PinePower 120W desktop power supply features display, USB PD, QC 3.0 and wireless charging

Pine64’s January update includes the launch of PinePhone with Mobian operating system, some limited details about the upcoming Quartz64 RK3566 SBC that will ship with 4 to 8GB RAM, and other news about all their products.

There’s not enough details yet to write a post about Quartz64, but another product caught my eyes: PinePower. Yes, Pine64 is now offering power supply, and last month they presented PinePower 65W GaN power adapter that looks similar to MINIX NEO P1 power supply, albeit slightly larger. But I find the desktop version of the power supply even more interesting with an integrated display that shows voltage and current for each port, and also adds Qi wireless charging.

PinePower “Desktop” version specifications:

Display – Shows individual port voltage and current status
USB charging ports
- 1x USB Type-C PD port up to 65W output with support for 5V/3A, 9V/3A, 12V/3A, 15V/3A, 20V/3.25A
- 1x QC 3.0 compatible USB Type-A port up to 18W output with support for 5V/3A, 9V/2A, 12V/1.5A
- 3x USB Type-A ports for a combined 45W output with each port capable of 5V/3A
Wireless charging – Qi charging technology; 10W fast charging
Power Supply – Input: AC 100-240V 50/60Hz; output: 120W via 2x internal 65W switching power supplies
Dimensions – 123 x 115 x 48mm
Weight – 543 grams
Certifications – FCC, CE, ROHS

The power supply is a pretty good fit for Pine64 devices, as you could use to USB-C port to power Pinecil soldering iron, while charging Pinebook Pro laptop, PinePhone, and the PineTab tablet simultaneously. AFAIK, there aren’t any Pine64 products that can use QC3.0 fast charging or wireless charging yet, but this should work with your other boards or devices.

The PinePower Desktop power supply ships with a 2-pin US or EU power cord. That means there’s no option for UK/AU power cord, but as long as you can get a C7 non-polarized power cord that should be fine.

Pine64 explains they used a reference design to make the power supply, but they improved on the design as they found out component failure occurred after 2 hours of sustained full load with the original design. So they made “significant adjustments” to the PSU and tested it successfully under full load for 12 hours.

PinePower 120W desktop power supply is available for $34.99 on the community’s store, where you’ll also find the 65W GaN charger for $24.99. Since the power supply is based on a reference design, I went to Aliexpress to find a similar PSU, and the closest I could find costs under $25 including shipping with most of the same features, but one extra USB port, and the USB-C port appears to be limited to 5V/3A. Specifications are not very clear, so we don’t know what the total power output is, but it should be 81W maximum in the best case scenario with 18W for QC 3.0, 48W for the other four USB Type-A ports, each rated 5V/2.4A, and 15W for the USB-C port.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.