Comment by zxexz

7 hours ago

Somewhat recently, on a wild night out on the town, I ended up buying a USB-C <> USB-C cable tester[0]. Using it, I managed to find a few amazing cables amongst my collection. Gave away the others with context. I want something like this for every type of cable.

[0] https://caberqu.com/20-42-c2c-caberqu.html

8 comments

zxexz

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unwind  6 hours ago

I like your idea of a wild night out!

Note to others: that tester board looks fairly passive, i.e. I don't see (mention of) a microcontroller to talk to the chip that high-powered cables must have. So I guess it's somewhat limited in the number of things it can check?

  • alias_neo  4 hours ago

    I have a cheaper version, it does basically all one needs by telling you how many conductors the cable has, if it's only got 4 lights lit up it's a simple USB2, more power LEDs is a higher power charging cable, more data pairs, higher data throughput/USB3, nearly all of the lights (usually bar 1 of the CCX) it's full DP/Thunderbot, data, charging, A/V etc.

    Sometimes it even shows USB-C connectors that are only wired for one orientation!

  • gunalx  4 hours ago

    More often than not just knowing the contact has OK connection is good enough.

    As far as I know the marker chips is mostly to tell the devices to not abuse the cable.

tmountain  4 hours ago

What makes for an amazing cable? For USB, if it carries data and power, I’m usually pretty happy with it.

  • alias_neo  3 hours ago

    For USB, if it can carry 65W+ of power to my laptop as well as the Keyboard/Mouse inputs, 4K/60Hz display and audio back to the monitor as well as KB/Mouse and perhaps some external storage or network adapter, that's a pretty amazing cable.

    I also have preferences between my cables by the quality and aesthetic, I prefer some over others because they look or feel nicer even if in testing they contain the same conductors, but that's just ... me.

    I currently have 3 such cables connected to my work laptop each sending 4K/60Hz video to each of my 3 x 4k monitors, audio to my soundbar and one of them is powering the laptop at 90W and sending my keyboard, mouse and webcam inputs back.