Re:Why do USB-C hubs still have USB 2.0 ports? (2021)
by rektide on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @10:04PM
(#31335052)
There are super cheap usb-a to usb-c-female adapters, tiny little cable-less adapters. I heartily recommend buying in quantity, so your existing charging gear can all expose usb-c.
Then I buy usb-c to usb-c cables. And a usbc-to-usb-micro adapter, which comes with a little chain that clips on to the cable. I use less and less micro (the majority of my recent dev boards have been usbc for example) but having a cable good for both is super convenient & easy.
Re:Why do USB-C hubs still have USB 2.0 ports? (2021)
by jmgao on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @11:52PM
(#31335669)
I'd be careful with these: USB-A male to USB-C female adapters are illegal in the specification because they let you connect two power sources together, which can lead to explosions.
Re:Why do USB-C hubs still have USB 2.0 ports? (2021)
by Liquid_Fire on Wednesday May 11, 2022 @05:21AM
(#31337574)
I'm pretty sure you can easily do that with a presumably legal USB-A male to USB-C male cable.
Plug one end into a charger with a USB-A port (very common among phone chargers) and the other end into a charger with a USB-C port (Apple's chargers seem to be like this?).
Re:Why do USB-C hubs still have USB 2.0 ports? (2021)
by lmm on Wednesday May 11, 2022 @07:54AM
(#31338561)
> Plug one end into a charger with a USB-A port (very common among phone chargers) and the other end into a charger with a USB-C port (Apple's chargers seem to be like this?).
It's forbidden to make a charger like that unless it has a chip that actually speaks the protocol and does power negotiation properly. Same for anything that has a female USB-C port.
Re:Why do USB-C hubs still have USB 2.0 ports? (2021)
by jmgao on Wednesday May 11, 2022 @02:06PM
(#31343655)
The trick is that USB-C has a pair of pins that identify what type of cable is connected. Different value resistors on the pins identify different types of cables, so the USB-C charger will know that the cable plugged into it is a legacy A to C cable, and not actually connect its VBUS.
It's quite difficult to buy a USB-C cable that is not USB-C or Lightning on the other end. While USB-A on the charger's side with USB-C on device side is quite common and comes with a lot of devices that don't include a charger.
I couldn't find USB-C to USB-micro device cables at any retail store near me.
Ended up getting them off Amazon.
My transition to all USB-C is also much slower than it could be, since you can't get 6- or 10-port chargers that are all USB-C. iirc best I've seen is 2x USB-C and then 4 USB-A.
Use cases:
- my embedded dev boards are all USB-micro (sometimes 2x of) and worse, USB-mini or USB-B. setup for dev on the go from my MBP now is a foot-long USB-C to USB-micro.
- charging older Kindles, bike lights, etc