PD-in/USB-C/3.0 storage over splitter compatibility question or troubleshooting

[Bryce]

Continuing the discussion from PD/USB-A splitter recommendations:

Hello, I’m trying to determine for sure if the Brax is compatible with these PD-in OTG adapters or not?

I’ve been mostly pleased and functional with my Brax3 for some months, but now I’m trying something I haven’t before, to use with a USB-C/USB3.0/HDMI/VGA splitter with PD-in (100W), I think PD stands for Power Delivery but not sure, anyways I took a look thru the specs and didn’t see anything mentioned about specific compatibility with this function, but I don’t know that such a designation exists from the handset spec perspective as from what I understand it’s just power on the input pin with some logic circuitry to protect data transfers over the same connector.

The specific adapter I’ve tried is Benfei model I picked up cheap awhile back, it has 1 USB-A 3.0 port for data connections, 1 USB-C port for “PD-in 100W“ per the label, a HDMI port and a VGA port.

With the above, my Brax3 will charge, but not at the same time as I access a USB storage drive. To be clear, I can plug in the miscro-sd power from my charger, and the Brax recognizes it and charges, but only if I plug it in before the external drive. If however I plug the storage drive in first, or disconnect and reconnect it with the PD-in already connected, the Brax will recognize the storage but will no longer charge. I have confirmed this behavior w 2 different USB-C cables which both show fast chargin, and both a USB thumb drive (un powered) and a SATA-USB powered drive carriage adapter (separately powered by AC).

I have not been able to get VGA or HDMI to work, but TBH that’s been a lesser priority over the PD-in with storage attached as that is my first goal for purposes of not draining the battery while making large file transfers and such, but eventually I would like to be able to drive the monitor with the Brax while charging and using external storage.

SO I guess I don’t know if the behavior I described is normal for this PD-in & USB storage adapter, or if it’s perhaps a limitation of the Brax, or simply a malfunctioning adapter. If anyone knows the Brax should work fine with this, then I’ll happily shop for another adapter as long as there’s reasonable confidence it should work. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this “Benfei“ adaptor is defective even if it is new, no manual, no support, etc.

If anyone has some experience or knowledge about these things, I’d appreciate it. Please and thanks in advance!

[george]

The phone just draws 2 Amperes at 5 Volts if it’s available, I have connected it both to PD and QC with voltage and amperage indication but it stays at 5 Volts.

You probably can’t get the video signal because the specific hub is not recognized by Android.

The situation is different with the new batch with the fast charging.

[Bryce]

Thanks for that, would you share with me which hubs you’ve been successful with? Or a link to a suggested listing would be appreciated as well.

[george]

The only hub I had I lost it and haven’t tested it, I think someone has reported some working models , search the forum.

[Bryce]

Thx for your time.

[guardian241]

I have tried many different OTG PD hubs and splitters and have come to the conclusion that there is something incorrect with the Brax3 OTG implementation

[Bryce]

yeah that seems the most common consensus. How hard is it to fix I wonder? Maybe starting with debugging USB serial comms?

[george]

Getting a LogCat with a USB cable or WiFi will probably show you synchronization errors etc which will be probably already on the internet as Linux kernel patches, doing an effort to move them to Lineage will be enough.

[Bryce]

ok thank you for that.

[george]

I told Lazarus to get a kernel dmesg as he has rooted his phone, which is more helpful because the problem is almost certainly down in Linux.

[qxzd]

I have 2 brax 3 phones and some moto g phones same thing happens on all of them the