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Thank you, USB-C (and the EU too).
Well, some stuff still has dedicated adapters, but hopefully those phase out sooner or later.
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Are you buying cheap ones? Cause I’ve never had one break on me. Either user error and cheap.
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I use cheap. Never had one break on me.
USB-C seems to break way more often than micro-usb or the Apple connector ever did. For me the connectors will look fine, but the cable burns out or something. I stopped buying cheap cables on Amazon, and at the gas station, they don’t last.
Edit: some of you need to chill the fuck out with the voting buttons. What’s your rational? “I like USB-C, so I downvote a motherfucker!”. I like it too, but haven’t had good luck with longevity. I specifically said “for me”, as in “my experience with it so far”.
Idk what your doing to your poor usb c connectors. But they are way more durable than micro usb or the apple headers ever were.
USB-C is not just more durable than micro, it’s many times more durable!
Didn’t Apples cables often spontaneously melt?
I’ve noticed the opposite. I’ll use a Micro-USB cable for 1-2 years (sometimes less) and it’ll always start having flaky connections requiring more and more jiggles to get working. I’ve used the same USB-C cable for a bit over 5 years and it works as well as the day I bought it.
Could debris be getting in the connection?
No, I checked.
Micro USB was the bastard child of Loki, and a glass cactus that can only be inserted one way up your ass.
Somehow my USBC lead has stopped charging my phone at high speed, it still challenges the phone but really really slowly. What the hell?
Issues with CC conductors? USB PD works via CC* and USB BC works via DP/DN.
*old versions can communicate via Vbus, but it didn’t become popular.
EIDT: forgot about CC
As USB gets upgrades to provide more power, we will need those barrel jacks less and less. My laptop can only charge 65W from USB C, but 130W from the barrel jack. It’s a couple of years old now, I think from before there was a standard for USB to provide over 100W, but USB C can provide 240W now. So new laptops shouldn’t even need barrel jacks anymore.
I don’t know how I feel pumping 240 W through these flimsy wires. I know it’s probably alright, but still… it doesn’t look like it’s meant to take 40 amps.
I recently ordered several 240W PD USB-C cables and you should rest assured, they are chonkier
Thanks for the info!
I think if a device follows the standard, the 240 W mode should use 48 V * 5 A - still more than you’d use with normal USB cables, but less insane than 12 V * 20 A
I was guesstimating 40A × 5V. Your numbers sound reasonable!
If the cable is USB-IF certified you can trust it.
It’s only 5 amps, not 40. Magic of increased voltage.
You still need the PSU brick cable part to generate that kind of power.
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Just because they’ll be able to physically connect and give a non zero amount of power, doesn’t mean they won’t be obsolete.
Hell of a lot easier to adapt USBC to USBD or whatever the next standard is.
Well, if the issue is just whether the adapter is inside or outside the stuff
Whoa dad is that a vintage 1970s 6.3VDC 400mA?
Yes, yes it is, son.
Oops, the jack is half a millimeter too big. Time to find another one…
just wait until he learns about polarity
That’s nothing I have an adapter kit that allows you to charge any type of. All of the big name brands like, Nokia, and Motorola.
It’s a wild collection of 16 pins and barrel jacks and split connectors or if you want to go super futuristic mini USB B. I can charge any phone I want provided the phone I want to charge was manufactured before about 1995.
And no more radio shack to buy more of these!
I really don’t know where to go any longer for some things like this. I know, interwebs has it but I usually have questions that scamazon won’t answer.
Mouser or Digikey are your friends here.
You pay a little more than the cheap stuff on Amazon but you can be sure you’re getting the exact specs you ordered.
Mouser really is to me a neat lil store. You get in, ask the guy in the counter for the exact stuff you want, they type one or two things in a computer, check if that’s actually what you want and in less than 5 minutes they fetch it
That’s not how websites work
They have physical locations?
Stuart Little himself rings you up
Technically, yes, websites have physical locations in that they are hosted such that, no matter how many levels of containerization and virtualization there are, they eventually run and exist in some way on physical hardware.
No, as in Mauser has physical retail stores
Do they? I thought they sold their firearms through dealers.
If it’s important… Double check the output with a meter just to be sure. Only got burned by it once, but for expensive/complex circuits, just give the critical components a sanity check.
A few years back, I tried shopping for a replacement one. Figured I’d go to Walmart and find one of the barrel-plug hydras that used to be everywhere.
Just trying to explain the concept to the zygote in the electronics section was like I’d beamed down from an alien planet.
Thrift stores, maybe? It’s been like a decade since I’ve been inside a thrift store, so idunno if they still have these
Last month, the power adapter to my router died out of nowhere. I wasted a ton of time troubleshooting literally everything else other than the power adapter because I’ve never had one die before the actual device itself.
Of course none of the other adapters I had on hand fit. I had to order a new one…
I’ve had that situation a few times.
Just cut off the end and soldered it to another power adapter of appropriate voltage/amperage/pinning (be especially watchful in case one is centerpin positive and the others centerpin negative)
That feels like something I probably could do… But under no circumstances should do.
Should I spend the next hour or two soldering something I will always have anxiety over being a fire hazard, or should I spend $3.97 on amazon to have it here the next day. ¯\(ツ)/¯
With a soldering iron and another supply with the same voltage and amperage, anything is possible.
Seems like a fire hazard
Not if you wrap the wires with enough electrical tape to cover a football field
You’d be absolutely wrong, the adapter is on the low voltage side probably between 5-12v DC Even if you shorted it you’d just blow the transformer.
