https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/all-about-usb-c-illegal-adapters/ Skip to content Logo Hackaday Primary Menu * Home * Blog * Hackaday.io * Tindie * Hackaday Prize * Submit * About * Search for: [ ] [Search] December 27, 2022 All About USB-C: Illegal Adapters 45 Comments * by: Arya Voronova December 27, 2022 * * * * * Title: [All About USB-C: Ill] Copy Short Link: [https://hackaday.com] Copy [USBC] Let's be clear - it's not enough to have USB-C to USB-C cables. There's a lot of cables that we might want to acquire for our day-to-day use, perhaps, for a transition period while we still own some amount of devices not adorned with a USB-C connector. However, the USB-C specification only accounts for a limited amount of kinds of cables, explicitly or implicitly excluding a range of cables that you might want to buy or make. It's my firm belief that, as a hacker, you should be able to buy any USB-C contraption that you could ever need. Hackers don't need restrictions driven by marketing - they need understanding of how a piece of tech can or cannot be used, based on how it operates internally. I would like you to provide with such understanding, so that you can make informed decisions. On the other hand, USB-C is designed to be used by less-than-skilled people, even if it often fails at that. (Cable labelling, anyone?) Clear definitions of what complies to a standard can help enforce it. Here's the notorious story of a USB-C cable that killed a Chromebook, and launched a career of explaining USB-C specifics online for [Benson Leung]. There's many such failure stories, in fact. Today, we'll go through USB-C contraptions which might or might not fail you, depending on how you use them. Extensions - Embrace Or Extinguish? USB-C extension cables are not USB-C-specification compliant. Or are they? Are they a problem in practice, even if they're not compliant? Let's look at a bad example of one. Let's say, you want to extend the power port on a Raspberry Pi 4. [hadimg_usbc_illegal_3]Here's a Type-C extension cable that forwards VBUS and USB 2.0 data lines - but not CC pins. If you use this extension with a Raspberry Pi 4, the 5.1 kO resistors on the Raspberry Pi port are no longer accessible on the female end of the extension, and a Type-C power supply can no longer power the Raspberry Pi involved. Well, unless it's the official Raspberry Pi "Type-C" power supply, which has no way to detect resistor presence - of course, violating the Type-C specification, but operating as a USB-A to USB-C cable for all intents and purposes, which makes the violation not that significant. What if the extension were to forward a CC pin with a separate wire inside the cable? It could, indeed; some extensions do that. Sadly, this means they only work in one rotation, and whenever you plug a cable into such an extension, you might have to flip it before it works. Doubly so for F-F couplers - there, you will have to rotate the cable 50% of the time if you want the coupling to work What about forwarding both CC pins, each one with a separate wire? That would indeed work, and these are sold online, too. In fact, that's how USB-C expansion cards on the Framework laptop work - since the expansion card connector on the laptop is USB-C, those cards are just a really short USB-C extension that forwards pins one-to-one. Is that different from a cable extension? Yes. [hadimg_usbc_illegal_7]And some failure modes just straight up escape me. How is this possible? Good Enough? Not Quite What's the problem with extensions? First off, there's a conundrum where such cables aren't compliant to the specification, and most reputable manufacturers don't make them because they don't want to fall out of favour with USB standards group - which means you often have to rely on the less-than-reputable manufacturers, with subpar quality control. Given everything that we use USB-C for, that can go awry somewhat quickly. Now, why wouldn't it be spec-legal? [hadimg_usbc_illegal_5]Framework laptop USB-C expansion card, lid off Say, you have a "pass every pin through" USB-C extension, that can only handle 3 A internally. If you ever try to charge your 100 W-capable device with a 5 A PSU and 5 A-capable cable with such an extension in series, the PSU would supply 5 A, being none the wiser, but you could find yourself in a dangerous situation where your cable insulation starts to melt. On the other hand, it's my understanding that a Raspberry Pi 4 will never consume over 3 A, so in that use case, you can probably get away with it, but it's on you. When it comes to high-speed signals, there are more pitfalls. USB-C cables already have to be built to a certain standard to work for 40 Gbps data rates, as opposed to being limited to 20 Gbps. If you use an extension that forwards the high-speed wires in order to connect a high-speed peripheral, you might find that your device becomes more glitchy, reconnecting every now and then. The USB-C specification probably could have solved these problems with extra e-marker logic, which would've created a way for USB-C extensions to coexist peacefully, but they decided not to bother. Framework USB-C expansion cards don't bother anyone, because they are verified to work well in their use scenario and not cause signal issues. As a hacker, should you be able to buy a USB-C extension cable if you need one? Yes. Should you know