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Comment by ermir | Hacker News Reader

This is quite cool! Any PCB designer that needs a lot of power should just use this design and hopefully the world will eventually settle on using micro USB for low power and USB PD for up to 100W. I am currently thinking of making a device that has a PCB, and one of my key requirements is the use of micro USB (5V 500mA) precisely because designing power circuits and distributing DC adapters is a major cost.

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Micro USB should be on its way out, use USB-C instead. I'm slightly annoyed when I buy something that has micro USB now, because it means I'll have to keep using two kinds of cords a while longer. And they're a mild hassle to plug in, especially in low light, because of the asymmetric contact.

The only device I regularly use that still charges through micro-b is my Bluetooth headset and it's a gigantic pain looking for the micro b cable I might have somewhere to charge it, while I have type C cables anywhere I go.

I wish there was a small adapter I could just take with me everywhere on my key chain, but all adapters I could find go the other way around :(

Try this one: https://www.banggood.com/Bakeey-USB3_1-Type-C-Female-to-Micr...

It’s kinda funny how the world has converged on USB as a universal charging standard. I have a tote full of old AC/DC transformers in the garage; I used to save them as you never knew when you’d need one of a specific connector/voltage/ amperage combo. Now they’re somewhat obsolete.

Fewer connection types that you frequently need is quite uncontroversially a good thing isn't it?

So it's quite natural that for merely charging we'd turn to something that's capable of charging and data, since we couldn't do the reverse.

It makes sense given the history: the EU forced phone manufacturers to settle on one charging standard, this lead to everyone having a micro USB charger, allowing everyone else to piggyback.

Off course it made sense for phone manufacturers to choose some pre-existing standard that can handle data and power in one connector.

But if 20 years ago you would have asked me to guess the future universal power connector, I would have guessed on a standardized size and voltage for the ubiquitous round connectors (barrel jack?), or maybe an adaptation of headphone connectors. MicroUSB with its comically small contact area, (originally) only 2.5W maximum power and fragile connectors that are a pain to plug in wouldn't have been my guess.

Aside from the many, many different sizes, I really miss barrel jacks for charging. Like USB-C, there is no wrong way to plug it in, but the connection always feels solid.

I currently have to wiggle my USB-C and find the right angle to achieve "rapid charging," and if it moves too much it just falls out.

Feels like we've gone backwards in physical connection reliability.

Do USB-C connectors get packed with lint?

I had a USB micro phone stop charging and it ended up being lint/dust packed in the connector.

Yes! Exactly what happened with my Pixel phone. The cable would fall out after a minute. Took a toothpick and a few minutes to get the dirt out and now it's as good as new.

They do. I started seeing my phone not getting fully charged during the night and driving on a bumpy road would make the screen turn on and off. Took me a while to realize that a small lint ball from inside my pocket had made it into the USB C socket of my phone. It was small enough not to be overly evident. Few minutes with a toothpick and it's good as new!

> Like USB-C, there is no wrong way to plug it in, but the connection always feels solid.

Hefty disagree. I've seen plenty of (mainly cheap) laptops where the barrel socket would get loose over time and it was an absolute pain to charge because the connector would jiggle out at the slightest movement.

> Like USB-C, there is no wrong way to plug it in, but the connection always feels solid.

You can always get the polarity wrong if the designer is stupid and switches them from the standard

I have two devices at home with the positive contact on the outer ring!!!

There's not a lot of reason to stick with micro USB even for hobbyist projects. You can get USB-C "charging" receptacles that only breakout 6 contacts in any combination of SMD/PTH on the contacts and the mounting pins. Even in tiny quantities they're less than $0.10/ea on aliexpress. If you just want 5V you don't need to deal with PD, just stick 5K1 resistors to GND on each of the CC1 and CC2 pins (don't cheap out like the Raspberry Pi4 did and tie the CC pins together to save on a second resistor, or you'll end up with the same problems as they did).

They should be just as easy to route and hand-solder and the footprint should be just as compatible with low-end pcb services as any micro-usb connector, and it will allow you to use a better USB-C cable as your power connector.

If you also want the USB2 D+/D- lines broken out you can get USB-C connectors with 16-contact pinouts (everything but the SS pins).

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