How Good Are My USB Cables?

[@atomic14]

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[@mreaper2265]

Have you hear of something called flux? no bridges if you use it.

[@ahgflyguy]

On the 4 central pins, only two of them should ever light up, since there is only one pair of D+ and D- wires inside the cable. So if you flip the over and then it goes from 3 of the 4 lighting up to all for lighting, then you know that you have two distinct errors.

[@Julianacan]

-h

[@mejesster]

Sell this board in the shop!

[@alexstone691]

Do this with HDMI, they differ so much!

[@atomic14]

Not a bad idea.

[@cewaffles]

@@atomic14 If you do, Seeing if its Bi-Directional would be a plus. I'd also opt for PCBWay for doing the filling of the board as well, Too many tiny things.

[@dinkc64]

The caberqu guys did this also, Google caberqu

[@PowderMill]

YES!

[@ccricers]

I need something like this, but with a switch on the 5v power. I have a display that can be powered exclusively with HDMI and sometimes need to reset power without unplugging it.

[@jameslaine2472]

FYI, those simple continuity testers won't actually tell you how good your cable is, only which wires exist. For cable quality you need something that cam measure data loss at the various SuperSpeed data rates, jitter, signal refractions, and other important details.

[@RobertLipe]

Agreed. Have a thumbs-up. I have one that renders true/false on DC connectivity, with no hints for solder bridges, badly crimped/soldered connectors, cables with wires with one strand of copper on the 100W power bus, etc. IMO, to do this well, you need a super-tiny micro (CH32V003?) to rotate through the signals to confirm that pin X and ONLY pin X connects when a signal is present on pin X and that the resistance of pinX is not wildly different than the neighboring pins to detect my (learned the hard way) cables with enough connectivity to drive the beep on a DMM but not power up a device on the other side. Maybe there's a way to do it without a micro - I'm a mere software guy so the ACTUAL EE's may know a better way to determine that pin N isn't connected to pin N+1 or pin N+7 or whatever. I'll wave my credit card in the direction of a product offering this solution. I've already purchased a couple of USB cable testers that have ultimately only clouded the seemingly pass/fail nature of a cable.

[@MarkEmeryPhotography]

If this comes to your store I’m definitely buying one.

[@atomic14]

If I can get it produced consistently then I'll put it up somewhere.

[@ruralgeek-nz]

I'd be happy to pay for the Gerber files and just order direct from pcbway on your affiliate link!

[@Rushil69420]

@@atomic14 for what it’s worth, I’d buy it as a kit too! Actually I might even be more interested in it as a DIY kit than as a finished product.

[@skillaxxx]

​@@atomic14Yes, I would love such a finished product too !

[@Tims_Projects]

You should sign your boards also (put your name on them), so when someone else makes a similar board, we can say "I prefer atomic14's USB Tester" 😁

[@Dalroth]

I would happily buy one of these. I have USB tester and while it's good, it's not great. It's helpful to figure out if a cable or power brick is bad, but it's nowhere near as helpful classifying in what ways a cable is deficient.

[@fire17102]

Please open source, id love to do some modifications. You already have 2 usb ports, dont need a 3rd for charging, use one of those for it. If you could add a buckboost, this could make a nice universal charger, and have different attachments for different sized batteries. Also, take two of these, add esp32s and you got yourself wireless usb data over wifi ! With batteries to run passive peripherals and sensors

[@TheBypasser]

The data lines are on one side only in order to avoid floating pins and loops, which is critical for a high-frequency line. The controllers have to decide which side to choose using the other signals.

[@stephenhookings1985]

Interestingly enough I was in my garage yesterday, trying to clean it up, and muttered how I didn't have a USB cable tester (but for all the cables). Imagine my surprise when next day The Algorithm brings me this video!!! I also made the "mistake" of getting the super large solder mask for one of my designs. I didn't even realise they come smaller. I super glued some wood to the other side (clamping for a day was tricky) one 3 sides of the perimeter then make a plate with 4th side. PCB fits snug and then can paste it up. But for sure I will check out the size next time.

[@XSpImmaLion]

Man, how is something like this still not available to buy somewhere... I'd think USB-C cable manufacturers would all have something like this in the QA line. :P Kudos for the intuitive design and work!

[@NoobPolitikerMario]

What do you mean by "not available to buy somewhere"? The smiling Arrow company has boards like these, even with a range of different USB Connectors on them, for less then 15 Euros. Search for example for Treedix USB Cable Tester

[@alexb.1320]

There are two out there with a full compliment of usb connectors (A, B, mini, micro, C) , I am waiting for delivery of one right now so we'll have to see how good it is. I won't name them out of respect to atomic14, especially if he will be selling his. But given time and the mess of USBC out there its probably something we will be seeing a lot more of in the future as people run into mis-matched cables.

