It's obviously a technical/design debt on the PBP.
The reason Pine probably included both in the design may be because they have a mountain of barrel-jack power supplies and getting in USB-C PD power supplies to provide with the PBP would have been very expensive and not reduced the size of the barrel-jack power supply mountain.
Probably more mileage in discussing why PBP are not supplied with all four types of socket modules for the power supply? And are shipped with just two of them (it's just weird those parts probably only cost a couple of pennies each) -- if you're really out of luck neither of the two supplied socket modules are usable in the country of the shipping destination. At least if you get a paperweight power supply due to not having the right socket module (like mine is) USB-C provides another power option.
Or discussing why USB-C PD is not enough to fully charge the battery while using the PBP?
Or discussing what happens when a power supply is connected to both ports at the same time?
It circles back to eliminating the technical/design debt ending up using just UDB-C PD and changing circuitry to adapt switching the PD.
Thanks @ lot378, this was actually helpful.
Is it really incapable of being charged over USB-C while in use? And, could we expect the design debt to be used up when the successor to the PBP is released?
@ tophneal
Regardless of the amount of hardware overlap, I still don't see how adding an extra piece of hardware would decrease costs. That would mean the barrel jack somehow has a negative cost associated with it, in order to be below the zero cost of leaving it out.
Do you mean perhaps, like lot378 said, that there is a surplus of barrel jacks which have storage costs? That would explain the negative cost of including them.
I think there are some things that should be improved when discussing USB and power.
First of all is the PBP accepting more power over USB-C.
Second is providing enough power to the USB 3 (Type A connection) port.
I have an external BR drive and it should work by only drawing power from a USB 3 port.
The BR drive does work with other laptops, but not when connected to the USB 3 port of the PBP.
I can imagine that a barrel charger is cheaper than a USB-C charger.
On the other hand the price shouldn't have to be much more expensive, as a cheap phone charger will do.
Now that some companies are rumoured to stop shipping chargers with their phones by default, perhaps we can do the same with the PBP.
No charger by default and have the option for barrel or USB-C charger.
(08-07-2020, 05:01 AM)jiyong Wrote: Now that some companies are rumoured to stop shipping chargers with their phones by default, perhaps we can do the same with the PBP.
No charger by default and have the option for barrel or USB-C charger.
Exactly! And since it's USB, even if someone doesn't have a USB-C charger, they'll certainly at least have a USB-A charger. So the only thing Pine needs to include at a minimum is a USB-A to -C cable.
And again, besides what other people have said, the cost of the barrel jack + the barrel jack charger is not going to be "70 cents". At the very minimum those two together would be something like $5-$10, and now that I think about it the one thing the PB Pro is really missing is a backlit keyboard. Swapping the barrel jack for a backlit keyboard is the best trade I've ever heard of.
I agree though, there's some stuff we just don't know at this point to speculate why Pine made that decision. Are there any Pine employees here who could shed light on this?
08-07-2020, 07:00 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-07-2020, 07:09 AM by tophneal.)
(08-07-2020, 05:01 AM)jiyong Wrote: First of all is the PBP accepting more power over USB-C.
No, IIRC the power tests showed it draws slightly less than through barrel.
@ gurk
I'm saying the barrel jacks and PSUs were already there (and will continue to be b/c of the widespread use in other, better selling Pine products,) so yes, it is as you're describing. The real loss would be in the USB-C ports, since the PBP is the first device from Pine to offer it. Moreso if including PSUs for it.
The PBP has slightly higher power demands from its PSU(s) compared to most phones, so not including on at shipping leaves people open to issues. Not including wall worts with phones is a bit easier to pull off if the phone doesn't need anymore than ~1-1.5A. Good luck using that wall wort to charge you PBP. You'd have to not use it to get a respectable charge. The barrel and USB-C are already quite easy to catch up to through normal usage, a phone charger would gain little to no progress while the PBP was under any use.
@ tophneal
When the display is off (such as when the lid is closed) I doubt it would use more power than a phone would in active use. So even in the worst-case scenario that you mention, where the only charger the user has is a wall-wart phone charger, it still doesn't sound that bad. Just set the display to auto- turn-off when not in use, or the user can buy a charger separately at checkout.
Perhaps a more relevant question... How much money does it cost, in total, to include the barrel jack and the charger? Is it $5? $10? $15? I'm wondering what exactly we could be giving up in order to include the barrel jack and PSU.
08-07-2020, 09:08 AM
Gat damnit! I didn't want to have to do this...
MODTALK:
Please DO NOT ABUSE the forum's reputation feature! Using reputation against another user because of their age range is inappropriate and immature. Save it for something worthy of it.
(I'm one of those "entitled Millennials," btw, and so are many other users in this community. Please don't be so quick to vilify people you don't see eye-to-eye with. If someone or a conversation bothers you, simply do not interact any further. Negative reputation should be reserved for those misleading others, or acting in bad faith, NOT dissenting opinions.
If I notice a continuation of this behavior, I will close the thread.
When I said cheap phone charger, I didn't mean cheapest.
Even QC3 (5V 3A, etc.) is even less than $5 for a consumer.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000917940976.html
And I meant that the USB-C port should be improved in a future revision/model to accept a higher charge.
(08-06-2020, 04:13 PM)lot378 Wrote: The reason Pine probably included both in the design may be because they have a mountain of barrel-jack power supplies and getting in USB-C PD power supplies to provide with the PBP would have been very expensive and not reduced the size of the barrel-jack power supply mountain.
After researching the PBP's charging logic a bit, which can be read about in another thread, I can only confirm the above statement.
The primary way for powering the PBP is through the barrel plug, and the support for USB PD (Type-C chargers) was just slapped on (i.e., botched) as an additional low-cost feature. Only the basics of the USB PD were used. Even the powering through the barrel jack was somewhat botched, as 3 A at 5 V simply isn't enough to power the PBP in many cases, which causes unnecessary battery drain when connected to wall power, which is both bad and absurd from any standpoint, IMHO.
Why was it done that way? I can't know for sure, but the $200 price point had to do much with that. Most probably, Pine64 has a ton of low-cost 3 A/5 V "barrel-style" power supplies that are used for their other SBCs, and that was probably the deciding factor. Implementing full support for USB PD and supplying 30 W Type-C chargers with PBPs would increase the unit price a lot. Even supplying PBP-specific 5 A/5 V "barrel-style" power supplies, which would provide adequate power, would probably increase the price.
Please, don't get me wrong, I really love what Pine64 does. They try to provide as much hardware as possible for one's hard-earned cash. However, the above-described unfortunate decisions about the PBP's input power turned it from an awesome to into an almost unusable product.  Let's hope that the v2.2 (or whichever) revision of the PineBook Pro motherboard will introduce the necessary improvements.
"in the worst case scenario this USB or that USB"
In the worst case scenario, I cut the plug off and stick the wires into the barrel jack. Do that with a USB socket 
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