USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess • Hacker News Board

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#621

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 2:44 AM UTC

megous wrote: post #620

Dylan16807 wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://images.anandtech.com/doci/11181/USB-PD.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/W8UGp.jpg Once you hit the soft cap of 3 amps, you're supposed to increase the voltage. The 3-5 amp range is only supposed to be used at 20 volts.

That's all good if your sink supports sinking 20V, but some don't. Anyway, those tables describe minimum required currents for a given PDP: https://megous.com/dl/tmp/a4111a84934c8c8f.png Sources can support more and it's not against the spec, as long as you detect the 5A cable. https://megous.com/dl/tmp/1eccbf102295a676.png

> That's all good if your sink supports sinking 20V, but some don't.

It's not like you go directly to 20, you go one step at a time.

> Sources can support more and it's not against the spec, as long as you detect the 5A cable.

They can but how many do? If you want to play nice you shouldn't require that for your device.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#622

Post by nickflood » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

Nobody mentions that USB-C enabled the production of laptop power banks. They are such a help for when you travel and want to work on a long flight or a train ride.

Power rating is a mess, and manufacturers are all trying to mislead the consumer as much as they can about it, so I agree, it's a mess if you don't research it thoroughly.

But I do research it, and my life is much better with it.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#623

Post by SpelingBeeChamp » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #377

josho wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good (read expensive) dongle will work fine. I have one that reliably powers 2 monitors (a 5k and a 4k), 1gb network and powers my macbook. I think the real problem is we get a lot of cheap products coming from China with very little quality control. QC is poor because they have no incentive to build in quality. E.g. you likely don't realize how flaky the dongle is until after the 30 day return policy, the branding…

Which dongle is this that works and can it keep a drive mounted while video editing? As I said don’t you think it’s strange that if this product supposedly works perfectly then why isn’t Apple shipping one with a premium price tag.

Are you using drives that have their own power source? I found that (a) using the “right” cable (determined through experimentation), and (b) only using mains-powered external hard drives made a big difference.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#624

Post by jasonlotito » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:47 PM UTC

sbierwagen wrote: post #427

jasonlotito wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want anything that actually works and is reliable, you pretty much cannot buy it on Amazon, you need to buy it directly from the company that makes it. I remember several years ago purchasing the $70 digital adapter from Apple. It's the one with 3 ports and merges into one. I forget which version it was. It was horrible. The HDMI port wouldn't work. I had purchased two. They were absolute trash. That's $140.…

GP: "Buying stuff from Amazon is like rolling dice. If you get a 1, you lose." P: "I rolled a 6, and it worked fine for me. I don't know why everyone else is having problems."

Except the part about how buying the dongle from Apple was anything other than a 6, and you lose.