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Comment by booty | Hacker News Reader

God, yeah. I try to label the USB-C cables directly by capability with my label maker, if they are more than basic charging cables.

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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

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?

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.

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!

The Treedix[0] can query e-marker chips.

[0] https://treedix.com/products/treedix-usb-cable-tester-usb-c-...

Huh, looking at the photos, they really don’t do the board justice. It’s a gorgeous thing to look at and one of the only “bare pcb” tools I’ve used that still functions after years of being thrown in a backpack. It is Fully passive I think (the newer BLE one does emarker queries etc.). But it does the job very well. I haven’t had it fail to identify the capabilities of any cable yet.

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

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.

Thanks, that's helpful!

Wow... have you found cheap cables that are able to display video despite not being advertised as such?

Generally no, you're far more likely to get something that DOESN'T do what's asvertised in my experience.

You can almost always tell the second it's in your hand; in order to do the high throughput stuff, 20Gb, 40Gb etc, the wire is much thicker and stiffer, it needs conductors for all of those contacts. Ive never counted but it's something like 20 of them vs 4 in a standard cable.

Of course always C to C; the A connectors with the extra contacts in between the normal USB 2 ones still aren't enough.

    the A connectors with the extra contacts in 
    between the normal USB 2 ones still aren't enough.

Oh jesus, I hadn't even realized that was a thing!

I just checked and there's 4 levels of data speed (including USB 4 Gen 4) and 3 levels of power (up to 240 W) but I wouldn't be surprised if that is an outdated answer.

I've got a Treedix[0] which does A, C to Lightning, mini-B, C, MicroB3.0, and Micro. Super handy for identifying the nonsense C-C cables you can chuck.

[0] https://treedix.com/products/treedix-usb-cable-tester-usb-c-...

I went for a colour label system - one colour for type of cable (C-C, A-C, etc.) and one colour for capabilities (power, usb2, usb3, usb4+, etc.)

Makes it super easy to find, say, a data microUSB (blue, orange) for the Audiomoth) or a simple charging microUSB (red, orange) for the old blood pressure cuff).

What marker do you use to mark them? Is the ink durable and easy to read?

A label maker, as they said they use, prints durable and easy to read labels.

Whoops, thank, I can't read - I misread label maker as label marker!

I bought a cheap pack of 5 colors of 3m electrical tape. Each cable gets one or two pieces of tape:

Data:

White if usb2

Blue if it supports USB 3 data (because 5Gbps USB 3 ports are mostly blue)

Green if TB/USB4/40Gbps

Power:

None if low/no Power Delivery

Yellow for 45W PD

Red for 65W+ PD

Love this, that sounds awesome. Thanks for sharing!

You could even do combinations of colors like on resistors.

Might get sticky residue after a few years

I suggest finding something else, electrical tape starts coming off after a few years, leaving behind sticky residue that's impossible to remove without some kind of solvent. Same goes for masking tape.

Heatshrink?

Heatshrink is great if you're making cables but you would need a really high shrinkage ratio to fit over the connector and then shrink enough, the common cheap stuff is usually 2:1, maybe 3:1.

You could cut the heatshrink tube, wrap it around the cable and then secure it with transparent tape. It would slide around but at least it wouldn't leave residue on the cable.

Maybe clip-on cable markers like this? [1] Easy to 3D print if you're so inclined.

[1] https://uk.farnell.com/multicomp-pro/pb-250-sm0c/cable-marke...

I’ve thought about just putting it on the connector itself. It may look stupid though.

Brother label printers (and I assume others) can print text small enough and sharp enough to fit onto USB connectors. (You'll need to manually trim the label with scissors to fit of course)

Visually, if it's something I'm going to be staring at on a daily basis, I like this much better than having tags hanging off of the cable. Tip: consider white-on-black labels.

The labels have been plenty durable in my experience, but if you need extra durability, you could probably just brush some lacquer over it with a Q-tip.

Man, I really need to get a label printer. There’s been a whole bunch of stuff I’d like to label already, but I’ve had no idea you could also change the font.

The Brother label printers are great. No authentication chips on the tape cartridges, so you can use cheap 3rd-party ones. I sometimes feel like Brother is the last company selling consumer-friendly printers.

One big differentiator between various Brother models that's not immediately obvious is the tape sizes they accept. The cheaper models don't accept the fatter 24mm/1" labels, gotta step up to the $99ish models for that.

I assume he labels the bag and never has the need to remove it (you just take a new bag). Edit: Nope I was wrong. Bad bad bad

I use wraparound cable labels[0] which seem to work ok (although do end up sliding up and down the cable to some extent.)

[0] e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FQTX4MPL

I have 20 year old white duct tape on containers in my basement that has never peeled. It takes ink pretty well.

Obviously hell if you need to remove it, but we're talking about permanent labels. If I need to change a label I just put on a fresh layer of tape.

I remember some tape packaging having the lovely warning that "adhesive qualities may change over time". Indeed, some tape glues turn to dust, others to slippery goo or sticky goo, some become a mysterious immovable firmament that stays put until all the material around them has crumbled away.

I would not trust or even leave any kind of tape for long term application myself. There's always something better.

I've yet to find instances where electrical tape comes off of its own accord when wrapped. Even the electrical tape submerged 24x7 on my well pump had to be unwrapped.

I should have clarified: I use a 1" piece of maybe 5mm wide good quality 3M tape that wraps over itself.

This follows (at least my local) electrical code--it's quite robust. I have 40 year old electrical conduit that has tape applied like this and there's no movement, no fraying, no stickiness.

I use a white paint pen. DATA and NO DATA.

I use wire cutters. Non-compliant cables get cut & discarded. I've got a dedicated USB condom with USB-PD support for cases where I want to block data, since those are always charging and I want the negotiation to work for fast charging.

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