about the pitfalls associated? Also yes. Let's talk more about cable pitfalls. Data Blocker Cables [hadimg_usbc_illegal_2b]You might think there's different resistors in there, but in fact, there's different exploits Every cable is required to have at least a USB 2.0 pair. We do know about cases when that's undesired, however - having seen malicious USB chargers, cables, and simply exploits that can wreck your phone when it's connected to a PC. You might be reaching for the Aliexpress Buy Now button on a "data isolator" cable, and again, it helps if you know what's the issue with such cables, so that you can make informed choices as a hacker... not that kind of hacker. When connected to a USB-A port, the only way to negotiate power draw (specifically, current, and sometimes voltage) is to use the data lines. These charging cables are built to facilitate this, and they tend to short the data lines together - signalling the device that it can draw up to 1.5 A. However, as the data lines are disconnected from the charger port, the phone doesn't know if the charger actually shorts these lines, signalling the 1.5 A supply ability. The overwhelming majority of ports can do 1.5 A, laptops and chargers alike. Some really old ports (or smartphone USB-OTG ports) only do 500 mA, and small portion of those ports don't have overcurrent protections as the USB standard requires them to. [hadimg_usbc_illegal_1]These situations are seriously rare. Nevertheless, this conundrum makes people online disappointed when it comes to existence of data blocker cables. Some chargers don't bother with negotiation, but some of them do. This creates funny situations, like Sony PlayStation controllers not charging from certain chargers. Anyway, I don't know about you, but it's clear as day to me, that the USB-C restriction on data-blocking cables is a plot by all the intelligence agencies of the world, working in unison with unseen levels of cooperation, and it's your duty to stick it to them and buy data blocker cables anyway. On a more serious note, 500 mA-only ports are rare, 500 mA-only ports without overcurrent protections even more so, and you can certainly just consciously avoid such ports if you're using a data blocker cable. By the way, if your data blocker cable has a CC wire (as it should, if you want to have data transfer), remember that a multitude of USB-C controller chips allow firmware update over the CC connection, and they've been known to, ahem, not be perfectly secure about this. Which is to say, if you want to protect yourself, you might just want to speak softly and carry a big powerbank. USB-C To USB-Anything Adapters As a rule of thumb, most adapters with a female USB-C socket on them are non-compliant. It still won't stop me from building a bunch of such cables and mailing them to my friends, and it shouldn't stop you either. Again - what specifically makes such adapters non-compliant? [hadimg_usbc_illegal_11]Here's a USB-A male to USB-C female passive adapter, I used this one a lot after my laptop's only USB-C port died of mechanical causes, but I still needed to use USB-C devices on the regular. Nowadays, I use this adapter to charge USB-C devices from my USB-A-only powerbank. Such an adapter is usually wired to USB 2.0 only - since high-speed signal dual orientation handling in USB-C requires active electronics, if you find such an adapter that actually works for USB 3.0, my money is that it will only work for USB 3.0 in one orientation of the USB-C plug, falling back to 2.0 in another. Two of this adapter, or one adapter and a USB A-C cable, will also let you build a USB-A to USB-A male-male cable. You shouldn't ever need to, but someone theoretically can do it, and the USB-C group really dislikes this possibility. If you plug two devices together with an A-A cable, it will cause a current fight between two 5 V supplies, which might result in unpredictable consequences - switch-mode power supplies dislike when you do such things with them, and protection chips for ports might not be able to handle such problems either. The problem isn't that a hacker will inevitably build an A-A cable and smoke their laptop. The problem is that a less-than-savvy user might do it. Making these adapters non-compliant is a discouragement for anyone looking to build these adapters, especially large manufacturers. Oh, and the adapter I'm showing, also has footprints for USB-C power-supply-side resistors (pullups), but doesn't even bother to populate it. This is also quite uncouth. That said - this adapter is very useful. Barrel Plug To USB-C Adapters Sometimes, you will see a barrel plug female to USB-C adapter being sold. I'm not talking about trigger boards here, where you plug a USB-C PSU into a board and it provides you with high voltages out of a barrel jack - I'm talking about adapters that you plug a barrel jack PSU into, and then connect it to a USB-C device. Obviously, there's zero protection involved, and I'm not even talking about resistors anymore. This adapter is equivalent to a USB-A to USB-C cable when used with a 5 V supply. There's zero built-in guarantee that such an adapter would only ever be used with a 5 V supply. A hacker might never plug anything other than a 5 V supply into it, of course. With an average user, you really, really can't rely on that being the case, and they will kill some device of theirs. And on some