Poundland QI charger teardown
Added 2021-02-09 23:15:16 +0000 UTCA look at a typical mass produced inductive charger for phones.
This charger uses an anonymous 16 pin chip that is almost certainly a microcontroller.
It could be a standard microcontroller with clever software, or it could be a microcontroller with integrated QI charging functionality.
Let me know if you have an idea of what it might be, although it's such a specialized application it may be one of those chips that is only aimed at mass producers.
Comments
Was thinking about your cold laptop not wanting to start. I used to go gliding and in the workshop which was expensive to heat, we had a wooden box with a low wattage bulb in. It kept temperature sensitive stuff warm and relatively moisture free. Might work for your computer. Just a thought.
Nick Kendall
2021-02-12 04:12:07 +0000 UTCHi Mike, A method I've known of, but tried only a couple of times, is to (if possible) thread some fine enamelled wire under the legs on the chip side, make a loop of it, and heat the legs from one end, and pull the wire out paralell with the board, slightly lifting the legs off as the solder melts and the wire comes out under the pins. You should be able to decide how far to lift each leg by the angle you pull on the wire.
William Taylor
2021-02-11 06:08:02 +0000 UTCSorry for posting yet again. My redneck procedure for lifting an SO is to shove a scalpel underneath and apply a bit of twist. Then lay the iron down flat on one side of pins and progressively lift them off their pads. The scalpel can help break surface tension. You might get a bent leg or two; just bend them back. Much harder with SSOP. Better (and kinder) is a hot air pencil and tweezers and good timing.
Mike Page
2021-02-10 21:38:44 +0000 UTCOooh - look what Wikipedia told me: "This coil is placed in a series resonant circuit with a 200 nF capacitor to yield a resonant circuit with a natural resonance at ~140 kHz when coupled to the receiver coil. This series resonant circuit is then driven by an H-bridge switching arrangement from the DC source; at full power, the voltage in the capacitor can reach 50 volts." So that's why the multi-pole lowpass. They're tuning the resonant frequency by envelope detection. The frequency will change with Q of course, and Q is primarily determined by the mobile phone load. Clever stuff.
Mike Page
2021-02-10 21:26:33 +0000 UTCThat's a neat little circuit. I like the H bridge and the simple feedback. My best guess is the chip is a System on Chip ie pick-n-mix from: processor + peripherals + leadframe. I'm gonna shut up now because I don't have a lot of experience designing switchers from scratch. One day.
Mike Page
2021-02-10 21:18:53 +0000 UTCInteresting I would have suggested a Holtek chip but the rails are swapped as I have been looking into holtek chips for projects. I noticed they had cpu for qi charging nearly fits but the power supply pins are swapped. Holtek are producing some nice(reasonably priced) new dev boards with flash versions of CPU. Also releasing dev kits. Very useful to get JLPCB to assemble and supply completed units. Hotek have some interesting io driving ports that no one else does so lowering chip counts.
N. Shaun Tremayne
2021-02-10 21:07:17 +0000 UTCQuite nice that it has an h bridge rather than just spamming pwm into the coil
Simon Howroyd
2021-02-10 20:35:58 +0000 UTCI was curious what the frequency used was. So I googled it. Digikey says The Qi specification calls for an AC frequency in the primary coil of between 110 and 205 kHz for the “low power” Qi chargers (up to 5 W) and 80 and 300 kHz (up to 120 W) for the “medium power” chargers.
Nuts 'n' Proud
2021-02-10 13:34:45 +0000 UTCI suppose you could say that the Trumpy brick is just BIDEN it's time.... I'll get my coat!
Mike Hughes
2021-02-10 11:31:32 +0000 UTCLooking forward to hearing about your adventure afterwards.
Big Clive
2021-02-10 10:02:21 +0000 UTCThe PICs seem to have too high a pin count. They're also possibly a bit too expensive for that level of product.
Big Clive
2021-02-10 10:01:19 +0000 UTCInteresting video, awful efficiency, but not unexpected. Impressed with the SMD chip replacement, my last attempt with some multi legged thing was shall we say less successful, I really should get a few of those practice boards and try again
RDM
2021-02-10 09:39:39 +0000 UTCCould this be a possible candidate for the chip? https://www.microchip.com/design-centers/intelligent-power/applications/wireless-power
Dr Andy Hill
2021-02-10 08:58:08 +0000 UTCOh yeah early morning before a long day. A good time for a video! Magic Thanks man! :)
Michael Thompson
2021-02-10 06:34:29 +0000 UTCI think the chip may be the same one as on this module: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001701284277.html But it doesn't look to have any markings on the 16-pin chip - at least not legible ones. In the fifth picture down in the listing body, there's a line pointing to it labelled with "16" and a string of Chinese ideograms, but it appears to only translate as "16 pin high-performance chip", not an identifier.
Charles
2021-02-10 02:41:17 +0000 UTCIf all else fails, the chip ID will almost certainly be etched onto the wafer. Out with the microscope!
Andrew Donaldson
2021-02-10 01:24:04 +0000 UTCThe HongWeiWei HW-225 looks to have a similar SOIC-16 chip. I wonder if they've done a custom repackaging job for Poundland? Here's the WL01 board which appears to be the same product you have but cutting out the Poundland middle man: https://www.globalsources.com/Wireless-charging/wireless-car-charger-Qi-10W-fast-charger-Car-Hold-1174792490p.htm?pos_dd=prod_PrdtDDImage_1_34#1174792490
Jon Knight
2021-02-10 01:22:20 +0000 UTCWould it be worth sending the chip (or the whole thing) to one of the chip decapping youtubers?
Ymir the Frost Giant
2021-02-10 00:30:47 +0000 UTCAs I mentioned in another video... I have that same weird unbranded chip in my cheaper-than-cheap QIs
Ryan Coleman
2021-02-09 23:42:27 +0000 UTC
