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Comment by dheera | Hacker News Reader

Not only that, but the USB-C plug itself is the worst-designed plug I have seen in a decade. It's flimsy sheet metal on the plug side with a nice big cantilever, and flimsy sheet metal soldered to a PCB on the other. Perfect recipe for broken ports and cables.

I break about a cable a week and break a device every now and then. Mostly doing very normal things like charging a phone in my pocket while hiking.

USB-C seems like a perfect example of a product designed by people who sit in an office chair all day and never go hiking, skiing, ice skating, rock climbing, or otherwise seek to understand what their users normally do with plugged-in devices in the field.

I miss the old DC barrel connectors -- they never broke, and they were usually designed such that housing of the electronics took the brunt of everything, not the PCB.

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> I miss the old DC barrel connectors -- they never broke, and they were usually designed such that housing of the electronics took the brunt of everything, not the PCB.

I've patched up so many of these over the years, that doesn't really seem that accurate. Though it is relatively true for properly designed stuff (connector bottoms out on the case and not on the jack) and things using the rather rare panel-mount jacks, which are indeed very solid if only lacking in ingress protection.

Agreed. We had a bronze PowerBook and replaced the DC socket on it over and over before giving up. Worse yet, the socket was underneath a bunch of stuff inside the laptop, so the process was even slower than it might be.

And then there's all the guitar pedals I make with chassis-mounted jacks... they can take an amazing amount of abuse.

Same for audio jacks. PCB-mounted 3.5mm jacks need resoldering often enough, but panel-mounted lasts forever.

>I break about a cable a week and break a device every now and then

You're doing it wrong then. I have about 5 USB-C cables and have never broke one in 3 years...

Kinds of cables I have broken over my IT life:

- A few Apple charger cables (on the Mac connecting end)

- A few headphone cables

> Apple charger cables

Apple cables are generally really awful in terms of physically tearing apart, no matter the connector on the end.

Anecdotally, had better success with Apple USC-C cables than with the old MagSafe cables....

I disagree with the notion that just because they break that I'm "doing it wrong". Please listen to the customer. Rather, I'd say that they're just not rugged enough for my (consumer) standard of use, which needs to be more rugged than office use. I have legitimate needs to engage in sports while devices are plugged in and accessible. Other consumers get stuff bitten by children and pets, stepped on, tangled, and caught in things. That's consumer life. It should be accepted as a valid design problem to make a product rugged enough to tolerate that. Often a simple change in housings and shrouds would deal with this problem inexpensively -- in the case of USB, all it would take is for the shroud to be a part of the standard itself, and the housing it mates with to hold and relieve strain on the shroud.

What about IEC cables? They're super rugged and virtually impossible to break. Proportionally downsizing that connector to be small enough would likely maintain the same level of ruggedness while being small.

I'd appreciate if people don't downvote me just because you disagree with me. That discourages useful discussion on HN. I downvote trolls and people who abuse the system with spam, not people I disagree with.

>What about IEC cables? They're super rugged and virtually impossible to break. Proportionally downsizing that connector to be small enough would likely maintain the same level of ruggedness while being small.

Those are only designed to carry power though... not a complex list of protocols...

>I'd appreciate if people don't downvote me just because you disagree with me

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314

I've heard that USB-C is intentionally designed to break the cable rather than the port, in situations where one of those must break. That's absolutely been true in my experience.

It doesn't happen often, but I've dropped two phones while they're charging onto the cable. The micro-USB phone never charged the same again; depending on the cable, you needed to put pressure on it to tilt it in the right direction. My new USB-C phone cleanly bent the cable, and the connection seems as solid and as reliable as it ever was with the replacement.

I like the intent, but I would prefer ruggedizing them to the extent that neither of them breaks. Many automotive connectors, for example, are both inexpensive and extremely difficult to break either.

I want a phone that's small, light, is very powerful and has a battery that lasts a month.

Look what you are asking for is not economically possible. The connectors you are comparing with are much larger and don't even have close to the number of lanes as USB cables. It's a useless comparison.

Which automotive connectors do you have in mind?

There exist magnetic charging cables that can help with the breakage issue you're having. The connector and charging cable are connected by two magnets and some pins, instead of breaking the cable or the device itself, the cable will just disconnect.

That's just bullshit. You can check for how many uses a usbc plug was designed and tested for.

What they say is they have a charger in their pocket and connected to their phone while hiking. So they're like yanking the cable, sometimes slightly, sometimes harder, thousands of times per day, as they walk, climb, etc. I'd say put the thing in a backpack, or use wireless, or whatever...

I'd say it should be designed for being able to put a phone in your pocket while connected to a charger and engaging in sports. That sounds like a perfectly normal consumer-friendly feature, and consumers will do it anyway. Putting it in a backpack means you cannot easily look at it.

The solution is fairly simple -- the /housing/ around the plug needs to be standardized and have a snug fit into the housing of the phone. That would relieve strain on the connector or contact.

I really don't understand why people are downvoting me here. I thought downvoting was to deal with trolls and abusers. When did people start downvoting people they disagree with? That discourages meaningful discussion.

Didn't downvote, but I can see how you might come across as being disingenuous or trollish by saying it should be designed for a particular use case (which implies it isn't), observing that it doesn't work, and suggesting it be redesigned. Most people have learned that it's a bad idea to keep your phone in your pocket while charging, decide not to do that, and subsequently don't have this problem.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21537025

Well, they keep breaking on me and (a) DC barrel connectors (b) headphone jacks (c) XT30U (d) BNC (e) DB9 and a bunch of other connectors almost never break on me.

You're comparing a list of 2 pin connectors to an 18 pin connector.

Perhaps using wireless charging and putting a rubber band round your phone will be a better solution.

I haven't straight up broken any connectors, but my Pixel 3's USB-C port is super picky about what cables will fit well enough to actually charge. I end up plugging it in, flipping the cable around, trying again, moving the phone so the cable hangs slightly different, etc. Port is clean (apparently they collect pocket lint), tried 5+ cables, only the original one has a decent hold once plugged in. All this means I basically _can't_ charge my phone on the go, in the car, etc.

I agree that usb-c connectors can be pretty fragile. To preserve mine, I've been charging my phone almost exclusively with a wireless charger.

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