5 ms·

I don’t care about the name. Can you please write the version on the cable? I have a dozen of USBc cables in my drawer and I have no idea what each one is capab

I don’t care about the name. Can you please write the version on the cable? I have a dozen of USBc cables in my drawer and I have no idea what each one is capable of.

derefr 4y ago
1. It's either a regular USB-C cable or a Thunderbolt (USB4) cable. If it's a Thunderbolt cable, it'll have a large, long, square strain-relief section behind the connector (there are active logic components inside this part.) Otherwise it won't. 2. The charging speed is fundamentally constrained by how thick the cable is. So thick cables are very likely fast-charge cables (they wouldn't spend the extra money on lower-gauge copper if they weren't going to need it for something), and thin cables definitely aren't.
- CWuestefeld 4y ago
  There are lots of charge-only USB-C cables, without the data lines connected.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    Anyone making those doesn't care about the spec. The single slow data pair is really easy to put in.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Those are usually recognizable because they are about 10cm long.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  I don't think that works. Plenty of thunderbolt cables are passive. Also there are cables that bulk up on insulation to pretend to be more premium.
  - stephen_g 4y ago
    I think all Thunderbolt cables are actually active, it’s just the chips at each end are pretty tiny so for a lot of cables you wouldn’t know it’s hiding inside the connector.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      They require a marker chip, but that's pretty different from being an active cable. Pennies vs. dollars. Passive ones are available in multiple lengths up to 2 meters, but only go half speed above .5 meters.
- gregmac 4y ago
  Just a caution: I've cut apart several microusb cables (using the ends for power, and cables for sensors, etc, just because I have a bin full of them - mostly for esp32-based projects). The thing I've noticed is cable thickness doesn't line up with conductors thickness. I've opened "large" cables to find tiny 28awg wire inside and a very thick jacket. Maybe just my cables and limited sample size, but it's like 50% of the time. A lot of cables in my bin are the random ones that get included in the box with something else. I so far haven't chopped up any usb-c cables, but I don't see why to expect any different.
  - derefr 4y ago
    > I've opened "large" cables to find tiny 28awg wire inside and a very thick jacket. In a way, this is actually fine too — the conductor itself can be higher-resistance, as long as there's enough shielding to prevent the heat the conductor puts out from setting anything on fire. (Basically, following the same rules for sheath thickness as in-wall cabling uses.) The only real practical difference, for most people, will be that anything electrically connected to the "thick sheath, thin conductor" cable, will get very hot. (And also, if you use such a cable to connect a device to a portable battery bank, you'll find you get your battery bankk will run dry sooner than expected, since your cable is acting as an additional load.)
    - wiremonger 4y ago
      Small tidbit: for cables that are permanently installed in buildings, the insulation and jacket material is more important than the thickness. Typically these installations are inspected by the local jurisdiction and the electrical code is very specific about what gauge conductors have to be used in which circumstances, so the inspection will generally prevent anything egregious enough to cause spontaneous combustion due to heat from electrical resistance. The bigger issue is that the insulation material will degrade over time if it's consistently exposed to temperatures that are too high, and at that point it becomes a safety hazard because the conductors are no longer properly protected. So typically cables with a higher temperature rating will have insulation and/or an outer jacket made with different materials.
    - 4y ago
bombcar 4y ago
I’d be interested in a cable tester that could determine what’s what - probably couldn’t figure out max power however.
- kimburgess 4y ago
  Yes it could, once.
- isatty 4y ago
  It would be very very expensive. Even proper Ethernet testers (not just continuity and pin tests) are expensive and it’s been around forever.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Searching around, I can find USB testers (some with 3-1 functionality, including USB-C + PD) in the range of $20 - $100 on Amazon and bunch of other websites, that doesn't seem "very very expensive". Would anything be wrong with such devices?
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Many of those will just check continuity on pins (which might be enough for what you want) - a full on tester will run actual data at faster and faster speeds until it fails; report error rates, etc.
- bloopernova 4y ago
  I have one of these: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/electr/c2c-caberqu-usb-c-cable-tester https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/electr/c2c-caberqu-usb-... It works great, although I'd like a microcontroller added that can display the standard rather than looking up the connections myself.
ender341341 4y ago
I've taken to using a label maker to version my cables cause I got sick of throwing away HDMI/DisplayPort cables when I couldn't determine what they actually supported.

