USB Breakout Board

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parkview
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Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2014 8:25 pm
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USB Breakout Board

Post by parkview » Sun Apr 19, 2020 4:20 pm

Been having a few USB issues with a project and thought it would be handy to have a USB breakout board. One of my PCB's uses a CP2102 USB-UART IC. When I plug it into my laptop it causes the laptop to turn off the USB port! I need to restart the laptop to get it back online. With the number of things I have running all the time, this is a pain. It didn't take long to whip up a simple PCB for my needs:
USB Protection Board sml.jpg
USB Protection Board sml.jpg (34.48 KiB) Viewed 4175 times

This will allow me quickly to isolate and measure the various USB lines. Yes, I did have a stripped out cable, but it's a pain to use. This PCB will have a loop test pin (top) for each USB wire. The central jumpers will allow me to isolate each wire as needed. The two power LEDs connect to either side of the USB VBUS lines and are jumpered so they can be off or on as needed. All the jumpers are 2.54mm (0.1"), but maybe I should have used the smaller 1.27mm jumpers.

As a backup, I also purchased an assembled USB isolation board for a bit more protection as well. This unit is only USB 1.0, but it totally isolates one side from the other via a small transformer and power supplies for each line.

parkview
Guru Maker
Posts: 603
Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2014 8:25 pm
Location: Busselton
Contact:

Re: USB Breakout Board

Post by parkview » Fri Apr 24, 2020 10:37 pm

I thought I could wait for the board, but I can't. An idea came to me in the shower - that I could adapt and use the USB Cable Tester PCB by cutting a few traces and adding on a 2 x 4 male 2mm pinheader block thats mounted on a sliver of Kapton tape to protect the two centre pins from the 2512 Fuse footprint:
USB1_sml.jpg
USB1_sml.jpg (47.85 KiB) Viewed 4167 times
The wires are threaded through the mounting holes for a micro USB. I think it came out rather well and tests out perfectly:
USB_sml.jpg
USB_sml.jpg (50.71 KiB) Viewed 4167 times

parkview
Guru Maker
Posts: 603
Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2014 8:25 pm
Location: Busselton
Contact:

Re: USB Breakout Board

Post by parkview » Wed Jun 03, 2020 10:45 pm

The USB Breakout PCB arrived this morning. I made a few of these up in the afternoon. Only five SMD parts, so it didn't take long to laser cut a stencil and hotplate the parts into place. It took a bit longer to then hand solder all the Through Hole parts into place:
USB_Protection_Board_sml.jpg
USB_Protection_Board_sml.jpg (37.26 KiB) Viewed 3706 times
I am happy with the way it turned out. It should make working and testing USB projects a bit easier. There is a power LED indicator for both sides of the USB board (is power present?). I can migrate the central links one by one as needed which will connect the relevant LH Micro USB line to the RH side USB A socket. There is a row of breakout test points along the top to make it easy to monitor the LH or RH USB lines. Of course, if all the pin headers are engaged, then the test pins will be the same. The USB ID pin terminates on the board, as USB A doesn't carry that line.

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