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I want to charge my laptop from a solar pv panel. It charges via USB-C and so I bought a cheapo usb solar panel off ebay and a "power bank".

Turns out, the "power bank" is only for phones and other 5V devices. And the solar cell can output a maximum of 12V. And neither will charge my laptop because it needs 20V over usb power delivery.

As someone who's done a bit of work with USB, but only USB-A and B, this made me feel like I'm behind the times, so I want to fix this by making my own 20V USB-C charger. I want to make (or buy) a board that can take any 20V-30V input voltage and clean it into 20V for my laptop (and ideally also power a beefier battery bank.

How do I go about doing this without buying a 20V regulator chip and the bits for buck-boost converter with a bunch of caps and coils and soldering it all to veroboard?

Smyther
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  • Does this answer your question? [USB type-c power supply (up to 20V 5A) from DC source](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/395548/usb-type-c-power-supply-up-to-20v-5a-from-dc-source) – Finbarr Sep 20 '21 at 22:56
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    There's a lot more to it than just a 20V regulator chip. You'll need to implement a full USB Power Delivery interface. – Finbarr Sep 20 '21 at 22:57
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    Use a buck boost converter to turn your 20-30v into regulated 20v, and then a USB-PD controller configured to advertise 20v. This will be fairly involved but there are a lot of resources online that can help you with USB PD design. – user1850479 Sep 21 '21 at 00:05
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    So there are no products to do what I want? All the ready-to-go USB-C PD boards you can buy expect a clean 20V/18V/12V/9V/5V input and I'll have to do this myself? – Smyther Sep 21 '21 at 18:00

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