As soon as upon a time, USB used to be nonetheless hip, cool, and simple to grasp. You want to stand up to 500 mA out of a port, which wasn’t a lot, however some firms produced USB cup heaters anyway which have been a little bit of a comic story. Alternatively, one enterprising hacker took issues additional again in 2004, whipping up a potent USB scorching plate powered through a cavalcade of ports.
The challenge used to be spawned after a USB cup hotter unfortunately didn’t cook dinner a tight fried egg. To rectify this, a souped-up model used to be constructed. The cup hotter used to be stripped of its unique {hardware}, and fitted with six 2-ohm resistors as an alternative. At 5 volts, every would draw 2.5 amps and the entire energy draw can be at the order of 75 watts. Each and every resistor would thus want 5 USB ports to energy it to stick underneath the five hundred mA restrict, for a complete of 30 USB ports in overall. Six PCI-to-USB playing cards have been put in in a motherboard for this goal, offering the needful ports. A 500 watt energy provide intended the pc had a lot of juice to run the new plate.
Cooking proved a hit, producing a tight quantity of warmth to brown up some red meat. Served with some white rice, it proved an ok meal, despite the fact that it sounds as if with a famous style of digital elements.
This wouldn’t be this sort of problem lately. USB-C is in a position to handing over 100 watts via a unmarried port at 20 volts and 5 amps. Alternatively, there’s one thing joyous and captivating about cooking on a ludicrous hotplate working off 30 USB 1.1 ports. The ingenuity is to be applauded, and it’s actually a challenge of its time.
