challenges

The biggest risk is the current political uncertainty. Since the batch is manufactured in China, the recent tariffs imposed on Chinese goods incur extra cost and difficulty in shipment. Unfortunately, to account for this uncertainty, unit prices are higher than initially expected. Should any issues occur in component procurement, manufacturing, or shipping, we’ll let backers know through project updates.