USB power meter/tester thread - YZXStudio, Power-Z, RDTech and more.

I find that some usb tester have some issues one being that they are directional and if the gender is not correct and you hook up the way the connectors it might not read the current and some of them are flaky at best and not always wanting to turn on with out trying it several times to get it to turn on

Some USB C charger are not always completely honest about what they can negotiate different voltage values I have seen some that say that they can do nine volts but can some say that they can do 15 volts it only shows 12 volts

I have seen some battery packs that say that they can do different voltages and even them can not always do all the ones listed and some of them share the same port for charging and discharging the battery pack some ports are charging some ports are for power output only

Unfortunately it trial and error before you find ones that can do what is claimed I wish that this was not the case

There are newer Type C testers which are supposed to be bi-directional. I haven’t tested them though, partly due to price (these were 30+ $US), partly due to lack of details or reviews.
I also don’t really know what to do with testers, I’d rather buy a proper multimeter beforehand.

These tester are very nice if you can get one that works correctly with USB C but this where the problem starts not all of them work correctly the way they are presented

Hi,

Im looking to purchase a multi (type c + micro) usb volt meter, any suggestions which one to go for?
Typical use is to test power to and from mobiles / usb devices, personal devices.

I’m not that well-versed with how USB-C (in particular, USB-C that has PD or Power Delivery) works. I think that may be one of the reasons why some USB-C testers will not display information unless there is a USB load (or a USB-PD device) on one end.

From my limited understanding (note: might be wrong, because these are only from what I remember reading about them).

For USB-C with PD power source (whether it’s a USB-PD power adapter or a USB-PD powerbank), if a device (or USB tester) is not requesting some kind of power (I think there is some “handshake protocol” or some such thing that happens), then the USB-PD power source will not give power to the device or USB tester, thus the tester “doesn’t work”.

Some USB-C testers will have a “PD switch” to enable/disable — I think this place the tester in a mode where it will request power, however, this might also mean it won’t be properly monitoring (I could be wrong here in my understanding) the energy flowing since supposedly the USB-C tester is just monitoring the flow of current, and not the main one requesting power.

Although I think it could be some USB-C testers may also not be properly negotiating the USB-C PD protocols (??).

I’m not well versed in these things, but I recently got a Fnirsi FNB38 which has both USB-A and USB-C ports. It has worked well so far, as long as you’re not looking to transfer the data off of it like some models offer.

Is there currently any usb tester better than the power z km001?
focusing on the amperage and voltage data acquisition capabilities in the pc software.
Many computer and cell phone technicians use this usb tester to measure the consumption of a device that is being repaired, but the software is never well translated at least into English
and it would be good more precision and samples per second(max 1000 sps ).

This ultraportable device is not meant to take 1000 measurements per seconds. One is fair enough. I would recommend you a bench multimeter or digital oscilloscope. A thousand accurate measurements per second require high rank equipment.

Just purchased today the new model Baseus ‎VCKX65C which is 65 W and same USB-A+USB-C. Let’s see when it arrives if the problem still persists.

I have the TC-66C which says “bootloader 1.06”. How can I upgrade firmware, in case there’s any update?
Ok tried to update to 1.15 and says 固件联网下载失败!

I think that says “Help! I’m being held prisoner in a USB Tester Facility!”

Now could update it successfully the TC66C to firmware 1.15. What happened had the Windows software installed to ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\RuiDengUSBMeter\RuiDengUSBMeter.exe’, which requires administrative permissions to run from there. After enabling the .exe to run as administrator now works perfect: 固件升级完成,等待设备有自

Can I use USB-A to USB-C adapter to use TC66C with USB-A chargers?
Mike

Yeah you can, but the output will be most likely fixed at 5V, and depending on the cable it may or may not transmit the power to the other end, some USB-C cable requires authentication before allowing power transfer.

Regarding the POWER-Z FL001 SUPER, is there any way to force the meter to start in English? As is, every time I plug it in I have to change the interface from Chinese to English, which is mildly annoying despite it not being that difficult.

Also, is there a firmware update that offers support for Apple’s charging protocols?

*For anyone searching for information on changing the language: double-click the large rocker-style switch, then double-click it again. English! (Unless you accidentally single clicked it the second time. In which case, enjoy your newly rotated display. In Mandarin.)

Have problems with the TC66C app, on Samsung with Android 12: says “Storage permissions are not open” and “Storage error” whenever I click on SHARE.
Anybody else having the same issue with Android 12, Samsung or not?

Is there any usb meter under 20€ which I should consider? I would like to measure both USB A and USB C powerbanks and chargers…

T66c seems to be little bit too expensive for my purpose… and also its usb C only?

For something compact and simple, you can use the UM24/UM25.

The UM34 is overall worse than the UM25 in terms of capabilities, but it has the advantage of support Dash Charge/VOOC protocols, which is nice.

UM34: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32880908871.html
UM25: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32855845265.html

If you want something that’s big and has more features:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001489704881.html

I’m not sure if I would buy this though, because it’s very big.

TheHWcave has some great in depth looks and testing of various USB meters. i learned a bunch about my UNI-T UT658 :+1:
USB testers play list
i don’t know why he has so few subscribers? i think he’s fantastic.

It’s niche content.