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Beware of USB-C cables! They can fry your phone...


Anderton

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I suppose this is a dumb question, but why are there non-standard USB-C cables? And why aren't there non-standard USB-just plain ol' cables? Or are there? Does it have something to do with the wiring of the symmetrical plug that's never upside-down?

 

I just got an announcement from QVS for a new just-plain-ol' USB-B-to-micro USB cable that could be plugged in with either side of the plug up on either end. How can that work? Or maybe it doesn't, sometimes, and blows up a phone. I notice that they list a few specific models that it can charge, hopefully without a large charge.

 

 

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I'm getting a SMART WATCH in a few days. It has a headphone jack that uses a USB plug. THAT CAN'T BE STANDARD. So now if you try and use that cable on a standard phone ?????????

 

 

Dan

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I'm getting a SMART WATCH in a few days. It has a headphone jack that uses a USB plug. THAT CAN'T BE STANDARD. So now if you try and use that cable on a standard phone ?????????

 

I thought we had a discussion here not too long ago about the coming of the USB headphone jack. Or maybe it was on another forum. Does the watch come with mating headphones?

 

Along the lines of this discussin, a friend of mine got a 9-port powered USB hub the other day with a warning on the instruction sheet that came with it. Who'd think to read the instructions on a hub? This one has a switch on it that allows it to be used as a passive hub and pass power from the computer's USB port out to the other ports. But if you turn on the hub power supply with the switch in the "passive" position, it sends the hub power back to the computer and has been known to fry the computer's USB port.

 

A couple of diodes could have made it idiot proof, but that would have cost about a nickel more . . . and probably a more expensive design engineer or test department.

 

 

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