Spending the day testing my USB-C cables
Spending the day testing my USB-C cables
Picked up a Treedix while they were on sale. Slowly going through my Big Box Of Cables™. Some of the high-spec cables I bought are duff.
19 comments
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Do you need such a specialized device for that or could that be tested via some software on a computer/phone as well?
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You need a specialised device. I couldn't find any software which could read this from an Android phone or Linux machine.
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Take this with a grain of salt.
I think if your device has the right hardware and the right application with the right low-level access, it can tell you most of these things. But a dedicated tester can tell you more.
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You could just use the cable and see if it charges or transfers data at the speed your devices are supposed to but then you don't know if its the devices or the cable causing the bottleneck until you try more cables
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I got a cheap aliexpress board with LEDs that does this, at least the main protocols.
It’s definitely one of these things that make me wonder if I’m being too consumeristic. It’s nice to have a cable tester but I don’t really need one. Maybe if I had a shop that sold cables. But then again I can test my stuff “objectively”, possibly minimizing throwing out working cables. Idk
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I'm a big fan of the BLE caberqu, it does a bit more than the treedix tester and has an app to save and export cable reports.
EDIT: here's the link https://caberqu.com/home/39-ble-caberqu-0611816327412.html
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I was going to buy one of these but it’s on back order and I didn’t see an estimated date for stock. Looks neat though. Wish I caught it on kickstarter.
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Tree Dicks eh?
19 comments
I don't know why they still aren't printing this info onto the cable itself. When you pull something out of the box of very important cables, it's a lottery what speed/power you get.
Supposedly new color-coding and informational text standards are about to be implemented and in production very soon.
It's good to have it printed on the cable.
But also in the OP:
They can print whatever they want on these cables. So it's still a good idea to test them.
Because it ruins the beautiful cable design!
Honestly I'm half mocking it but I also think it's true. I genuinely enjoy having a pretty cable, and having text printed on it like they do on CAT cables would make it uglier. It's a legitimate reason.
I think marked USB cables should be available, and I'd like to have some marked and some not in my collection. It's definitely not cool that basically none are marked today.
Edit: genuinely didn't expect to be downvoted for this. Could anyone explain why the downvote? Do you just not think electronics should be pretty?
All the relevant info on this tester could probably pretty easily be printed onto the connector head. Then you can have your label and your pretty cable too.