Self Powered Hub that uses D/bay port (PoweredUSB) for power

I believe the DBay port is proprietary, used only by dell specifically for powering some external optical drives manufactured by dell.  As such, I doubt you are going to find any 3rd party hardware that uses the DBay connection because dell may not even have published the technical specs of it.

I have been curious about this myself and have researched it to a degree. I don't know of any 'powered' USB hubs but there are power ratings for USB outputs on the hubs. Each device requires a power pull from the one USB port and depending on the amount of power it requires will depend on weather or not other devices or the hub will work when plugged in. Most hubs have a habit of 'dying' when you plug in devices that require more power than the hub will transfer, so you need to get a specific hub or a powered hub that regulates and disperses the required power to your devices.

 

It will take some research, but without knowing your power requirements I can't recommend anything for you. However, D-Link has some nice hubs (I am looking at the DUB-H7) that are capable of delivering power to most devices that need it. It isn't all that portable but its a start.

Good point, thanks!  It would be very easy to modify an existing powered USB hub.  Ok, have to run before someone on this forum beats me to it....:smileywink:

Interesting.  I can see how that would be useful.  However, does any manufacturer of laptops except for Dell (even IBM) install these ports on their machines?  Why would a powered USB hub manufacturer limit their market to just owners of these specific Dell machines.  I guess you just have to wait till these become much more common (which may not happen because of IBM holding on to the patent and collecting royalties from others).

True, but I was hoping some especialty electronics place had come up with one, happens all the time with some specialty items even if the market is small.

I think you just gave yourself a great small business startup idea!  :smileyhappy:

It is actually not proprietary, it is a little known standard: http://www.poweredusb.org/.

Dell and others sell a connector that connects to the entire port on the computer end and has a separate USB and power connector on the other.  A powered USB hub that can use that instead of a power brick is an ideal application for that D/bay port.

Excellent, just remember to send me a sample when you are done!  :smileyvery-happy: