Charge Your PC Faster Up to 65W at USB Power Delivery 3.0 Speeds with the Portable Dell 65W PD Power Bank

Dell has gone very aggressively on power bank design with the release of the Dell 65W PD Power Bank as the first 65W USB Power Delivery 3.0 capable power bank in the market. While many ac adapters can provide such high level power charging, power banks mostly support much lower output such as 30W USB Type-C charging by the Tronsmart Brio USB C Power Bank 20100mAh PD Portable Charger. With 65 watts, the Dell 65W PD Power Bank should sufficiently charge most USB Type-C notebook PC's, tablets, and phones rapidly using USB Power Delivery 3.0 technology.

Unlike power banks which use a single Type-C port for sourcing/sinking power, the Dell 65W PD Power Bank has a USB Type-C cable plug for sourcing power and and a USB Type-C receptacle for sinking power. For Power Delivery charging out, the Dell 65W PD Power Bank supports 5 volts @ 3 amps (15 watts), 9 volts @ 3 amps (27 watts), 15 volts @ 3 amps (45 watts) and 20 volts @ 3.25 amps (65 watts) power profiles over the USB Type-C cable plug that is fitted to the power bank. See how it charged the Dell XPS 15 9575 (2-in-1) PC in this review where the power bank was also seen to advertise variable power up to 68.25 watts (21 volts @ 3.25 amps). However this Augmented Power Data Object (APDO) with Programmable Power Supply (PPS) is not listed on the power bank's box and the power bank also seems to reject PPS requests from the sink. Dell has also claimed that when connected to a 90W based external ac power adapter, the power bank can use up to 4.5 amps current at 20 volts to enable 90 watts charging although we only saw the power bank drawing much lower power when being charged by the Dell 130W USB Type-C AC Adapter in this review. The power bank allows charging in up to 20 volts when attached to a compatible USB Power Delivery based ac adapter.

The Dell 65W PD Power Bank also includes a standard 10 watts based USB Type-A port to connect to USB peripherals as well as a power button with battery charging indicator.    

We used the USB Power Test App from Granite River Labs with the Granite River Labs USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester to generate the following test results for the Dell 65W PD Power Bank.

The USB Power Test App first negotiates a power contract for every PDO supported by the Dell 65W PD Power Bank, and increases the load gradually to find the threshold where over current protection (OCP) kicks in and voltage and current start to drop for safety reasons. The USB Power Test App also reports out all the PDO's supported by the Dell power bank and their OCP thresholds. The USB Power Test App then takes this data to produce an I-V curve which graphically shows the relationship between voltage and current for each PDO.

PDO	VAC	OCP (A)	%OCP	OCP Timeout (sec)	Voltage Drop(V)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A		3.58	119.2%	0.4	0.28

PDO	VAC	OCP (A)	%OCP	OCP Timeout (sec)	Voltage Drop(V)
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 3A		3.54	117.9%	0.4	0.36

PDO	VAC	OCP (A)	%OCP	OCP Timeout (sec)	Voltage Drop(V)
PDO#3 Fixed: 15V 3A		3.51	117.1%	0.4	0.34

PDO	VAC	OCP (A)	%OCP	OCP Timeout (sec)	Voltage Drop(V)
PDO#4 Fixed: 20V 3.25A		3.81	117.3%	0.4	0.36

Using the USB Power Test App and FLIR thermal imaging tools, we measured the heat emitted by the Dell 65W PD Power Bank during charging and discharging as seen in the following temperature readings and traces for the highest 20V, 3.25A PDO. The max temperature observed during charging was 37.44 degree Celsius while the max temperature recorded over discharging was 44.23 degree Celcius.

We also used the USB Power Test App to determine the time it takes for the Dell 65W PD Power Bank to charge and discharge as seen below. For charging on Port 1, it took about 6000 secs to charge quickly from ~32W to 40W and then took another 3000 secs to fully charge. After charging was completed, when discharging on Port 2, it took around 3150 secs to start discharging and ~3290 secs to fully discharge at close to 65W.

Using the USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester from Granite River Labs to run just a subset of the full USB Power Delivery compliance test suite, we can confirm that the Dell 65W PD Power Bank supports these fixed PDO's: 15 watts (5 volts @ 3 amps), 27 watts (9 volts @ 3 amps), 45 watts (15 volts @ 3 amps) and 65 watts (20 volts @ 3.25 amps) for charging. We can also see that this power bank supports USB PD 3.0 based Programmable Power Supply (PPS) and has a Augmented Power Delivery Object (APDO) with 3-21V voltage range even though this is not shown on the box itself. Note compliance failures were also observed.

