Worst-Case Ratings Matrix
Every Board P part's voltage/current limits checked against the 15V PD-contracted rail and the SMAJ20A's worst-case transient clamp ceiling, validated against primary manufacturer datasheets — including the C456012 USB-C receptacle discrepancy this audit found and resolved.
This page validates every fitted Board P part against two reference points, per primary manufacturer datasheets rather than any project's own prose claims about those parts:
15 V nominal — the steady-state PD-contracted rail voltage.
~32.4 V transient clamp ceiling — the worst-case voltage D5 (SMAJ20A) can let through during a surge event (10/1000 µs waveform) before it fully clamps. Any part sharing the
VBUS_INnet sees this ceiling during a fault, not just 15 V.
The C456012 discrepancy — resolved
zudo-pd's own USB-C connector page describes its C456012 receptacle as "Voltage Rating: 20V maximum, USB PD 3.0 compatible." That claim does not hold up against the part's actual manufacturer datasheet.
Primary evidence. The manufacturer datasheet for C456012 (Shenzhen Shouhan Technology Co., Ltd, "TYPE-C 6P"), pulled directly from JLCPCB's part page, states in its headline RATING field:
RATING（额定值）: 5 V 3 A
This is corroborated by JLCPCB's own product page for the same part, whose spec table lists "Rated Voltage: 5V" as a first-class field, not an inferred default. The same 5 V-class rating appears identically on all three alternate 6-pin receptacles zudo-pd's own docs had already flagged as candidates (C668623, C5156600, C36936554) — this is a labeling convention across a whole family of budget 6-pin Type-C receptacles at JLCPCB, not a quirk of one part number.
What the 5 V figure actually means. The same C456012 datasheet's mechanical/ durability test section separately specifies dielectric withstand voltage of 100–500 VAC (1 minute, ≤0.5 mA trip current) and insulation resistance ≥100 MΩ at 100 VDC — both far above the 15–32.4 V range this design operates in. The "5 V 3 A" figure is the manufacturer's headline continuous-duty rating for the part's most common use case (plain USB 5 V bus power), not a hard breakdown ceiling. But a headline rating that undersells the part by 4× (or that a reviewer cannot verify covers PD voltages at all) is not something to route 15 V PD current through without a documented replacement — especially when JLCPCB's own catalog carries genuinely 20 V-rated parts in the same mechanical family for a comparable price.
Replacement: C283540 (TYPE-C-31-M-17). Found via the JLCPCB parts database by searching the USB Connectors category for explicitly 20 V-rated, right-angle SMD, 6-pin power-only receptacles (the same mounting style as C456012, so the swap is a drop-in at the schematic-symbol level). Verified against the manufacturer datasheet (HRQ Electronics), which states in its own ELECTRICAL PERFORMANCE section:
4-1. CURRENT RATING: 5.0 A, VOLTAGE RATING: 20 V 4-2. INSULATION RESISTANCE: 100 MΩ MIN 4-3. DIELECTRIC WITHSTAND VOLTAGE: AC 100 V FOR 1 MINUTE 4-4. LOW CONTACT RESISTANCE: initial 30 mΩ, after-life 50 mΩ
The pinout is identical to C456012's convention (A5=CC1, A9=VBUS, A12=GND, B12=GND,
B9=VBUS, B5=CC2), so this is a direct schematic-symbol swap, not a redesign. Stock at JLCPCB was 33,876 units as of the 2026-07-25 DB snapshot — re-verify at order time per the usual LCSC stock caveat.
