The FARSENSE USB 5V to 12V DC Step Up Cable

The FARSENSE USB 5V to 12V DC Step Up Cable

Hi everyone,

Today, I will talk about the FARSENSE USB 5V to 12V DC Step Up Cable. This is a USB cable that Steps Up the voltage from 5V to 12V. The purpose of these cables is to allow you to power small 12V devices like portable modems or routers that use a low amperage. It is not meant to be used on high power devices like hard drives, as those require more power in order to spin up.

This particular cable came in a small box, having the cable inside a bag inside it:

It also came with a small barrel connector adapter that may be useful for some devices. However, from my experience, I’ve only seen this small connector on some 5V USB hubs to provide additional power. In those, this cable should not be used, as this supplies 12V and those USB hubs require a 5V power source.

Farsense USB 5V to 12V DC Step Up cable out of bag

I connected the cable to my USB meter via a barrel to Micro USB adapter that came with another power supply. We can see that the cable can provide up to 12.1V:

Farsense USB 5V to 12V DC Step Up cable connected to USB meter

The cable looks almost like any other but has its own circuitry in the USB-A side. It also doesn’t heat up, which is a good sign.

To further test it, I connected it to a 12V USB Hub, where it was able to power it. With the meter, we can see that the hub is performing the step down to 5V, which is what USB ports use:

Farsense USB 5V to 12V DC Step Up cable connected to USB Hub

I also tested it with a refurbished TP-Link Archer A7 V5 router I got that I’m currently using as a 2.4Ghz access point. This router specification says that the power input must be 12V 1.5A, but this cable seems to power it on, and it works fine. That said, I’m just using it as a 2.4Ghz access point, so everything else, including DHCP and its other features, are not being used. It is also running the DD-WRT firmware instead of TP-Link’s official firmware. So far, this cable is still in use with it and have not presented any issues like random restarts:

11 - TP-Link Archer A7 V5 router connected

Conclusion

This cable is really handy to power 12V devices on the go. It is marketed as a cable designed to power small, portable on-the-go modems, but can be used to power any low-power 12V device as long as it uses less than 1A. Using it on something that consumes more may cause the device to fail or kick the USB adapter’s power protection circuit. That said, this cable does specify that it is made for up to 12V 1A devices, and it serves that purpose very well.

You can get this cable on Amazon at the following link:


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