DUT Information

Manufacturer	Dell
Model Number	65W Power Bank
Serial Number	Comm Engine

Test Information

Date and Time:

20181113_192524

Controller and Instrument Information

Parameter	Value
GRL USB-PD_C2 Serial No.	084.109.084.066.134.
GRL USB-PD Software Version	1.3.8.0
GRL USB-PD Firmware Version	1.3.8.0.0
GRL USB-PD Eload Firmware Version	9.4/9.4
Board Calibration	Calibration Success.
App Mode	COMMUNICATION_ENGINE_TESTS
Tx Mask	true
Rx Mask	false
RX mask Power selection	Neutral Power
Device Type	Provider Only
Cable IR drop Imp(R)	0
Cable Type.	USB-Type-C-Cable
COMMUNICATION_ENGINE_TESTS CTS Version	1.09
Noise Pattern Generation:	Two-Tone Noise
VIF info	*Since VIF was not loaded below test results are information Only.
Test cases Execution Time:	0h:4m:8s

Product Capabilities

Parameter	GetCapabilities
VENDOR_NAME	Dell Inc.
TID	0
STRUCTURED_VDM_VERSION	Version 2.0
PORT_BATTERY_POWERED	NO
PD_SPECIFICATION_REVISION	2
SOP_CAPABLE	YES
SOP_P_CAPABLE	NO
SOP_PP_CAPABLE	NO
SOP_P_DEBUG_CAPABLE	NO
SOP_PP_DEBUG_CAPABLE	NO
SECURITY_MSGS_SUPPORTED	NO
MANUFACTURER_INFO_SUPPORTED	YES
MANUFACTURER_INFO_VID	0x413C
MANUFACTURER_INFO_PID	0xB061
NUM_FIXED_BATTERIES	0
NUM_SWAPPABLE_BATTERY_SLOTS	0
USB_COMMS_CAPABLE	YES
DR_SWAP_TO_DFP_SUPPORTED	YES
UNCONSTRAINED_POWER	YES
UNCHUNKED_EXTENDED_MESSAGES_SUPPORTED	NO
MODAL_OPERATION_SUPPORTED	YES
USB_VID	0x413C
PID	0xB061
BCDDEVICE	0x0
XID	0
DATA_CAPABLE_AS_USB_HOST	NO
DATA_CAPABLE_AS_USB_DEVICE	NO
ACCEPTS_PR_SWAP_AS_SNK	NO
AMA_VBUS_REQD	NO
AMA_VCONN_REQD	NO
NUM_SVIDS_MIN	1
NUM_SVIDS_MAX	1
SVID1SOP	413C
SVID1Modes Min	1
SVID1Modes Max	1
SVID1Modes Fixed	NONE
SVID1Mode1 Enter Mode	NO

Power Capabilities

Parameter	GetCapabilities
PD_POWER_AS_SOURCE	65000
USB_SUSPEND_MAY_BE_CLEARED	YES
SENDS_PINGS	NO
NUM_SRC_PDOS	5
Supply Type #1	Fixed
Peak Current #1	0x0(A)
Voltage #1	0x64(5V)
Max Current #1	0x12C(3A)
Supply Type #2	Fixed
Peak Current #2	0x0(A)
Voltage #2	0xB4(9V)
Max Current #2	0x12C(3A)
Supply Type #3	Fixed
Peak Current #3	0x0(A)
Voltage #3	0x12C(15V)
Max Current #3	0x12C(3A)
Supply Type #4	Fixed
Peak Current #4	0x0(A)
Voltage #4	0x190(20V)
Max Current #4	0x145(3.25A)
Supply Type #5	Augmented_PDO
Min Voltage #5	0x1E(3V)
Max Voltage #5	0xD2(21V)

USB-IF High Level Mapping Summary

Sl No	Test Category	Test Group Description	Test Result
1	PHY_PRIMARY_RX	BMC Physical Layer Receiver	FAIL
2	PHY_PRIMARY_MISC	BMC Phyiscal Layer Miscellaneous	FAIL
3	PROT_PRIMARY	Protocol Specific Primary	PASS

Result Summary

Sl No	Test ID	Test Name	Test Result
1	TDA.2.1.2.2	TDA.2.1.2.2 BMC PHY RX INT REJ	FAIL
2	TDA.2.1.2.1	TDA.2.1.2.1 BMC PHY RX BUSIDL	FAIL
3	TDA.2.1.3.1	TDA.2.1.3.1 BMC PHY TERM	PASS
4	TDA.2.1.3.2	TDA.2.1.3.2 BMC PHY MSG	FAIL
5	TDA.2.2.1	TDA.2.2.1 BMC PROT SEQ GETCAPS	PASS
6	TDA.2.3.1.1	TDA.2.3.1.1 POW SRC LOAD P PC	PASS

In the following load screenshot captured from the GRL-USB-PD C2 Compliance Test Solution App, we can clearly see that the Dell 65W PD Power Bank supports different voltage and current levels for charging.