[@Dante-420]

Very cool! Thank you for the mental sacrifice you went through putting this together; it looks useful!

[@atomic14]

A lot of swearing was involved :)

[@GoGoGoRunRunRun]

That would be so helpful for anyone working with music gear and whatnot. Decent usb cables and a decent MTT usb hub are essential.

[@wesrurede]

Version three with the breakout header is phenomenal! Extra use cases!

[@TheBeefiestable]

There are a ton of problems with usbC cables and hubs and PD (power delivery) pass thru : watch out boys and girls : I have had to test upwards of 15 hub models now - Adding a 6ft male->female usbC from a powered hub to a computer can cause intermittent glitches that can freeze bios during bootup (sometimes just needs reset, sometimes must power cycle the hub) - Cheap cables and hubs are all kinds of problems like poor mechanical plug intermittently - almost all hubs have at least one dumb bug: monitor auto detect problems in windows, PD glitches - power delivery is a nightmare, 60Watts max on cheaper cables , special E-marker cables required for more power, some cables need to be inverted completely defeating the purpose of usbC, newer ones say they are PD3.1 but arent backward compatible with 3.0 (maybe computer bios problem?) - physical dimension problems, room around plugs in hubs, 90degree is rare and doesnt fit everything, there are ports on the back of computers with a COVER forcing you to use 90degree or else start cutting your own holes in plastic NIGHTMARE

[@TechDeviceRepair]

Cool little gadget of a board there mate, Would like to know if you want to collaborate on the design of a PCB I have had in mind for a few years now. Cheers!

[@NEVIXIA]

It looks cute, would definitely buy one to test my cables instead of having to waste time guessing which is best.

[@ohmschool]

Very nice and useful project!! 👍 Amazon stocks a similar USB-A, B, C and Lightning tester for $15 USD that is made in Dongguan, China by Treedix, however the smaller sized connectors on their tester tend to fail easily because of poor physical connection to PCB, so I ended up repairing the USB-micro, USB-C and Lighting connectors more times than I liked. Straight out of the box, I should have added extra solder to all footpads of every connector before I used the tester for the first time, to help strengthen the physical bond between connector and PCB, but instead I trusted everything would be OK on their build quality, and sadly that was not the case. Another seller, CABERQU in Austria, has a USB-C Only tester C2C CABERQU which I find works very well and has a better build quality vs Treedix, however the CABERQU is bit pricey at €28 (I found them thanks to a nice video by Andreas Speiss). CABERQU also has a nice looking HDMI tester for sale also, however I did not order one of those yet.

[@PramodhRachuri]

Link please

[@uttula]

Isn”t the reason the data signals change by design? So that the device the cable is connected to is able to know ”which way” it is connected. Obviously I’m not too well versed in USB-C, but this is something I think I read somewhere … or perhaps I just imagined it :-/

[@jonathanr4242]

You should measure the resistive losses in the cable as an extra feature.

[@TheDanielsherer]

There is no way I could assemble that! I hope that when you get a solid (and assembled by PCBWay) version, you should offer them for sale.

[@rarbiart]

some kind of "cross over detection" would be nice, e.g. testing the connections by 2 multiplexers and the LEDs driven by the controller.

[@AWriterWandering]

With how much of a cluster ***** the USB-C “standard” is, this would definitely come in handy

[@lordofthesticks0]

honestly from an electrical engineering perspective it does make sense why the cables are just so inconsistent. the connector is meant to be universal but not the connections. those 24 pins are way easier to be made in a factory than actually connecting them individually with a wire. you can imagine trying to wire a board with 24 whole connections to another board whilst making the size sensible enough for a cable. it's a lot cheaper to just wire up the CC pins, D+ D-, Vbus, and ground instead of the whole set so your cable that's only used for charging doesn't cost $20 per metre. 20V/3A is a lot already for charging any phone or smaller devices. even laptops are sometimes within that power budget. maybe it's different for some people but for most, a 480mbps connection is already enough except something like TB eGPUs and external SSDs. even then they usually just come with their own cable anyways. yeah it's convenient to have your charging cable be powerful enough to handle 48V/5A with 40gbps data transfers but how many times would you actually use those features before the cable snaps off lol

[@AWriterWandering]

@@lordofthesticks0 That makes sense. Though it would be nice if there was at least some standard for marking the cables. Like maybe a collection of symbols that could be embossed onto the head of each connector. Or even just a QR style code you could scan with your phone to get the specs.