days, any hacker will eventually behave just like an average user; you can't always be on your guard. [hadimg_usbc_illegal_6]Not all devices require negotiation before they accept high voltages on their USB-C port, however. For instance, the Pinecil soldering iron does not. I built a female barrel jack to female Type-C adapter so that I could use nice silicone flexible cables with my Pinecil and a barrel jack 20 V power supply. If you were to plug a Type-C cable from such an adapter into your laptop while 20 V is provided to it, the laptop would most likely die. There are multiple cases of laptops that are known to have died in this exact situation, in fact. Sometimes, USB-C ports provide protection from such situations, as some early USB-C power supplies could create such a situation alone - not switching back, and happily feeding 20 V to the next device plugged in. That said, we will talk about this later, too. For now, I have written "DO NOT" on the cable plugs of the cable I use with this adapter, to make sure I never plug this cable into anything else. If you were hoping I have a better idea, I do, indeed. There are seemingly legitimate adapters like this, that are stated to be designed for use with laptops, and the Aliexpress keyword seems to be "USB PD Step Down". (Props to @Ralimtek!) They only go up to 60 W, but they appear to do negotiation, and if it's indeed the case that they actually only bring the voltage up to 20 V after that's negotiated, they ought to work perfectly for charging your USB-C laptop from a barrel jack. I also fully intend to build my own adapter that does negotiation, perhaps even make it a 100 W one - honestly, I have way too many 20 V power supplies laying around and I want to put them to good use. Double-Edged Sword [hadimg_usbc_illegal_4]USB non-compliance will keep you on your toes There's a lot more to USB-C standards compliance. I would not be surprised if the venerable Type-C trigger boards were non-compliant because of some signalling that the trigger IC does not provide. We hackers use them in large quantities nevertheless, and we will only use more as time goes on. USB-C non-compliance doesn't prevent us from having tons of fun building cool USB-C things. Sometimes people argue that places like Amazon should take non-compliant electronics down. Indeed, the Macbook-destroying cable has no business being sold, as it's straight up a hostile design masquerading as an innocent one. The humble A-C male-female adapter, however, is undoubtedly worth keeping around, even if it shouldn't really be sold in big box stores. What's your favourite non-standards-compliant device? * [share_face] * [share_twit] * [share_in] * [share_mail] Posted in Hackaday Columns, Parts, Peripherals HacksTagged cable, usb , USB C Post navigation - One Hacker's Battle To Slightly Improve A Sadistic Sony Headset The ZX Spectrum Finally Gets A Proper Keyboard - Read more from this series: All About USB-C All About USB-C: Illegal Adapters All About USB-C: Connector Mechanics All About USB-C: Cable Types All About USB-C: Introduction For Hackers See all articles in this series - 45 thoughts on "All About USB-C: Illegal Adapters" 1. mrehorst says: December 27, 2022 at 7:15 am JHC, flipping cables over? Not having to do that was supposed to be one of the big benefits of USB C. Who designs crap like this? Who decides to make this a standard? Why do any of them still have jobs? Report comment Reply 1. Arya Voronova says: December 27, 2022 at 7:24 am See, the actual USB-C standard goes above and beyond in making sure that cables never need to be flipped, and spec-compliant implementations get things right. I've seen two reasons that USB-C devices and cables have weird behaviour, like needing to be flipped. It's either a) they're broken or unintentionally mis-designed, or b) they're trying to do something useful but outside the spec (like extensions). An exception is debug mode adapters, but those are custom designs that USB-C gives leeway for, and they're meant to be internal use only anyway. If your cable needs to be flipped, then something in the chain wasn't designed up to the specification. It happens, and, it's not USB-C's fault - it's more that certain manufacturers struggle with implementing it, which is more of a "not enough effort put in" problem at this point. Like, hell, "lack of resistors" is still a common problem somehow, and USB-C specification has nothing to do with that being a problem - it's squarely on end product designers' shoulders. Report comment Reply 1. Dude says: December 27, 2022 at 10:31 am You forget the USB superposition bug. A regular type A plug can go in only one way, therefore, on average, it must be flipped two times before it will socket itself. The little block that prevents you from plugging it in the wrong way exists in both positions until they are measured, which makes the superposition collapse. A USB-C style plug can go in two ways, therefore it needs to be flipped three times before the tongue actually appears in the center of the socket. Report comment Reply 2. anon says: December 27, 2022 at 12:36 pm >like extensions While you are correct that the violation is the fault of the manufacturer. It is 100% the fault of the designers to not allow cable extension. Everyone knows that USB extenders are prolifically used by average consumers. If the spec forbids them then it forces