Intellijel 7u USB B connection powered?

Hi everyone,

I bought a usb B to usb A cable today to use my USB B port on my case to power my 16n. Unfortunately it didn’t work. Originally I considered maybe my cable was a data only cable with no power lines attached but now I’m wondering if the USB B actually supplies power?
If not, is there a way to send power over that port? Happy to DIY it if necessary.

Cheers!

Which case are you using, and which port?

Im using the intellijel 104 7u, and im plugging into the usb port on the top of the case.

That USB port is not powered on its own. It connects to a header which is then connected to the uMIDI 1U.

If you’re not using a MIDI 1U it’s possible to supply power to that header by connecting it to the busboard 5V with some jumpers.

Oh that’s great news!
I’m not using any 1U modules that connect to the midi/USB board. I am using one din midi port (midi out) to send i2c to my ER-301 via the white 3 pined header. Besides that the board is untouched. What header and pins do I need to connect to supply power to the USB port?

Here’s the pinout for the MIDI header:

image https://forum.intellijel.com/uploads/default/original/1X/6ebc8d39c3b7925873ce61b0bd444cf3044cb1f5.png

The power bus board has small headers which have the +5V and GND that connect to the USB 1U tile. You could wire those to VBUS and GND of the header.

Note that this is definitely not a “supported” configuration and is in fact highly non-standard because of the weird cable you’re using (the port on the case is a device port, not a host port, so should not be supplying power!) and if you accidentally end up plugging the case into a computer or something in the future you could damage one or both of them.

I wouldn’t recommend doing this unless you are reasonably comfortable with electronics :slight_smile:

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Thank you so much for this! I am comfortable with electronics and dont plan on using the USB port for anything other then powering my 16n. If this changes and I decide I need the port for normal use I will make sure I disconnect it from the 5v line.
I have been thinking about moving my ER-301 into my palette where i would like to use the 3.5mm midi jack as my i2c input and the USB B port to power the 16n. It would be great to utilise those two ports and save my 1U space for other modules. Would this be possible?

Here’s the pinout for the Palette case:

image

USB you’d connect as described above. The I2C would go to that 3.5mm jack whichever way you need it to…

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Brilliant!
Thank you for all this.
First ill try out the 7U :grinning:

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Thanks so much for posting this. Quick question. I was hoping to do the same (jump the 5v to the USB B case out on a 7U to power my new sq 64).

Thanks to your pinout post I already have pins 1, 2, 3 and 4 jumped to a Disting EX Alpha midi (GT4/MIDI header).

Would jumping the 5v and GND to pins 8 and 7 impact my current set up? I can’t imagine that it would but I’d love another opinion. I guess what I’m worried about is sending any of that 5v up pins 1,2,3 or 4 without knowing it.

Ah I was going to comment on the other thread about this :slight_smile: I think in theory it should work but of course can’t guarantee 100%. Note that the GND pin is also the case power ground, so if you connect things the wrong way around it’s possible to fry things. Anyway, the disclaimer about this being a user modification and not officially supported definitely applies here.