An Engineer's Guide to USB Typе-С (2024)

So it depends on how you baby it, but a few good accidental tugs can ruin a phone.

I like to run my game controllers wired and ruined one(xbox-one controller) this way when I got a bit agitated during a game, it's replacement(8-bitdo wired) is much better designed where the plug housing goes in a snug inset in the controller. Providing strain relief. I dread having to find a new plug that fits if it goes bad. but a narrow plug should work, granted without the strain relief.

Old rectangular USB-A was only rated for 1500 ideal insertions. USB-C is a big improvement at 10,000 ideal insertions. Most insertions are not ideal, and it is relatively common to have some leveraged pressure trying to wedge the port apart; When my phone bridges the gap between the arm of the sofa and the coffee table while plugged in, for example, it's got a bending moment. USB-C is much thinner in the up-down dimension than USB-A, and it is not designed to safely disengage when side-loaded like Magsafe. If you wanted to break it for some reason, I'm pretty sure you could do it in a few seconds while resting your elbows on the table, on grip strength alone.

Per gemini for making ligthning accessories you also have to pay 4$ to apple per device that are passed onto the consumer.

I dont know in what way that has to do with colonization.

USB everywhere is nice because you can use the same charger for all kind of devices and dont have to carry multiple with you.

The different kind of specs for usb cables is unfortunate, but you can just buy the highest spec ones and only use them.

Failure to have clear cable capability marking from the start is too bad though, if I needed a high speed USB cable longer than 6" (probably included with a hard drive enclosure or similar) I'm not sure if I own one, and if I do I have no idea which cable it is.

But they didn't. Every single other company/device was using usb(c) and it probably wasn't because of some kind if irrational dislike of words starting with the letter L.

Because it is bad. In any connection there are springs that keep the tension, which will eventually wear out. They can either be on the cheap replaceable cable, or in the receptacle that is hardwired into your expensive device.

This is why, in part, USB Mini was replaced by USB Micro. ( https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/18552/why-wa... )

> Why Micro types offer better durability? Accomplished by moving leaf-spring from the PCB receptacle to plug, the most-stressed part is now on the cable side of the connection. Inexpensive cable bears most wear instead of the µUSB device.

Definitely had an iPhone where the port was worn out and getting it to connect was difficult.

Lightning has the same issue sadly

But those moments are the exceptions. In my everyday life, when I need to charge _anything_, except maybe for the laptop itself, I just look for a charger with USB-C and it works. It maybe faster or slower depending on everything you just wrote, but it works.

On a side-note, when I take the charger of my laptop, it can charge absolutely everything.

So yes, that's a true and honest improvement.

Power-hungry laptops are trickier, but even so... I've gone a week or more trickle charging a laptop from whatever travel charger I happened to have on hand, using it for a few hours, then putting it in standby and charging it up again until finally the mfg-blessed replacement fast charger arrived. The alternative (and one I was faced with more than once in the bad old days) was "no laptop".

Worst experience I've had to date has been a Norco jump box that will charge via one high-power charger and one cable, a car charger it came with, and ... Via careful back feeding from a benchtop power supply.

Is it the most efficient? Probably not. Is it hurting the batteries of my devices? I guess?? I haven't noticed any issues with any device and that's 8 years now. Perhaps I've been lucky.

That's for charging. Data can be trickier, that's true, but often devices that use USB-C for serious stuff come with their own. Chargers from aliexpress-grade stuff I just discard to the drawer of the 1M-cables from where nothing will ever come out.

I've never seen a USB C brick that supported some alternative to PD but not PD. Do many exist? Are they still making them?

Wattage of chargers is easy enough to handle.

Every non-defective cable can do 60 watts. That's enough for the vast majority of devices. If you have defective cables just get rid of them.

> will this particular combo charge your laptop?

If your laptop doesn't have weird DRM, the answer is either "every charger and every cable works" or "every 60W or higher charger and every cable works".

> How about that smart LiPo charger, it's USB-C, but it needs at least 9 volts to charge, and not every power brick gives out that voltage.

I think that's violating the standard so you'd have similar problems even without this kind of standard. But that's basically just a 30 watt requirement in practice which goes back to being easy.

> The USB-A to usb-C cable that came with them works, but the USB-C to USB-C that you bought after, doesn't.

That one's definitely violating the standard.

> What about charging speed? Will it do fast charge?

For anything under 60 watts, just read the number on the charger.

This is the same as with other kinds of plug, which can also vary in charging speed even when they're compatible.

For higher wattage laptops in particular you might care about cable choice. That's an annoyance but also easily solved by getting only high wattage cables.

> What about a powerbank, does it charge your laptop?

You've lost me. Without USB C a laptop power bank basically wouldn't exist. Weren't we comparing to back in the day?

I have three devices in my room right now that fit the "standard" barrel plug shape. One is 5V, one is 12V, one is 12V with inverted polarity. If I plug the wrong cable into the wrong device it will break permanently. They do have the decency to label somewhere on the device what kind of power it needs but that's something I need to check every time.

In contrast I bought a couple inexpensive 6' USB-C cables that do 100W charging, and a couple inexpensive bricks that support that too. Every USB-C device I own - my phone, my laptop, my earbuds, my portable batteries, my portable fans - every one of them can power/charge at full speed or at least very fast.

And more importantly, I know they aren't going to get fried if I'm tired or in a rush and I forgot to check the plugs. I made one purchase of some inexpensive good cables+bricks, and now I never need to think about it again.