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Some Reversible USB-C Cables/Adapters Could Cause Irreversible Damage
TheRealHocusLocus writes: Three Decembers ago I lauded the impending death of the trapezoid. Celebration of the rectangle might be premature however, because in the rush-to-market an appalling number of chargers, cables and legacy adapters have been discovered to be non-compliant. There have been performance issues with bad USB implementation all along, but now — with improved conductors USB-C offers to negotiate up to 3A in addition the 900ma base, so use of a non-compliant adapter may result in damage. Google engineer and hero Benson Leung has been waging a one-man compliance campaign of Amazon reviews to warn of dodgy devices and praise the good. Reddit user bmcclure937 offers a spreadsheet summary of the reviews. It's a jungle out there, don't get fried.
If you're relying on the cable having enough intelligence to prevent the two devices from hurting each other, you've already messed things up.
Timothy you've mentioned this before..
http://hardware.slashdot.org/s...
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
This is a new development. Benson Leung found a cable so bad it destroyed his analyzing equipment, and he says he won't be able to do reviews anymore because of it. The cable was actually missing wires internally, among other things.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
When it comes to USB, test your equipment, even if you haven't upgraded to Type C yet.
I've personally discovered two counterfeit or substandard (depending upon your personal definitions of the terms) USB charging cables.
What I use to test is a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10-inch tablet. This tablet wants approximately 0.7-0.8 amps at 5 volts, but it will charge in a degraded mode if the charging cable isn't up to snuff, or if it's plugged into a desktop or laptop (which normally only supply 0.5 amps).
Every cable should begin by charging in the degraded mode when plugged into my laptop and then upgrade to normal charging mode when plugged into any of my half dozen or so 2 amp USB chargers. Among over a dozen cables, I detected two that were not up to snuff, and you'd be surprised at my results. One cable from the dollar store was garbage, but another, colored cable from the dollar store that had fancy LEDs was fine. Three 10 feet cables were fine. The other reject was an average-looking cable with an average feel. It did not appear to be substandard or counterfeit.
If you want to get fancy you can get a device from banggood.com that measures current and voltage across the USB port. They cost about $3 shipped. That is how I determined that my tablet will draw approximately 0.7-0.8 amps. From that experience I'd be surprised if many devices actually draw a full 2 amps. It's nice to have a 2 amp supply, though, because it gives you a safety factor if your cables are somewhat substandard. Maybe the newest 2016 phones will draw close to 2 amps. Get the meter and find out!
Based upon my experience, the best USB chargers are from Samsung and anything else that has a counterfeit-resistant UL sticker. And also based upon my experience, if you notice that a charging cable is getting warm, you should probably replace it because it's dissipating electricity as heat rather than conducting it.
This isn't a USB 3 problem, it's just a general problem with stuff you plug in to computers.
The issue was that the power and ground wires were swapped over. Even on USB 2 that only supplies 500mA it would most likely have killed something. And the same goes for every other port on the machine, including HDMI, Thunderbolt, FireWire, PS2 and eSATA+power.
Any type of cable wired this way is liable to kill something.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The missing wires weren't the really bad part - the result of that would've "merely" been that it wouldn't work as a USB3 SuperSpeed cable and only connect in USB2 High Speed mode.
What really set that one apart was that it had VCC and GND swapped on one end.
We need inexpensive reliable testers for usb cables. Basically a box where you plug the cables in and it does the various electrical tests.
John_Chalisque
They just design things right from the beginning - don't buy cheap - don't drive Honda!
What is that, Some sort of joke? Hondas have a reputation of being more dependable (and more expensive) than their domestic counterparts.
what was your point, exactly ? https://www.choice.com.au/elec...
ahem... http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-r... http://bgr.com/2014/06/13/ipho... http://bgr.com/2015/06/03/appl...
A quick analysis of the workbook by TheRealHocusLocus finds that "Approved" cables cost ~60% more than unapproved cables on the average.
Apprvd Average of Cost
NO $10.61
Yes $16.71
-- Jared
The damage is the fault of the port design, not the cable. The port should be able to handle short circuits, switched wires, and incorrect power control signals without permanent damage. What if the perfectly approved Apple cable has been chafed and is now shorted to ground? Fail gracefully.
One connects to all of your devices and accesses the data, the other is a hardware standard.
Please don't let any of us stop you from shelling out for oxygen-free, directional, sub-molecularly-orientated USB cables.
The surprising thing in all of this is a lack of regulation.
Surely there ought to be a body like the FCC that issues a certification for electrical components sold by a major American online retailer like Amazon before these things even get listed.
There is an organization that certifies USB stuff. If a cable has a little sticker with that certification logo, it's probably good.
Not sure how much they do to prevent unauthorized use though.
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
Hondas have a reputation of being more dependable (and more expensive) than their domestic counterparts.
Yeah, 20 years ago. Now, not so much.
Neither of the two most recent Hondas I've owned lasted nearly as long as they should have. I no longer buy them.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Outsourced to Elbonia?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Hondas have a reputation of being more dependable (and more expensive) than their domestic counterparts.
Honda is "domestic" by most criteria. Most Honda cars sold in America, are manufactured in America, from American parts, using American labor. Also, much of their stock is owned by Americans, so the profits as well as the wages stay in America.
I think the assumption is that you're either paying the least or the most expensive. To be honest, the least is sometimes acceptable but I can never justify the most expensive - even if I've got the money. I've found that mid-range pricing is often indicative of good value and reliability.
The above is not limited to cables. It works for cars, shoes, clothing, shop equipment, and most everything else. At least it does in my experience. Very seldom is the least expensive or most expensive choice the best option. I don't buy the best computer or computer parts. I don't buy the cheapest computer parts. I don't buy the most expensive automobile nor do I buy the cheapest - normally. I did deck out my current new car but that was splurging and I wanted the features. It was expensive but it's not the most expensive.
The law of diminishing returns rears its ugly head again. As does a human need to make things far more complicated than they need to be and the crazy desire to believe in extremes. I am not a headshrinker, I do not know why it is we humans do that but a whole lot of us seem to. I'm sometimes a bit surprised that we wandered down out of the trees.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."