companies to manufacture out of spec cables because the market has a huge demand for these "illegal" cables. At the end of the day this problem is still 100% the fault of USB spec designers not knowing their own customer base. Report comment Reply 1. Dude says: December 27, 2022 at 1:50 pm Then again, with the new power levels, the same point about not extending an extension cord applies: the contact add resistance and the extra wire adds resistance, which can lead to unacceptable voltage loss and melting the cables. So it's either no extensions, or people buying chinesium cables and burning down their houses. Report comment Reply 1. Dude says: December 27, 2022 at 1:53 pm More to the point: the extra resistance can make it so a short circuit draws just below the allowable current and the over-current protection won't work. Report comment 2. Arya Voronova says: December 27, 2022 at 2:04 pm "prolifically used" is a significant overstatement. Maybe you are using them. USB3 isn't even guaranteed to work if you extend it, did you know that? I hope you've read the "power" part of the explanation. Another thing - USB-C regulates, in part, cable length for different usecases, such as the high-speed alternative modes. You can test a cable and assume it will work. You can't test an extension and then assume it'll work with the myriad of cables out there - calculating losses is a cost too. You can get 5 meter USB2.0 USB-C cables, or 2 meter Thunderbolt ones. It's no point extending either of these cables, simply because the interface itself isn't guaranteed to work through longer cables, and especially if you further chain them in the way people do. In short, USB-C makes extensions mostly unneeded, because you can get cables for up to max length the interface can go, and there's no sense going any further. If you want to extend a captive cable device with a short pigtail, keep in mind that captive cables are an option made to let devices be slightly cheaper. If you want a longer cable for your dock, buy a slightly more expensive dock that comes with a USB-C socket, and use a long cable. Plus, making extensions legal would've been a royal pain. Emarkers become way more complicated if you put them inside extensions, or the switching circuitry for CC/VCONN becomes a nuisance. You need to calculate losses and estimate parameters when extending a fancy cable, as opposed to simply reading the parameters from the non-extended cable and acting on that. I don't want to go the whole "why USB-C didn't go this way" reasoning, just, consider this. There's seriously only so many resources you can devote to making stuff be compliant, and at some point, you gotta exclude things. Consider how many things USB-C supports - it's not unfair that extensions aren't one of them. Whether you want to extend 2.0, 3.0, DisplayPort or Thunderbolt, there's products available for you, just that they're generally more sophisticated than the dumb extensions you can get, because they need to be. Oh, but if you really really need Thunderbolt or USB 2.0 over 20 meters, USB-C also standardizes optical cables, and those can be as long as you want. Report comment Reply 2. Sunoo says: December 27, 2022 at 7:34 am If you actually read the article you'd have seen that the cables that did that are explicitly against the spec... Report comment Reply 1. Foldi-One says: December 27, 2022 at 8:50 am Which doesn't save the spec writers from fault though - if the spec was not so stupidly convoluted and complex it would not make honest mistakes inevitable, nor the cost of actually being fully compliant so high that it is not worth it for most, nor the useful basic function cables you know folks will need like extensions non-complaint just for existing, and quite possibly would protect even from maliciously out of spec cables... USB-C to me is a stupid spec, just with some useful features - a spec that unfortunately has become ubiquitous despite its many flaws... The Power and data together down one cable, even with power negotiation options works out alright as an idea. Though power negotiation is just a failure point you don't really need - why not spec everything at some arbitrary numbers like 20V 5A plus or minus whatever is deemed acceptable error bounds and leave it up to the device to turn that 20v into whatever it actually needs... In Effect the POE model, just with voltages and wattages more targeted for the short cable runs and power demands of the current crop of USB powered devices... The world should be pushing towards more power efficient not less, so in this case you really shouldn't need headroom in the power requirements! The any which way up connector I guess isn't bad - Though why not just make the damn thing shaped so it is abundantly clear which way in it goes instead! So much simpler and solves the same problem of which way up do you plug it in... But needing the cables to have chips in them to make it all work is 100% stupid, a massive security hole waiting to happen - USB itself was bad enough for that being such a universal port that most OS will silently allow a change of the devices function, and with big enough connectors to hide a malicious IC in the cable between verified good devices. But now every cable SHOULD HAVE the IC in it, so doing the security inspection you can't just scan the cables for chips and dump any found, a trivial process. One that