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Comment by latsu | Hacker News Reader

Why oh why is still using Micro USB?!

I was hoping that the next iteration would start using USB-C even if it costed a bit more per-board.

Their partners already have tons of alternative boards ready to go, including a few which are drop-in replacements for the Pico, if you don't mind spending a bit more for USB-C:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/for-industry/powered-by/product-...

The problem is most of the boards from partners are specialized with different hardware add-ons and have a significant markup at about 10 USD a board, which makes it harder to justify buying a handful of boards to tinker with. It's quite unfortunate.

That's true, but give it a few weeks and AliExpress will be full of dirt cheap Pico/ProMicro-compatible RP2350 boards with USB-C.

I recently bought a dozen RP2040 ProMicros with USB-C and 16MB flash for about $2.70 each, and there's variants with smaller flash for even less.

This store, if you're wondering: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006130019224.html

Are this almost identical to the rpi so I can install rpi OS?

No, these are microcontrollers. They're the thing you'd put inside a device that needs a tiny bit of smarts, like Raspberry Pi's debug probe[0]. The case I have for my RPi5[1] uses an rp2040 to run the thermal management logic.

0. https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/microcontrollers/d...

1. https://argon40.com/en-gb/products/argon-one-v3-m-2-nvme-cas...

The Pico and Pico 2 are micro-controllers, not SBCs like the other Raspberry Pis.

For anyone else who wanted to see the Challenger+ board's specs/price (for some reason the rpi page only links to a photo of it): https://ilabs.se/product/challenger-rp2350-wifi-ble/?&curren...

At least microUSB always works, with Chinese USB-C boards they skimp on the CC pull-ups so the ports don't work with typeC to typeC cables.

I suspect the microUSB would actually fail in OTG mode for the same reasons in that case though? It's the same thing in terms of needing extra resistors.

Oh, I was trying to understand why cheap chiniseum USB-C-powered products off Amazon were only charging from a cheap USB-A brick and not from my quality USB C chargers.

try combining a type c male to USB female adapter and a USB A to type c cable together to get a working type c to type c cable

Ugh, that one was killing me the other day. I went through 3 different cables before I found a hardware designer on the company's discord who could explain the issue.

Ok, that explains it. I have a usb powered LED lamp that I’ve been trying to recharge via a c to c cable- but it only works with a b to c.

Thought it might be the cable at first, but it was general. Just couldn’t think of a reason why it wasn’t supported though…

Contrary view: I don't mind, because of two things:

1: I still have a ton of micro-USB cables, and a decreasing number of things to use them for. Some are unused, still in unopened packages.

2: Devices like this don't get moved and plugged/unplugged frequently, which is what kills the connector.

Probably to maintain the exact same form factor as the Pico (1)

Probably so they can say that it's a drop-in upgrade over the Pico 1. It's not a drop-in upgrade if you have to redesign your project's case to use it.

Funnily enough, they advertise one of the partner boards with USB C in that way anyways:

> Picossci2 Breakout is a drop-in replacement for Pico 2, with a USB-C connector.

doesn’t usb-c significantly increase the components required? unless you skimp and just replace the connecter only, which won’t always work.

It just needs two resistors on the CC lines.

My guess is the RPi foundation has a _ton_ of extra micro USB connectors they want to use up.

No, it just needs 2 extra resistors to work properly, but will work as-is if you use USB-A to USB-C cables and as long as you don't pull more power than available by default (i.e. you can request 3A @ 5V just by adding two resistors, but without it you're limited to USB's defaults)

In the past, when usb-c just got introduced micro usb ports for significantly cheaper than usb-c, so it made some sense. Today, it makes no sense.

You can't request 3A via resistors and you don't need to. You can advertise being able to source 3A via resistors. The sink does not advertise how much power it draws (unless it speaks PD), sink's responsibility is to check for what the source advertises (either via resistors or PD) before attempting to draw more power than USB default if you want to be compliant, which boils down to a simple comparator/ADC reading.

Simple sinks just use two 5.1k resistors for pull-downs, no matter how much power they want to draw - and they always need these resistors (two for receptacles, one for plugs), otherwise they won't work with USB-C sources at all.

Right, my bad, you're correct. For some reason, I thought it must be on both sides like that.

I understand all the reason why but I'm still disappointed with the USB 1.1 controller instead of a USB2.0

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