The AUKEY PA-Y12 Amp 60W PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger Offers Fast Charging with USB Power Delivery 3.0 and PPS in a Triple USB Port Charger

The PA-Y12 Amp 60W PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger is one of the AC adapter models by Aukey that supports USB Power Delivery 3.0 and PPS (Programmable Power Supply) over USB Type-C which is also similar to the AUKEY PA-Y10 Amp PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger and AUKEY PA-Y8 PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger. Through USB Power Delivery 3.0 technology, the AUKEY PA-Y12 Amp 60W PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger declares that it can support 3 amps charging at 5V, 9V, 12V, 15V and 20V voltage rails up to 60 watts over standard Power Data Objects (PDO) protocol negotiation contract. The Type-C port also supports an additional variable power supply of 3-21 volts @ 3 amps. The AUKEY PA-Y12 Amp 60W PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger should also be able to provide more efficient charging at lower temperatures when supplying power to most recent mobile phones, tablets, and notebook PC's over the USB Type-C port using USB Power Delivery 3.0.

Unlike the AUKEY PA-Y10 Amp PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger and AUKEY PA-Y8 PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger, the AUKEY PA-Y12 Amp 60W PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger doesn't have foldable AC prongs but came with a separate AC power cord for plugging into a AC power outlet.

Also for an Aukey product, don't expect a USB Type-C cable to come with the charger which would have been useful otherwise. Here it includes only the standard 24-month product warranty and instruction manual. In contrast you would normally find a included USB Type-C cable from other popular charger brands like Belkin and Ventev.

The AUKEY PA-Y12 Amp 60W PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger has a single USB Type-C connector which can output up to 60W of USB Power Delivery 3.0 based charging to a variety of popular notebook PC's, tablets, mobile phones, game consoles, and action cameras. The charger also has two non USB Power Delivery based USB Type-A ports which can independently provide 12 watts of charging (5 volts @ 2.4 amps) to charge an iPhone with a Apple USB-C to Lightning Cable or Android phones with a USB Type-A to Micro-B or USB Type-A to Type-C cable.

For faster charging, take advantage of the USB Type-C port to charge your Mac or Windows notebook PC or your Apple iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy S8, Apple 12.9-inch iPad Pro, Nintendo Switch and other mobile devices that use USB Power Delivery technology.

The AUKEY PA-Y12 Amp 60W PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger allows you to charge three devices simultaneously but just make sure you don't need more than 72W of charging when using this charger. Instead if you're looking for a dual port wall charger, you may consider the AUKEY PA-Y10Amp PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger with an additional USB Type-A port for legacy charging or a single port wall charger like the AUKEY PA-Y8 PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger.

Using the USB Power Test App from Granite River Labs with the Granite River Labs USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester, we ran a subset of power tests for the AUKEY PA-Y12 Amp 60W PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger to generate the following test results.

The USB Power Test App first negotiates a power contract for every PDO supported by the Aukey charger, and increases the load gradually to find the threshold where over current protection (OCP) kicks in and voltage and current starts to drop for safety reasons.

The USB Power Test App reports out all the PDO's supported by the Aukey charger and their OCP thresholds. OCP thresholds for the Aukey charger are set at about 15-20% above the maximum current levels for the fixed PDO's.

PDO	OCP (A)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A	3.49
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 3A	3.53
PDO#3 Fixed: 12V 3A	3.53
PDO#4 Fixed: 15V 3A	3.59
PDO#5 Fixed: 20V 3A	3.56

The USB Power Test App from Granite River Labs also produces an I-V curve which graphically shows the relationship between voltage and current for each PDO. Like other chargers that support PPS (Programmable Power Supply), we can observe current fold-back behavior where as the current increases beyond the OCP threshold, the voltage starts to curve down rather than immediately shutting off. The 5th PDO shows more dramatic fold-back behavior compared to the other PDO's.

Since the AUKEY PA-Y12 Amp 60W PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger is a multi port charger, the USB Power Test App can be used to determine whether each output port of the charger is able to supply power independently. For every PDO supported by the Aukey charger, the USB Power Test App increases the load gradually for both the USB Type-C and Type-A ports to detect any power loss at the highest load limit for each port.

USB Type-C Port

USB Type-A Port

The USB Power Test App reports out the voltage, current and load limits for all the PDO's supported by the Aukey charger for each port.

Port1 PDO	Port2 PDO	Port1 (V)	Port1 (A)	Port1 Loading(%)	Port2 (V)	Port2 (A)	Port2 Loading(%)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A		5.14	2.96	100% (15.2W)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	5.25	2.97	102.45%	4.96	1.5
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 3A		9.04	2.97	100% (26.9W)
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 3A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	9.15	2.99	101.72%	4.96	1.5
PDO#3 Fixed: 12V 3A		11.91	2.99	100% (35.6W)
PDO#3 Fixed: 12V 3A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	12.01	2.98	100.6%	4.96	1.49
PDO#4 Fixed: 15V 3A		14.94	3.02	100% (45.1W)
PDO#4 Fixed: 15V 3A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	15.04	3	100.07%	4.96	1.49
PDO#5 Fixed: 20V 3A		19.65	3	100% (59W)
PDO#5 Fixed: 20V 3A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	19.75	3.01	100.63%	4.95	1.49
	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A				5	1.5	100% (7.5W)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	5.25	2.97		4.96	1.5	99.31%
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 3A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	9.15	2.99		4.96	1.5	99.07%
PDO#3 Fixed: 12V 3A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	12.01	2.98		4.96	1.49	98.83%
PDO#4 Fixed: 15V 3A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	15.04	3		4.96	1.49	98.83%
PDO#5 Fixed: 20V 3A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	19.75	3.01		4.95	1.49	98.46%
PDO#6 PPS: (3~21)V 3A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	0	0		0	0	0%

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 Test App and FLIR thermal imaging tools, we measured the heat emitted by the Aukey charger as seen in the following temperature heat map graphs for both the lowest 5V, 3A and highest 20V, 3A PDO's.

The max temperature was observed at 35.5 degree Celsius for the lowest 5V, 3A PDO while the highest 20V, 3A PDO recorded a max temperature of 61.4 degree Celsius.

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, most of the tests performed for the AUKEY PA-Y12 Amp 60W PD 3.0 USB-C Wall Charger were observed to pass compliance except for one compliance failure as seen below.

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	PASS
3	PHY_PRIMARY_MISC	BMC Phyiscal 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	PASS
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
11	TDA.2.2.7	TDA.2.2.7 BMC PROT BIST NOT 5V SRC	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

In the load trace screenshot below captured using the GRL-USB-PD C2 Compliance Test Solution App, we can also see that the Aukey charger supports different voltage and current levels for charging.