Marco Tabini built Dr. PD, an open-source USB-C Power Delivery protocol analyzer that operates up to 48 volts and 240 watts, the full ceiling of the PD specification. It sits inline between a source and sink, or emulates a sink to characterize a source alone. The hardware supports the complete range of USB power protocols and a crowdfunding campaign is planned for those who want a finished unit.
The real problem Dr. PD solves is invisibility. Cheap USB-C PD hardware routinely violates standards, delivers wrong voltages, or collapses under rated current loads, and until now there has been no simple bench tool to catch it in the act. This analyzer makes that failure visible and measurable.
The project lives on Hackaday.io and the firmware and hardware files are on GitHub under the T76-org account. Read the full write-up for the protocol support breakdown and the design decisions behind the inline versus emulation modes. Those details are where the real engineering story is.
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