I don’t care about the name. Can you please write the version on the cable? I have a dozen of USBc cables in my drawer and I have no idea what each one is capable of.

derefr 4y ago

1. It's either a regular USB-C cable or a Thunderbolt (USB4) cable. If it's a Thunderbolt cable, it'll have a large, long, square strain-relief section behind the connector (there are active logic components inside this part.) Otherwise it won't. 2. The charging speed is fundamentally constrained by how thick the cable is. So thick cables are very likely fast-charge cables (they wouldn't spend the extra money on lower-gauge copper if they weren't going to need it for something), and thin cables definitely aren't.

CWuestefeld 4y ago
There are lots of charge-only USB-C cables, without the data lines connected.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  Anyone making those doesn't care about the spec. The single slow data pair is really easy to put in.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Those are usually recognizable because they are about 10cm long.
Dylan16807 4y ago
I don't think that works. Plenty of thunderbolt cables are passive. Also there are cables that bulk up on insulation to pretend to be more premium.
- stephen_g 4y ago
  I think all Thunderbolt cables are actually active, it’s just the chips at each end are pretty tiny so for a lot of cables you wouldn’t know it’s hiding inside the connector.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    They require a marker chip, but that's pretty different from being an active cable. Pennies vs. dollars. Passive ones are available in multiple lengths up to 2 meters, but only go half speed above .5 meters.
gregmac 4y ago
Just a caution: I've cut apart several microusb cables (using the ends for power, and cables for sensors, etc, just because I have a bin full of them - mostly for esp32-based projects). The thing I've noticed is cable thickness doesn't line up with conductors thickness. I've opened "large" cables to find tiny 28awg wire inside and a very thick jacket. Maybe just my cables and limited sample size, but it's like 50% of the time. A lot of cables in my bin are the random ones that get included in the box with something else. I so far haven't chopped up any usb-c cables, but I don't see why to expect any different.
- derefr 4y ago
  > I've opened "large" cables to find tiny 28awg wire inside and a very thick jacket. In a way, this is actually fine too — the conductor itself can be higher-resistance, as long as there's enough shielding to prevent the heat the conductor puts out from setting anything on fire. (Basically, following the same rules for sheath thickness as in-wall cabling uses.) The only real practical difference, for most people, will be that anything electrically connected to the "thick sheath, thin conductor" cable, will get very hot. (And also, if you use such a cable to connect a device to a portable battery bank, you'll find you get your battery bankk will run dry sooner than expected, since your cable is acting as an additional load.)
  - wiremonger 4y ago
    Small tidbit: for cables that are permanently installed in buildings, the insulation and jacket material is more important than the thickness. Typically these installations are inspected by the local jurisdiction and the electrical code is very specific about what gauge conductors have to be used in which circumstances, so the inspection will generally prevent anything egregious enough to cause spontaneous combustion due to heat from electrical resistance. The bigger issue is that the insulation material will degrade over time if it's consistently exposed to temperatures that are too high, and at that point it becomes a safety hazard because the conductors are no longer properly protected. So typically cables with a higher temperature rating will have insulation and/or an outer jacket made with different materials.
  - 4y ago

bombcar 4y ago

I’d be interested in a cable tester that could determine what’s what - probably couldn’t figure out max power however.

kimburgess 4y ago
Yes it could, once.
isatty 4y ago
It would be very very expensive. Even proper Ethernet testers (not just continuity and pin tests) are expensive and it’s been around forever.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Searching around, I can find USB testers (some with 3-1 functionality, including USB-C + PD) in the range of $20 - $100 on Amazon and bunch of other websites, that doesn't seem "very very expensive". Would anything be wrong with such devices?
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Many of those will just check continuity on pins (which might be enough for what you want) - a full on tester will run actual data at faster and faster speeds until it fails; report error rates, etc.
bloopernova 4y ago
I have one of these: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/electr/c2c-caberqu-usb-c-cable-tester https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/electr/c2c-caberqu-usb-... It works great, although I'd like a microcontroller added that can display the standard rather than looking up the connections myself.

ender341341 4y ago

I've taken to using a label maker to version my cables cause I got sick of throwing away HDMI/DisplayPort cables when I couldn't determine what they actually supported.