in USB 2 era leaves you to only needing to spend effort and time auditing the devices, now you have to carefully audit the cables too!!! The multi mode stuff seems so clunky to me as well, data is just data it really shouldn't matter what use you wish to put the cable to just that the devices at both ends support it and the bandwidth is sufficient. Report comment Reply 1. Dave says: December 27, 2022 at 9:54 am Should have been ac not dc. Or like poe: Should have a bridge rectifier on the input. More pins more problems. Especially when combining power and data and sense on the same pins. Report comment Reply 1. Foldi-One says: December 27, 2022 at 12:18 pm With the intention to be working with DC devices a DC power and data cable to me is the right choice. Do not have to combine data and power either, it is a valid choice, but so is having dedicated power wires... Report comment 2. Dude says: December 27, 2022 at 10:52 am >why not spec everything at some arbitrary numbers like 20V 5A Because 5 Amps needs a thicker gauge wire, and many (small/cheap/linear) regulator ICs and capacitors can't deal with 20 Volts. The cable would have unacceptable voltage loss, or, it would need something like 40 square millimeters of copper in it. Then there's the obscure 240 Volt-Amp safety limit (not valid anymore?) that says you shall not have a single connector in a computer carrying more power. If every pin-pair in a USB-C connector could potentially supply 5 Amps at 20 Volts, then it would count as 1200 VA. Report comment Reply 1. Foldi-One says: December 27, 2022 at 12:14 pm Who said anything about every pin pair - that would be stupid then making the cable likely able to push out 500-1000w! Nobody needs that for the phones, keyboards etc... That is getting into the mains powered devices not the power and highspeed data at once of computer perhiphals and phones! Regulator IC and capacitors for whatever voltage was the new 'USB-C' would become dirt cheap to the point of not practically not counting in the BOM - with billions of devices many having multiple outputs using them its suddenly the most common and thus cheap of those IC and capacitor going... The gauge of wire being thicker is obviously true, but 5 amp is just an arbitrary choice for power down the whole cable at 20v - picked because 100 watt seems about right as the upper limit, could easily drop that limit or raise the voltage, and if pushing power down enough pairs to do really high speed per line you are talking 1A - But it is defining a standard as long as its sane and useable it doesn't actually matter what that standard dictates. Report comment 2. Dude says: December 27, 2022 at 1:56 pm >Who said anything about every pin pair You said. "spec everything" Report comment 3. Arya Voronova says: December 27, 2022 at 1:41 pm Reading your comment makes me skeptical about whether you know what you're talking about. I'm genuinely glad USB-C didn't follow the path you're proposing. > the cost of actually being fully compliant so high that it is not worth it for most The first article in the series has a fully compliant USB-C schematic you can put onto your device. It's a USB-C socket and two resistors. I've seen ridiculously cheap devices which comply to USB-C spec fully. If this is your summary, I beg you to revisit the topic. > extensions non-complaint just for existing You can have compliant extensions, it's just that it's your risk if it mis-complies - for a good reason. USB-C cannot guarantee operation with extensions, there's a significant amount of cases where extensions will not work for you - through no fault of USB-C. > why not spec everything at some arbitrary numbers like 20V 5A like, seriously, come on. This would kill backwards compatibility, make the cabling clunky, and .. how do you ever come up with that? Do you want to power a flashdrive from 20V? Do you want your phone's OTG port to require being capable of 20V? This is a wild requirement for engineering a standard that works with the wide variety of devices we use day-to-day. > In Effect the POE model PoE has voltage negotiation too. It's weird that you call your proposal "the PoE model", where PoE model is way more similar to USB-C than it is to your "simple" requirements. > voltages and wattages more targeted for the short cable runs and power demands of the current crop of USB powered devices this is exactly, specifically what USB-C does! > needing the cables to have chips in them First off, the emarkers are basically fancy memory chips that can talk USB-PD, most of them aren't even overwriteable. Second thing - they're only needed for fancy speed cables and PD over 60W. You can buy plenty of USB-C cables without "chips" - majority of them are not, and if you state otherwise, it makes me question whether you've looked. That, and whether you've read the second article, which describes exactly what I just said. > a massive security hole waiting to happen How, just how? There are security holes in USB-C, but this isn't realistic, not by a long shot. If you're worried, you can buy an emarker from a reliable manufacturer like TI, flash it, and assemble a cable to your liking. You can likely even build inline emarker-containing adapters that isolate in-cable emarkers from VCONN. Seriously, buy captive cable docks and 60W chargers if emarkers concern you. > But now every cable SHOULD HAVE the IC in it That's a