USB-A is not dead.
6Today, I received a brand-new EBL-brand NiMH AAA-cells-and-charger package that I bought online. It’s not a discontinued model; they still make it. The USB port to power the charger is USB-C. The supplied cable is USB-A. “Okay,” I think to myself, “they think more people are likely to have a charger with an A port than a C port.” So I set the cable aside, pick up the C-to-C cable that’s currently plugged into the GaN charger that can bring my phone up by as much as 40% while I make lunch, and start slotting the cells in.
Nothing happens.
Huh.
Look closely at the cell cavities in the charger; did I put them in backwards? Nope.
Unplug the cable from the battery charger and plug it into my phone. Screen brightens, “Charging rapidly.” More huh.
Plug in the USB-C cable that’s connected via USB-A to my PC: All the little LEDs come on, pulsing under the meager power provided.
Oh for crying out loud.
Fire up the Treedix cable tester; check the EBL A-to-C cable. The only live connection is Power. No data. Try three more A-to-C; they all work. Try two more C-to-C connected to a different port on the same brick: No bueno. Try a C-to-C cable using an A-to-C adapter at the brick end: it works. WTAFO?
I do not recall encountering this previously. I have two other devices that absolutely will not charge without a C-to-C cable that’s plugged into a C power port, but this is the first that insists upon A-to-C.
I figured that I would toss this out there as a heads-up to keep at least one A-port power brick around just in case you run into the same thing I just hit. It can happen.
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Yeah, the charger probably is missing required resistors. Here is a hackaday article that talks all about the required resistors for usb c power: https://hackaday.com/2023/01/04/all-about-usb-c-resistors-and-emarkers/. Specifically, “If you plug a device that doesn’t make a pulldown accessible through the CC wire in the cable, your device will never get power from a USB-C port, and would only work with a USB-A to USB-C cable.”
Personally, I would return it for being non-compliant and defective according to the usb-c spec. If they are too cheap to add sub penny resistors and a little pcb work, then what other things could be defective with it?
@zstrout It was cheap enough that I might just go all Big Clive on it instead. But first, Ima charge these cells.
@werehatrack @zstrout
since it came with the correct cables I’m not sure you can really bitch that it is non compliant.
@zstrout Rats. They appear to have had a special C socket made for them with only two traces plus a shell ground. There’s nothing inside to hook into and add the resistor.
@chienfou They almost certainly marketed it as USB c chargeable. Why would they use a USB c jack if they did not market it this way? They could have used a barrel jack which is probably cheaper and a whole lot more honest. If you can’t charge it with a USB c to USB c cable, then it is not really usb c chargeable. USB c is not just the physical connector; it is the electrical connections and resistor requirements too. So beyond being non-compliant, it is probably false marketing too, but I don’t actually know that since I don’t know what listing it was.
@zstrout
Actually there is some discussion that USB-C is, in fact, just the connector shape.
That being said though, you’re correct. It does seem disingenuous to list it as USB-C chargable, If that was in fact done.
@chienfou @zstrout The specifications given in the listings for it everywhere that I’ve checked do not claim that it is USB C chargeable. It just says that it includes a cord, and the illustrations show that the cord is USB A. On the one hand, putting a C-shaped socket (note that I did not say port) on the device and then not enabling the use of a regular C to C cable does seem a trifle disingenuous, but given how many people pitch a screaming fit if the socket is micro, there’s a certain amount of “we can’t win” involved. By far the smarter move would have been to have put a real C charging port in there, which would have meant that the buyer could use whatever they wanted to charge it with. I might send them some feedback to that effect. This is not the only charger they sell, and I don’t know what standards, or lack of them, the others meet.
Just popped in to comment on the AI-generated header image. How cool is that?
USB-A alive. Yes!
But …
/youtube Timothy Leary’s dead song