Nintendo Switch Can Make Use of the Third Party AmazonBasics Dual Voltage Switch AC Charger for USB Power Delivery Fast Charging

The Dual Voltage Switch AC Charger was sold by AmazonBasics as a third party USB Type-C AC adapter for the Nintendo Switch. The adapter supports USB Power Delivery based charging for either the Switch dock or console when connected to each respective USB Type-C charging port.  

The AmazonBasics Dual Voltage Switch AC Charger came bundled with a handy user manual. 

Similar to the Nintendo Switch AC Adapter and Insignia Switch Dock Kit's AC adapter, the AmazonBasics Dual Voltage Switch AC Charger also offers up to 39W charging when connected to the Switch dock's USB Type-C port for stationary gaming or the Switch console's USB Type-C port for mobile gaming. Here the charger claims to support 15 watts (5 volts @ 3 amps), 27 watts (9 volts @ 3 amps), and 39 watts (15 volts @ 2.6 amps) power profiles.

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 AmazonBasics Dual Voltage Switch AC Charger.

The USB Power Test App first negotiates a power contract for every PDO supported by the AmazonBasics charger, 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 AmazonBasics charger and their OCP thresholds. OCP thresholds for the AmazonBasics charger are set at about 24-34% above the maximum current levels for the fixed PDO's.

PDO	OCP (A)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A	3.75
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 3A	3.73
PDO#3 Fixed: 15V 2.6A	3.49

The USB Power Test App takes this data to produce an I-V curve which graphically shows the relationship between voltage and current for each PDO.  We can observe as the current increases beyond the OCP threshold, the voltage immediately shuts off.

The USB Power Test App can also use the Granite River Labs USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester integrated with the GW Instek APS-7100 programmable AC power supply to compare the charger's power output vs power input so that power efficiency can be measured and compared to regulatory limits from United States of Energy (DOE) Level VI or European Union's CoC Tier 2 requirements. We can repeat the power efficiency tests for different PDO's, current load conditions, and different AC input ranges, allowing us to get a complete picture of power efficiency ranges across all different usage scenarios.

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, some compliance failures were observed for the AmazonBasics Dual Voltage Switch AC Charger.

USB-IF High Level Mapping Summary

Sl No	Test Category	Test Group Description	Test Result
1	PHY_PRIMARY_TX	BMC Physical Layer Transmitter	PASS
2	PHY_PRIMARY_RX	BMC Physical Layer Receiver	FAIL
3	PHY_PRIMARY_MISC	BMC Physical Layer Miscellaneous	PASS
4	PROT_PRIMARY	Protocol Specific Primary	PASS
5	POWER_PRIMARY	Power Source/Sink Primary	FAIL

Result Summary

Sl No	Test ID	Test Name	Test Result
1	TDA.2.1.1.1	TDA.2.1.1.1 BMC PHY TX EYE	PASS
2	TDA.2.1.1.2	TDA.2.1.1.2 BMC PHY TX BIT	PASS
3	TDA.2.1.2.2	TDA.2.1.2.2 BMC PHY RX INT REJ	FAIL
4	TDA.2.1.2.1	TDA.2.1.2.1 BMC PHY RX BUSIDL	PASS
5	TDA.2.1.3.1	TDA.2.1.3.1 BMC PHY TERM	PASS
7	TDA.2.2.1	TDA.2.2.1 BMC PROT SEQ GETCAPS	PASS
8	TDA.2.2.3	TDA.2.2.3 BMC PROT SEQ DRSWAP	PASS
9	TDA.2.2.4	TDA.2.2.4 BMC PROT SEQ VCSWAP DFP	PASS
10	TDA.2.2.6	TDA.2.2.6 BMC PROT SEQ PRSWAP	PASS
11	TDA.2.2.7	TDA.2.2.7 BMC PROT BIST NOT 5V SRC	PASS
12	TDA.2.2.8	TDA.2.2.8 BMC PROT REV NUM	PASS
13	TDA.2.2.9	TDA.2.2.9 BMC PROT GSC REC	PASS
14	TDA.2.3.1.1	TDA.2.3.1.1 POW SRC LOAD P PC	FAIL
15	TDA.2.3.2.1	TDA.2.3.2.1 POW SRC TRANS P PC	PASS

BMC Eye Diagram

Using the GRL-USB-PD C2 Compliance Test Solution App to generate the below trace load, we can also see that the AmazonBasics Dual Voltage Switch AC Charger makes use of different voltage and current levels for charging.