straight up lie. > data is just data it really shouldn't matter what use you wish to put the cable to just that the devices at both ends support it and the bandwidth is sufficient. how, pray tell, do you imagine the engineering required to do "data is just data"? USB3 and DisplayPort altmodes are exceptionally simple to implement, whereas your solution would need custom chips at least, a la Thunderbolt, and trust me, Thunderbolt isn't all sunshine and roses. > it would not make honest mistakes inevitable honest mistakes *are* inevitable, that's human nature. USB-C protects from these mistakes pretty damn well, too - if you ever read the spec, that's the undercurrent for many of the requirements you'll find there, preventing mistakes. You know what happens when you make a honest mistake of putting an incorrect barrel jack PSU into your device? It either blows up (wrong voltage), or it malfunctions in weird ways (insufficient power). If you put an insufficient-wattage USB-C PSU into your $1000 laptop, it either charges slower or doesn't charge. If you plug a very powerful high-voltage-capable USB-C charger into your phone, your phone will charge at a limited voltage and power, the same way it charges from the USB-C PSU that it shipped with. That's seriously wonderful. Report comment Reply 2. esot.eric says: December 27, 2022 at 9:35 am LOL. One of the jobs of folk who design specifications is to think about how the spec could be abused and try to design with that in mind. Similarly, design to cut-down on end-user confusion/disaster. If that means cutting down on "feature-creep" like the completely-unnecessary flippability or the equally unnecessary one-port/ gender-for-both-hosts-and-devices, or the equally unnecessary separation between 2.0 and 3.0 datalines (they should have thought of that in the 3.0 spec), or the equally-unnecessary ability to fudge PCI-E or thunderbolt or DisplayPort, etc. through the cable, Or the equally-unnecessarily tiny pins that really should not carry 2A, nevermind 5A. No, these were not specs-designers, they were more like either marketting execs or gung-ho "A for effort" engineers with no experience. And I agree, they should lose their jobs, as should those responsible for hiring and OKing their ideas, and an example made publicly of both the specific wrongs done and how those examples apply to standards in general, to finally put an end to this precident-setting trend that's plagued far too many [and *much* more important, e.g. life-support systems and airlines] branches of the engineering field in recent years. Report comment Reply 2. philosiraptor117 says: December 27, 2022 at 7:31 am the great thing about standards is that their is so many you can choose from! Report comment Reply 3. Baby Byte says: December 27, 2022 at 7:37 am Never thought I'd be interested in USB cable drama but now I have to know more Report comment Reply 1. Ostracus says: December 27, 2022 at 7:50 am Soap opera for USB. Report comment Reply 4. Dave Baxter says: December 27, 2022 at 7:46 am The supposed USB-C cables and port on the Nintendo Switch has been a PITA for me. Plugging in random USB-C cables that aren't made by Nintendo has a high risk of damaging pins in the port on the bottom of the Switch, which then will later damage the dock. Report comment Reply 1. Arya Voronova says: December 27, 2022 at 7:58 am oh yeah I've been told that the Switch is outstanding in how its USB-C port works (in a bad way, in that compatibility is severely lacking), not surprised that mechanics are dodgy too. the USB-C spec is fairly strict in how it defines connector spec mechanics, so like, my guess is at Nintendo for lack of testing and/or going like "nah we'll tell them to buy official cables", that's some Apple level bs. Report comment Reply 1. Adrian says: December 27, 2022 at 10:07 am Reminds me of the "almost USB Mini" ports on point-and-shoot cameras a decade or two ago. Report comment Reply 1. Gregg Eshelman says: December 27, 2022 at 2:26 pm They had the data lines opposite proper Mini B position and often the same port was used for composite video and sometimes audio out. Report comment Reply 5. l3iggs says: December 27, 2022 at 8:09 am "pass every pin through" USB-C extension I want to buy this. 24 independent internal conductors plus shield/sleeve. Don't care what gender the ends are. Can anyone here drop a hint were I could buy such a thing? Report comment Reply 1. Connect just 10 of them together and you just made a $100, 20 meter long USB C extension cable, right? says: December 27, 2022 at 12:20 pm Does this just go from pin in to pin out? https://www.adafruit.com/product/5216 It says this cable is 2 meters long, with all the pins connecting from one side to the other. Shield and sleeve is less clear and they don't seem to post the actual cable pins or size. Report comment Reply 6. Matt Rozema says: December 27, 2022 at 9:05 am There are situations where I could really use an extension cable in conjunction with a port replicator, most of which have only a short 6 inch cord built in. A 6ft cable would be perfect, but the closest I've found so far is 3ft and some of the features of the port replicator stopped working when the extension was introduced. I am still hopeful that one day such a cord will exist. Report comment Reply 1. Arya Voronova says: December 27, 2022 at 2:12 pm The features stopping to work is because