| C456012 (original, rejected) | C283540 (replacement) | |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer rating | 5 V, 3 A (primary datasheet) | 20 V, 5.0 A (primary datasheet) |
| Dielectric withstand | AC 100–500 V / 1 min | AC 100 V / 1 min |
| Insulation resistance | ≥100 MΩ | ≥100 MΩ |
| Mount style | 6P SMD, right-angle | 6P SMD, right-angle (same) |
| Pinout | A5/A9/A12/B12/B9/B5 = CC1/VBUS/GND/GND/VBUS/CC2 | Identical |
| Stock (DB 2026-07-25) | 527,859 | 33,876 |
| Verdict | Rejected — headline rating does not cover this design's PD range with any datasheet-provable margin | Selected — 33% margin at 15 V, explicit 20 V continuous rating |
Ratings matrix
| Part | Rated limit (primary source) | vs 15 V nominal | vs ~32.4 V clamp transient | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| U1 STUSB4500QTR — VDD pin | Absolute max 28 V (ST DS12499 Rev 5, Table 20 "Absolute maximum ratings"). Recommended operating range is 4.1–22 V (Table 21) — a narrower, separate figure | Pass, 46% margin below the 22 V operating ceiling | Exceeds the 28 V absolute max by ~4.4 V (16%) during a full clamp event | Residual risk, transient-only — unchanged from zudo-pd's own accepted tradeoff (see note below) |
| U1 STUSB4500QTR — CC1/CC2/CC1DB/CC2DB pins | Absolute max 22 V short-to-VBUS protection (DS12499 Table 20) | Pass | CC pins are not on the VBUS_IN net and are not directly exposed to the D5 clamp path | Pass |
| Q1 AO3401A | VDS absolute max −30 V (AOS datasheet Rev 3.1, Dec 2023, "Absolute Maximum Ratings") | Pass — Vgs ≈ −9.6 V at 15 V, well inside the ±12 V gate limit | Exceeds −30 V by ~2.4 V (8%) if VDS tracks the full clamp voltage during a fault | Residual risk, transient-only — this is the same margin gap zudo-pd's own board-split decision explicitly accepted for Q1, carried forward unchanged |
| D5 SMAJ20A | VRWM (standoff) 20 V, breakdown 22.2–24.5 V, clamp ≤32.4 V @ 10/1000 µs (JLCPCB catalog data, consistent with the datasheet figures zudo-pd's own decision doc cites) | Pass, 33% standoff margin | This is the device that defines the ceiling — passes by construction | Pass |
| J1 receptacle (C283540) | Voltage rating 20 V continuous, current 5.0 A (HRQ Electronics datasheet, see above) | Pass, 33% margin | Exceeds the 20 V continuous rating nominally, but the 100 VAC dielectric withstand test (≈141 V peak) covers the transient by a wide margin — this is an insulation-breakdown question, not a continuous-duty one | Pass (on insulation-breakdown grounds; flagged distinction between continuous rating and dielectric withstand) |
| JOUT — JST B6B-XH-A(LF)(SN) | 250 V, 3 A/contact (JLCPCB catalog, C144397) | Pass, wide margin | Pass, wide margin | Pass |
| C1 (10 µF, C13585) | 50 V X5R (JLCPCB catalog) | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| C2, C35 (100 nF, C1711) | 50 V X7R (JLCPCB catalog) | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| C30, C34 (1 µF, C15849) | 50 V X5R (JLCPCB catalog) — note: exceeds the 16 V figure in zudo-pd's own component notes, which was a legacy value, not this verified part's actual rating | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| R11–R16, R19, R20 (chip resistors) | 75 V (JLCPCB catalog, 0603 thick-film series) | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| R17, R18 (DNP, C23186) | 75 V | N/A — never populated on a powered build | N/A | Pass (DNP) |
| D6, D7 (DNP, C85382 PESD24VS1UB) | VRWM 24 V per Nexperia part family (matches zudo-pd's board-split-decision citation) | N/A — enclosed/production-build option only, never fitted on the bring-up build | N/A | Not evaluated against worst-case — optional provision only |
Summary
No fitted part has a hard absolute-maximum violation at the 15 V steady-state PD contract — every part passes with real margin. Two parts (U1's VDD pin and Q1's VDS) have a residual, transient-only margin gap against the SMAJ20A's absolute worst-case ~32.4 V clamp ceiling — a documented, accepted design tradeoff this audit inherits unchanged from zudo-pd's own board-split decision (it applies the same logic zudo-pd used to justify D5's own 20 V standoff choice: a hard surge clamp momentarily exceeding a downstream part's absolute-max rating is a known, transient-only residual risk, far better than a part with zero margin at the nominal operating voltage).
Note
While re-verifying this, the audit also found that zudo-pd's own citation of "VDD abs-max is 22 V (DS12499)" — repeated in that project's board-a-usb-pd-core doc — is actually the operating range ceiling (DS12499 Table 21), not the absolute maximumrating (DS12499 Table 20, which is 28 V). This is a small correction that makes U1's margin against the clamp ceiling better than zudo-pd's own docs implied (4.4 V over, not 10.4 V over), but the risk category — residual, transient-only, accepted — is unchanged.
The one genuine, datasheet-provable gap this audit found — the C456012 receptacle's 5 V-class manufacturer rating — has been closed by the C283540 swap documented above.
References
ST DS12499 Rev 5 (STUSB4500 datasheet) — Table 20 "Absolute maximum ratings", Table 21 "Operating conditions".
AOS AO3401A datasheet, Rev 3.1 (December 2023) — "Absolute Maximum Ratings" table.
Manufacturer datasheets for C456012 (Shenzhen Shouhan Technology, "TYPE-C 6P") and C283540 (HRQ Electronics, "TYPE-C-31-M-17"), both retrieved from JLCPCB's part pages.
Local JLCPCB parts database (snapshot dated 2026-07-25) for catalog ratings on passives, the D5/D6/D7 TVS/ESD parts, and the JOUT connector.
Board P — USB-PD Front End for the full component list and net table.