[@tiagoferreira086]

Incredible how such a "simple" project can give so many trouble. It happens to me all the time...

[@mikesmale1853]

Automatic testing. You the man! 😊 I’ll have to open up one of my spare usbc cables. I had no idea there are so many wires inside. Thanks for sharing. Awesome.

[@elektron2kim666]

You never know what they put in an USB C cable. Excellent choice. I have to flash a device now and then, so it's a go or a no go.

[@marcus_w0]

That's a pretty neat Idea... You're inspired me, to try something like this myself, maybe with a lot of different connectors.

[@DJ-SPARKY-REACH-ON-AIR]

wow i need one of them i use a lot of usbs every day and wish there was one for multi cable tester good video

[@TradieTrev]

I've got this certain combination of mine here where I get 70-90 AC with a good 3mA of current from my usb leads, it gave me tingles which is why I tested it.

[@kdog3908]

Nice little build! Just getting back into this sort of thing myself. Arduino starter kit is on its way. Got my soldering gear and a multimeter standing by. Doing SM builds might be a little ways off though. Looking forward to it!

[@Really2950]

Fantastic idea. Thanks for your efforts on this

[@MrDomingo55]

You could have added option to power this via a separate USB cable to a USB charger or laptop/computer port

[@robertmckelvey3091]

Use a lot of good solder flux on the tip of your iron when dealing with those bridges on the connectors more times than not you can drag it right out

[@alap1983]

There are Cable Testers. They have multiple ports:LAN, HDMI, mini, micro, USB-C, USB, and others. But these testers are quite expensive. You could decouple, and make cheap testers for each type of cable,benefitting MILLIONS of people. This is a GREAT business opportunity. Make millions of these testers for the most common types of cables and ports....

[@OmniShadesGaming]

If you can test HDMI cables, can you also test if they can use Usb c AltDP mode at different resolutions and refresh rates, with other types of data transfer?

[@lint2023]

Cool tool. As a mech engr I understand the worry about getting a design correct especially with the cost incurred for mechanical builds. I never released a design for mfg without multiple complete point to point detailed reviews. Essentially, design again for a subsequent review.

[@brookrocket9209]

How to get audio data from Bluetooth for processing in esp32 I mean esp32 act as bluetooth reasiver But not to make Bluetooth speaker ⭐But to process reasived audio data⭐ Like to process reasived Bluetooth audio with fft and make bluetooth spectrum analyser Note/conclusion : i only need the Bluetooth reasived audio data for processing Please help Please reply

[@PowderMill]

I would buy several of the finished product ! I literally have boxes filled with terrible crap “Amazon Chinesium” USB-C cables. Great video AND tester! Thank you.

[@steve6375]

So it's a 'USB Type-C CABLE CONNECTIVITY tester', not a 'USB tester'? You could maybe indicate the 2.0 signals on the silk screen so you can see if any are missing without requiring to remember the spec? Also indicate which are required for OTG (ID?) and PD (CC1,CC2?) and DisplayPort (SBU1 and 2?).

[@thepoormechanic]

They only show on one side at a time because usb d+/d- can only transmit a single lane and are connected together on the host device pcb

[@omnianti0]

how much pcbway sell the complete version3 ?

[@Doyle69]

Stencil could be laser cut out maybe. Great project

[@arduinoatolyem2121]

Which program did you use to design the pcb?

[@N2RI1]

need to make it using Type A USB jacks so adapters can be used for smaller types

[@EvanRisk]

I definitely want one of these

[@grzehooo88]

Great vid, Similar board as CaberQU done long time ago

[@DonzLockz]

Bloomin brilliant! Why hasnt this been made before? That's exactly what I've been looking for. I'd buy a couple of made-up units when you release them.👍🤠🇦🇺

[@H3wastooshort]

I cant find a GitHub repo for this design yet. What are the part numbers of the usb c sockets of the final design? Im currently designing a board that uses usb c with the highspeed lines connected and would like to take some inspiration from yours

[@atomic14]

I've just added the repo to the description. It's got a link to the USB socket.

[@PramodhRachuri]

Link to purchase please

[@N2RI1]

where can we buy it?

[@AubsUK]

@PileOfStuff reviewed one of these today that he bought. Almost identical, but they have the coin-cell battery on top.

[@atomic14]

Nice - I imagine it's quite a common project - I found one on Amazon (suggested in the comments - added a link to the description) that is pretty functional and include a whole bunch of different sockets. Very cheap as well - £15 I think.