the port replicator isn't built with a longer cable in mind, I'm afraid. The built-in cable (known as captive cable) devices are allowed in the spec to allow for cheaper port replicators (aka docks) to exist at all, and they're really not meant to be extended. Remembering the ones I've disassembled, the way the cables are broken out and soldered on, many of them will indeed not function with an extension - the connections are just that cheaply made, and the impedance mismatch kills the signal when it has to travel over a longer path. USB-C spec allows them because there need to be cheap port replicators - however, they're built with a certain signal travel distance in mind. If you need a longer cable, I highly recommend you use a slightly more expensive port replicator with a socket that allows you to use cables up to 6ft. There's a reason the captive cable docks are as cheap as they are! Report comment Reply 7. Ben says: December 27, 2022 at 9:07 am Regarding barrel jack to USB-C adapters, Dell at least sells one that's basically the inverse of a trigger board: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-adapter-74mm-barrel-to-usb-c /apd/470-acfh/pc-accessories 20V in, USB-PD out (at least 5V and 20V, I haven't tested other voltages). Hand to have in places where Dell's power supplies are ubiquitous. Report comment Reply 8. Cogidubnus Rex says: December 27, 2022 at 9:13 am "Here's the notorious story of a USB-C cable that killed a Macbook" Funnily the article linked to there mentions a dead Chromebook, nothing about Macbooks. Report comment Reply 1. Arya Voronova says: December 27, 2022 at 1:41 pm Oh, my bad - lemme fix that! Report comment Reply 9. Tom Karches says: December 27, 2022 at 11:44 am The best thing about USB-C is the connector. Everything else is a mess. I have a powered speaker with a USB-C port for "charging" that does not work with a USB-C to USB-C cable. Only USB-A to USB-C cables work. Report comment Reply 1. Arya Voronova says: December 27, 2022 at 1:11 pm I'm willing to bet actual, real-life dollars that you bought a speaker whose designers have skimped out on adding two resistors. This is exactly what happens with the classic "no 5.1K pulldowns on CC" problem, and is in no way the fault of USB-C as much as it's a fault of whoever made your speaker. See here on how you might be able to fix it. Report comment Reply 1. Dan says: December 27, 2022 at 2:06 pm You should bet him the resistors... Your diagnosis sounds sensible, but it's still frustrating for the consumer. Obviously there's a learning curve, but why are manufacturers messing this up? I don't recall this mess with USB1/2 when it was new. Report comment Reply 1. Arya Voronova says: December 27, 2022 at 2:22 pm You don't recall the USB1/2 mess? Lemme see.. The 500mA limit that got pushed beyond and beyond. The laughable "100mA until negotiated" part of it, that nobody followed from the beginning. The resulting Y-cables. All the proprietary charging standards smartphones used and still somehow continue to use. The crappiness of MiniUSB, where you could easily tear the socket off the board. The different kind of crappiness of MicroUSB, when you could tear the socket off the PCB *and* break the plug. All the broken USB-A ports, especially on PC cases. The mysterious "this device could work faster" popup box. The dodgy hubs. The "plug this device into the back of your computer, it doesn't work well in front panel ports" occasions. Wacky stuff like "oh, Raspberry Pi Model A doesn't always work with USB1 devices, like, uhhh, keyboards and mice" things. This is just off the top of my head, but like - we've had enough pain with USB1/2, too, and we still do if you know where to look. Report comment Reply 1. Gregg Eshelman says: December 27, 2022 at 2:43 pm I've found that the issue with Windows failing to properly negotiate USB 2.0 or 3.x falls on a dodgy controller chip and/or drivers. The least problematic ones I've encountered are Fresco Logic. It's not easy finding a 4+ port USB 3.0 card that has both its controller and hub chip from Fresco Logic. Inateck is the only company I know that uses all Fresco Logic chips on their USB 3.x cards. On something like a PCIe x1 card with four USB 3.0 ports on the back, one internal, and a 19 pin internal header, it's easy to trace the lines to see which chip is the controller (it will connect right to the card edge) and which is the hub, and which ports connect to each chip. The controller chip will typically be a 4 port so three ports on the back will connect to the controller. Lines for the 4th port will go to the upstream connection for the hub chip. The rest of the ports will connect to the hub chip. The most common "This device can perform faster..." situation I've run into is the 3 rear ports connected to the controller chip. It's always just *some* devices the controller chip and/or its drivers don't work with correctly. Plug the problem device into one of the hub ports and it's fine. So if you're having proper speed recognition issues with a PCIe USB 3.x card, only on ports directly connected to the controller, find out what the hub chip is on the card then try finding a powered hub using that same hub chip to plug into the problem port. Report comment 2. Arya Voronova says: December 27, 2022 at 2:23 pm Why? I don't know. Given that the "lack of resistors" sin is usually committed by cheap