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Scosche Powervolt 36W USB Type-C + Type-C PD3 AC Charger Has Dual USB-C Power Delivery 3.0 Outputs to Double Charge Your Mobiles Quickly

The Scosche Powervolt 36W USB Type-C + Type-C PD3 AC Charger is one of the few dual USB Power Delivery chargers out there that offers two USB Type-C output ports in a single AC adapter. The Scosche charger can use USB Power Delivery 3.0 technology to support 15 watts (5 volts @ 3 amps) and 18 watts (9 volts @ 2 amps) power profiles for rapid charging on each port. 18 watts is good enough power for most mobile phones sold today such as the Apple iPhone XS Max or Android phones like the Google Pixel 3 XL and the Samsung Galaxy S9+, as well as providing decently fast charging to tablets like the Apple 11-inch iPad Pro (2018). Just make sure to use the Apple USB-C to Lightning Cable if you need to charge your iPhone.

Note that both USB-C ports of the Scosche charger actually can't support 18W at the same time- both ports can only support about 15W max each- thus resulting in the max total power capacity of about 30W. If both ports are supplying 15W each for charging, and if one of the ports starts drawing more than 15W, the other port will stop providing power. Also see more details on our test results for this charger at the bottom of this review.

To see how the Scosche Powervolt 36W USB Type-C + Type-C PD3 AC Charger supports power, we used the USB Power Test App from Granite River Labs with the Granite River Labs USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester to produce the following test results.

The USB Power Test App first negotiates a power contract for every PDO supported by the Scosche 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.

OCP Plot for Port 1 Only

OCP Plot for Port 2 Only

The USB Power Test App reports out all the PDO's supported by the Scosche charger and their OCP thresholds. Note OCP % trigger levels over max current are unusually high for both ports of the charger.

OCP Levels for Port 1 Only

PDO	OCP	Percentage
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A	4.97	165.5%
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 2A	3.3	165%

OCP Levels for Port 2 Only

PDO	OCP	Percentage
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A	4.98	166%
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 2A	4.22	211%

The USB Power Test App from Granite River Labs 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.

I-V Curve Plot for Port 1

I-V Curve Plot for Port 2

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 first measured the heat emitted by the Scosche charger on one port and then on both ports near 15W each without OCP trigger, which we observed the max temperature at about 77 degree Celsius.