Earlier quoted context omitted.
But how can we know which tester is good and which one is scammy?
With a USB-C cable tester tester, of course.
I’ll bust your trace buster buster!
I stopped trusting USB-C cable labels and started testing them
41–50 of 266 posts
Re: I stopped trusting USB-C cable labels and started testing them
#42The Anker Prime 160W power brick shows the maximum wattage of the cables you plug in. It is also surprisingly small.
I don't think there's a USB-C charger out there that can actually pump out anything close to their rated maximum.
Re: I stopped trusting USB-C cable labels and started testing them
#43Is there a cheap, reliable tester that someone can recommend that will test multiple USB cable types (A, micro & C)?
I'm not so sure about cheap. All the cheap ones I've tried have been pretty flaky, and ended up in the junk bin. I picked up this guy for work: https://bit-trade-one.co.jp/en/adusbcim/ and it's been pretty good. That was a while ago though, and some of the cheaper ones might have caught up.
Re: I stopped trusting USB-C cable labels and started testing them
#44LTT has created true spec cables with the actual spec mentioned on the cables but they can not keep up with demand despite being expensive get sold out as soon as new stock comes in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfovjw7Ts_U&t=974s
By chance, has anyone tested Cable Matters' cables? I just bought a couple of their Thunderbolt™ 5 cables. They seem like a reputable company that would make their cables true-to-spec. Thanks in advance!
We had good results testing Cable Matters stuff here at work, but that was for non-critical use so I didn't go too hard on the tests. (Actually, I didn't go too hard on any of it since it was mostly make-work from a manager trying to cause trouble, but still....)
I was quite impressed by GlobTek (available at Digi-Key) and have been buying those when I need something nice. Their USB-C line are some of the best I've seen, not that I'm a connoisseur.
Re: I stopped trusting USB-C cable labels and started testing them
#45hmm, how about just being able to infer the features of a cable by it's physical form factor? oh wait...
then you have a bunch of cables and wires that with all different types of connector that you can 'easily' identify which one is for which device. sounds familiar hah
Re: I stopped trusting USB-C cable labels and started testing them
#46As always, these testers (the affordable ones) are capable of testing continuity, and, I guess, the cable chip report. If you want to test bandwidth, that's a five- or six-figure bit of gear.
This keeps needing to be pointed out every thread this appears on. Plenty of cables have eMarkers that claim "40Gbps" or whatever speeds, or support 240W PD...but absolutely cannot deliver either of those. And none of these consumer level testers can test either of those claims.
Resistance measurements can cursorily test claims of 240W but resistance changes with temperature which changes with current...so unless your tester puts 5 amps down the wire for 5 minutes and then tests resistance it's not a very good test.
Re: I stopped trusting USB-C cable labels and started testing them
#47Interestingly, I have found a very mixed bag of USB-C cables I've collected over the years to generally just work for all my use cases. I can charge my various USB-C laptops at 65W with all the USB-C cables I have on hand. Maybe it's just my habit of just buying cables from known brands (Belkin is normally my go to) but I also have random cables that came with various devices of varying quality and all these also wor…
Every not-broken USB C cable allows for 480Mbps USB 2 speeds and 60W charging. In USB C terms, it doesn't get any more basic than this; that's as low-and-slow the specification tolerates. The issues come into play with going beyond that. USB 3 speeds? USB 4? Thunderbolt? DisplayPort (4k uncompressed video!) alt modes? 240W charging? These are all practical things that regular people use USB C cables for every day, bu…
Not that I disagree with you, but I _wish_ "regular people" used 240W charging every day. As far as I can tell it's still pretty niche and hard to get 240W chargers
Re: I stopped trusting USB-C cable labels and started testing them
#48LTT has created true spec cables with the actual spec mentioned on the cables but they can not keep up with demand despite being expensive get sold out as soon as new stock comes in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfovjw7Ts_U&t=974s
They also crackle out of the package, or at least the 5 I got did. Kind of sound like the thin glow sticks a bit.
Could that possibly be shielding?
I can't say I've seen it on USB-C-esque cables (except maybe a thunderbolt cable a while back?) but I've seen some cables use a type of aluminum or mylar-looking foil between the outer rubber sleeve and the inner sleeves and wires.
Re: I stopped trusting USB-C cable labels and started testing them
#49Instead of using a dedicated device, on Macs you can also use the WhatCable app: https://www.whatcable.uk
This is really good. The base is open source, and has both GUI and a CLI. For the purposes of this article, identifying what each cable can actually do, that’s covered. There’s additional Pro capabilities that you can pay for.
Re: I stopped trusting USB-C cable labels and started testing them
#50Related discussion “The USB Situation” (3 months ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47950993
re: https://randsinrepose.com/guides/usb/usb-guide.html
Apple sells this $30 (0.5m) CalDigit cable https://www.apple.com/shop/product/hs9d2zm/a/ and this $70 (1m) Apple cable https://www.apple.com/shop/product/mdw94am/a/
There's also some interesting discussion of Thunderbolt 5 cables on reddit (6 months ago): https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/1r84q54/