device manufacturers, I'd bet on "lack of effort". Report comment Reply 10. Jarrod V says: December 27, 2022 at 12:18 pm Rockwell has industrial modules that have a micro USB connector, and are actually RS-232. Report comment Reply 11. mike stone says: December 27, 2022 at 12:41 pm "(Cable labelling, anyone?)" "When a device as simple as a door has to come with an instruction manual--even a one-word manual--then it is a failure, poorly designed." "If the system lets you make the error, it is badly designed." -- Don Norman, _The Design of Everyday Things_ USB-C is what happens when a specification committee says, "Murphy's Law? Who ever heard of that?" Report comment Reply 1. Arya Voronova says: December 27, 2022 at 1:47 pm Why would you consider this principle valuable? It excludes programming languages, or doors that say "Push" on them. USB-C lets you make errors. It's natural to make a mistake. What USB-C also does is protecting you from the consequences you would normally encounter when making a mistake, the spec is designed for that. Report comment Reply 1. Dan says: December 27, 2022 at 2:18 pm "If the system lets you make the error, it is badly designed." This principle is really valuable in many situations, from medical and safety situations to common scenarios like old parents with dementia. It's obviously not one to apply in every situation, but particularly in consumer scenarios it's often valuable. Doors needing to be labelled push is a classic example of poor design, though IIRC, NN's example was doors where the hinge and opening side looked identical, leading people to push on the hinge side. The e-markers for cable power ratings is excellent, and as you say protects users from burning their houses down with the wrong cables (assuming that manufacturers e-mark their cables correctly). A reversible connector is a fantastic thing, unless the behaviour changes when it's reversed. Figure-8 mains cables and lightning connectors don't have this problem - even cheap ones - and I realise that USB-C shouldn't, but something in the design has led to manufacturers commonly producing non-compliant devices/cables, which is a shame, and I think it would have been good for them to think realistically about how manufacturers would cut corners and make mistakes. Report comment Reply 1. Arya Voronova says: December 27, 2022 at 2:35 pm It's confusing to me, since like, *I* know how to make reversible devices, and while I did research USB-C, I'm not an engineer paid to implement it. It's seriously not hard to make a device which works in both orientations - the circuits are fundamentally symmetric, it's hard to screw up one rotation while preserving the other. I'm wondering if some cables or ports have a pair of pins worn out, which makes them not reversible, or if it's seriously the issue that a manufacturer can't put a USB-C high-speed mux in. Those muxes are simple and cheap, but I guess they're a target of penny pinching /shrug I also gotta admit, I don't know many fundamentally non-reversible devices, and the ones I know, they've been a manufacturer's omission or mis-design in a way that is a one-off and shouldn't be blamed on USB-C spec wrt them being able to do something about it. Not paralleling USB 2.0 data pins on a socket is not a trend, especially given how prevalent is the information on the right way to wire it. Omitting a resistor because "who needs two" isn't a trend, and isn't even a meaningful BOM optimization. These things seem like one-off mistakes that would be costly to consider a thing to prevent. oh, and cheap lightning connectors do quickly become non-reversible, it's absolutely been my experience, I have a bag full of those! Report comment Reply 12. Mystick says: December 27, 2022 at 12:51 pm "Illegal"... I think that word means something other than you think it means. Report comment Reply 1. Arya Voronova says: December 27, 2022 at 1:43 pm absolutely tongue in cheek here! Report comment Reply 13. Bryan C says: December 27, 2022 at 1:01 pm USB C is overengineered and tries to do too much, while also somehow failing to support obvious and inevitable use-cases like these. Hardly unique - technical standards only improve by being broken - but the silly insistence of using it for everything just emphasizes the flaws and crowds out better options that are more appropriate for some real-world applications. Shockingly, one tiny, relatively fragile port design isn't ideal for all interfacing needs. Report comment Reply 1. LordNothing says: December 27, 2022 at 2:09 pm usb over db9 would be an improvement in terms of industrial applications, way i see it is if someone needs to do something weird like that, its because your standard was not as universal as you intended. usb-c was designed by and for phone people. the fact that c-on-everything never really took off is a good indication that the design isnt very universal. i had to fight for a mobo with 2 usb-c ports, and one of those was a front panel header that used what is possibly the worst internal connecter design ive seen yet in a pc. internal usb wiring has gotten progressively worse since the usb2.0 glory days. usb-3 id bloatware incarnate. Report comment Reply Leave a Reply Cancel reply Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy) This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. 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