It’s also extremely easy to do…
Things are easy to do when you know how to do them.
There’s always a first time for learning something new. So go ahead and try it on something small and inconsequential when the opportunity presents itself.
Just need to know the basics of electricity and how it goes where. Many wires are colour coded too, so there’s even less to worry about.
Its also easy to learn how to do
Seems like you’re guessing
I mean, if you want to solder your own power adapter and don’t have any fear of producing something that could present a fire risk and put your home and family in danger, knock yourself out.
I am ok buying one online for $10. I also don’t have time to solder my own power adapters to save $10.
I wouldn’t recommend an inexperienced person mess with AC voltage but a 5-12V DC power adapter with a couple Amps max is a long way from dangerous and it’s not a fire hazard either really
You’re overestimating the skill required. Also, these connections are almost always “low-voltage”, so the risks are easily mitigated.
My dad has been an electrical engineer since the early 70’s. My inheritance in this regard is staggering.
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A lot of those work for other products. It’s still good, don’t throw it away.
The problem is you have to retain like 100 of them for the off chance that one of them fails in a device that you currently own.
Also the older ones are not very power efficient
Virgin inifficent ac-to-dc converter user vs chad pure DC system user
I love that pretty much everything short of heavy appliances you can think of comes in 12v 10a max cigarette plug or USB now. USBC PD -to -dc plug adapter is fuck in awesome
Never really thought about it, but everything being powered by USB has been extremely convenient for the last few years. When did this happen? I’m sitting here watching my flashlight charge with my phone’s power cord, and it never occurred to me that that’s rad as hell
I have a USB-PD wall plug and a battery that are both capable of 100W charging.
I use the same charger and cable to charge my laptop, phone, headphones, wireless mouse, soldering iron, and the portable battery (which itself can also charge all the others) Probably a bunch of others I’m forgetting.
It has significantly reduced the number of chargers and cables I need to carry around. I only buy usb-c capable accessories now.
Anyone who ever has to do some soldering on the go should check out the Pinecil soldering iron from Pine64, it’s a great tool at a truly incredible value and it can do 85W soldering from a USB-PD battery (or wall charger)
I love it so much! Feels like we are finally approaching a true universal connector now (after like 30 years and half a dozen revisions since USB 1.0) My favorite USB thing currently is an extremely energy efficent electric blanket. It may only consume 10w (its just standard USB not PD) but it keeps me surprisingly warm during the winter night and doesnt eat into my limited power. No 3 hour shutoff either it stays on all night.
The fact that USBC PD 3.0 can pump out up to 100w is just nuts
Micro USB cables are just as bad. They seem to multiply on their own.
Def the tribbles of the cable world.
Having some spare AC adapters with barrel connectors is a pretty handy thing to have around if you do any electronics work
12v 900ma…. Hmm… let me check my box of assorted plugs
Ah, negative tip!
A good thing to keep in mind is that you should match voltages, but with amps the cord just has to be equal or higher than the device. It’s a rating of what the cord can provide, not what it’s spitting out at all times like voltage.
So in your example of 12v 900ma, a 12v cord thats 1a or greater should work fine assuming the barrel is the same. This can also help declutter anyone’s ‘collections’…if you have a whole mess of 12v cords, you can safely ditch the lower amp ones.
Can confirm. Hmmm, 5V 2 A….
Are you pondering what I pondering? Type A to barrel.
Wdym by barrel? So inefficient compared to directly plugging in the live wires to whatever you need
I have a drawer full of these as well. But they wont move to the next apartment once I move.
You will need one within a week of getting rid of them and it will cost you $60-$80 dollars. It doesn’t matter if you’ve had them for a month or 10 years without needing one, as soon as you get rid of them, you’ll need them.
Thrift store. There are always dozens there.
Which is also where you should donate you’re unneeded ones. that way, the day after donating them, you know where you can get cheap ones because you all of a sudden need some.
That’s what you say now.
We should all get together and make a bank of these adapters, gather them all up in one place in every city so that when you have an electric razor with no power cord, you can just go down to the Adapter Bank and find something that fits
I think I have a big box of them somewhere. They have come in handy from time to time.
Yeah I use mine a lot. Especially the ones from broken open external harddrives (“shucking”). They’re usually 12V 2A and very useful for a myriad of tasks. Like my Unifi USG that has a notoriously bad PSU. I didn’t even have to change the plug!
The other day I noticed a device with an adapter that had wildly different amps and voltage but the Watts were the same and it fit so…
I think it goes there…
That is going to result either in a bang or nothing happening.
You can use a power supply if:
-
the plug fits
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the polarity is correct ( - and + are at the correct location)
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the voltage matches
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the current and wattage is the same or higher
#4 is subtle. It might work with less current, but this is a caveat not appropriate for novices.
#3 is also sometimes not a problem, many devices work with a bit lower or higher voltage. It’s because the DC to DC converter that is used to control the voltage for the device itself is tolerant enough.
Sometimes devices are multiple volts tolerant with the caviate that the components get warmer with higher input voltage and therefore the device could have reduced life expectency. If the devices where not tolerant especially for lower voltages a slightly bad cable or a long cable could drop the voltage enough so the device wouldn’t function.
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You want to make sure the Voltage matches or bad things can happen. The current and Wattage can be the same or higher, it will only draw as much as it needs.
An effects pedal collector’s dream, really.
As someone who designs and builds tons of gadgets having lots of random wall warts around is very helpful.
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But why would you ever need more than 3 + jumper wires?
