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Comment by zimpenfish

9 hours ago

> the Micro-USB plug is intentionally designed to fail before the connector inside the device is damaged.

I've had two devices where the MicroUSB socket has broken off the PCB. Not a huge amount considering I've probably had tens of devices with MicroUSB power over the years but a truly inconvenient amount given the impossibility of a home fix (for most people.)

Now I use those magnetic-plug cables and just leave the MicroUSB ends in whatever I might need to charge to avoid the physical stress.

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zimpenfish

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dale_glass  6 hours ago

That's a different failure mode. Before Micro USB there was Mini USB, which was the same concept but I believe the fault was that the springy parts were inside the device. When that wore out, you were screwed because the cable would just cease to make good contact, and a new cable wouldn't help.

Micro USB's improvement was reversing where the weak bits were. Now it's the cable that wears out, so when it does you just throw it out and buy a new one.

Attachment to the board is another thing entirely, it's all about having some sort of through hole pins to hold it in place (not all devices had that, some were purely surface mount), and good design. I think some devices had a tiny daughter board for the connector, to ensure that part could wiggle around a bit for stress relief.

  • Findecanor  2 hours ago

    I think Nokia's original Micro USB socket design had only two through-hole pins, which was not sturdy enough.

    A standard USB-C socket has four: one in each corner like some later Micro USB sockets. There even exists USB-C sockets with all through-hole pins but there's no space for USB 3 pins so they are all USB 2.0 or charging-only.

    I used to buy cables with non-standard reversible Micro USB plugs, but I think there was only one manufacturer of them and now I can't find replacements.

  • regularfry  4 hours ago

    The Mini USB plug layout also gives it more leverage to apply force to the PCB connections. It's a really annoyingly bad design.