[@shalikadilshani6877]

Do 1 for every single connector ever designed

[@horsethi3f]

Didnt knew USB had so many wires in them

[@Alperic27]

super fun… well done

[@DustinWatts]

What solderpaste dispenser was that?

[@atomic14]

That was the Voltera - a PCB printer. Does conductive ink, but can also be used for solder paste.

[@DustinWatts]

@@atomic14 Thanks! It looks like it is doing a good job. But a reasonably sized stencil works much better😝

[@TheWaterblatter]

Who makes those mixed smd/tht usb-c connectors?

[@atomic14]

Added a link to the repo in the description - there's a link there to the connectors.

[@sermelipharo]

Daaam put me on preorder list

[@anthonynowlan9765]

How does this compare to Treedix cable tester?

[@atomic14]

Don’t know yet - just ordered one! My one is only for USB-C cables. The treedix one has many options. My one has multicoloured LEDs :)

[@v1ncen715]

Please make one for HDMI cables! please!

[@christopherstaples6758]

so many crap USB cables these days with no data pins

[@reddot3893]

I did a similar pcb but yours looks better 😭

[@SB-qm5wg]

This is really cool.

[@beforebefore]

Please tell me that you understand that it takes FAR more than just "pin-to-pin" continuity to make a USB-C cable that can "successfully" transfer 40 Gbps... or even 480 Mbps!?! Data travels on twisted pairs of wires... and those twisted pairs have to have a very specific twist spec, and twist direction. Not only that, but every data path pair must be VERY tightly matched in delay... you can't have mis-matched timing when the data/clock signals arrive at different times... or it will be completely corrupted. That's part of the reason "correct" Thunderbolt cables have to be designed with data buffers at each end of the cable... to help minimize the timing problems associated with extremely high data rates. If that Belkin cable is just a passive cable, its chance of successful transmission of full 40 Gbps data is extremely marginal at best.

[@atomic14]

This is a very basic tester. But you will find that a lot of cables that claim to be high speed are simply lacking most of the wires that are required. Cheap cables that claim to be USB-3 or USB-4 only have the data wires. Or you have cables that are only meant for charging but sold as data cables. Obviously there are industrial cable testers that will do a complete characterisation of your cable - but they tend to come in the at $$$$ price point...

[@appleejack]

I will buy some 👍

[@atomic14]

If I can get consistent production then I'll put it up somewhere.

[@robertaries2974]

Tbag is so cool 😎🔥

[@GoodWill-s8j]

This is just a continuity test. It tells you nothing about, for example, signal integrity and bandwidth, etc..

[@MichaelLauerDr]

I want one!

[@gus473]

Me too! 😎

[@KARLLARK100]

very cool idear well done,.//., would lov one,.//.,

[@Argosh]

If only someone sold usb c breakout boards 😂

[@asjadmahmood1662]

Impressed

[@sudheerkumar5966]

Very nice

[@atomic14]

Thanks! I do love the multicolored LEDs.

[@onerazz3115]

very cool... I like it.

[@Doomslayer151]

i think PCIe data lines can replaced with this thinks beacuse USB is too fast(fun fact USB4 invented in 2008)

[@MILO-bb4dv]

Look's great 👍

[@atomic14]

Thanks 👍

[@randypeeters3931]

40 gigabits a second not 40 gigabyte a second

[@eyeamKurisu]

cable

[@zyghom]

deleting comments? not good

[@atomic14]

I don’t delete any comments. KZbin will hold some comments for review, but I check these every so often and publish them.

[@zyghom]

@@atomic14 I was saying: on Amazon there is such board for 15 GBP with... 9 sockets! so probably your project was... too much efforts for too little gain ;-)

[@atomic14]

Added a link to the description. Looks interesting.

[@zyghom]

@@atomic14 ha ha ha, yesterday it was 15 GBP, today it is... 28 GBP - what the duck? ;-) but it works like a charm - I have 50+ cables, most of course are power only with D+/D-, so to find the proper one that is USB 3.2 or 4.0 takes ages. Finally I measured them all and I put sticker on each - now I can say: done and dusted.

[@zyghom]

no, find this one there: B0CDP7SJZ1 - this one is the same but costs 15

[@niteexplorer9934]

This guy sounds like he still has his breakfast in his mouth 😊

[@atomic14]

Most important meal of the day!

[@TheWaterblatter]

Bro, that is just how he sounds.

[@brianblasius]

​@@atomic14 keep producing great content, don't let these noises distract you. 💪

[@DJAYPAZ]

Very intrusive advertising. Thumbs down.