I received my PPM today and I tried to charge it with Apple 87W charger to no avail. I was under the impression that a higher wattage charger would be compatible with PPM as they both follow USB-C PD protocol.
I was hoping this would work 'coz I have that charger always plugged in and keep switching between various USB-C devices
Does anyone have any suggestion? I am charging the PPM with accompanying charger for now but hate to have another power cable for no good reason.
Check the supported specifications of your macbook charger.
PPM I think needs 20V-3.25A (65W) PD although the included charger has a bit different label. Not sure which is the actual one. There are also some people saying that results varies on each charger/powerbank.
Somewhere here was info about the PPM it want to have 15V-4A (60W) to charge and not 20V-3A (same 60W) which provided by apple charger.
I have seen that. It was part of an unrelated thread and hence I created a new thread. The discussion said that the PPM looks for 20V and Apple provide 20.5V. I am not sure if that is hardware or would a USB driver update add new discovery and negotiation mechanism.
Not sure how to find that information. Where can I find it?
It might even be that the PPM can’t handle/won’t negotiate a power contract involving anything higher than 15V. This is something that is handled by the PD sink policy logic inside the PPM (which may very well be integrated in the charging circuitry). If it’s possible to upgrade firmware/configuration of the charging circuitry in the PPM then yes there may be a way to increase charger compatibility. I haven’t seen any close-up shots of the charging / PD circuitry so I’m not able to determine what was designed in.
Hello, for the moment we tested it with the MacBook Pro 13.3" charger: it works. We will check with the 15"
“I tried - it works” 
Could you please provide tech spec of necessary power for PPM?.
Ugh, now I hope there won’t be problems with the new powerbank I bought for PPM purpose. I only looked at the 65w requirement… If PPM wants 15V-4A, will it be a problem then if it says 5/9/12/15/20V@3A, 20V@5A on output…? :s Guess I’ll find out regardless in due time
Can anyone confirm any 3rd party chargers that do work please?
I’ve mostly been using the Google Pixelbook charger (labeled 5/9/12/15V 3A, 20V 2.25A) seems to do the trick.
I’ve also been using a LifePowr A3 battery (labeled 5/9/12/15V 3A, 20V 4A) which ran a multi hour Switch session.
I can confirm that a (5V 3A, 9V 2A) charger is refused and has no effect.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to know whether the battery is actually charging while the projector is running. The battery level in general is pretty opaque. Hoping for more details in future firmwares.
I can confirm that when the projector is fully charged (blue LED), it can run Normal off either of these power sources without depleting the projector battery. This is despite the former power source only supplying 45W max. So PicoPix Max is ok with less than 65 watts.
If the MacBook adapters don’t work, I suspect that the PicoPix Max charges at 15V, which is apparently not labelled on the Apple chargers (only 5/9/20V). I have a 20VUSB-C dock which refuses to charge PicoPix Max, as well as headphones and other smaller accessories.
To confirm - the PPM is not compatible with Apple’s MacBook Pro 85w power supply.
I just tested it with three types of USB C and thunderbolt cables and no power
Hi @danopia,
With the specs below, do you think a powerbank will works with PPM :
100W USB-C Power Delivery 3.0 Output: 5V/3A, 9V/3A, 12V/3A, 15V/3A, 20V/3A, 20V/5A
I think you’ll be ok. Should be fine to run the projector normally, and also charge it up when off. However, it might not allow for charging the projector battery while the projector is running. Hard to tell.
Note that the official charger supports 15V@4A, while yours only does 3A at 15V. We’re still not sure what voltage PicoPix Max charges at; if it really is 15V, then your battery bank probably won’t charge as quickly as with the official charger.
I installed the “Ampere” app through Aptoide. It can’t display the amperage (because it requires access to Google services), but it displays the voltage : my picopix max is charging at 12.795V ans discharging around 12.3V
So just checked the specs on my Macbook Pro 87W charger. It says -
“20.2V 4.3A, 9V 3A, 5.2V 2.4A”
Whereas the PPM charger has the following specs -
“20V 3.25A, 15V 4A, 12V 3A, 9V 3A, 5V 3A”
So there’s a mismatch on the power output between my Mac charger and PPM’s charger. The 9V 3A band matches but I am sure that’s not enough to power the device.
BTW what happens if I keep the Mac charger connected? Does it slow down the power drain of the PPM? If PPM is shut off does it charge, albeit slowly?
I’ve been trying to keep track of what specs I need in an extra charger, and had thought 15V 3A (from a PD port) would work to at least power the projector, if not charge the battery while it’s running. Is this correct?
Philips said that Normal mode uses about 40W. So if your 15V*3A=45W charger WORKS (it should, but hard to completely confirm without trying it) it would charge the projector decently while running if you use Energy Saver, and charge a little while running in Normal. It would not charge in Presentation and result in the projector running out of power and dimming intermittently during usage.
I’ve tested with a 45W charger and it does a pretty good job in Energy Saver and such.
This is still assuming that 20V is unacceptable since otherwise 20V would way more easily supply 65W. We don’t know the actual MacBook Charger problem for sure yet.