alt Hacker NewsI think that I have a specific cable-device-orientation that is broken. Meaning, I think a particular USB C cable won't charge my phone if it's plugged in 'backwards'.
I always assumed that USB C cables use different pins depending on orientation, and that some pins on the cable wore down.
Maybe that's what happened here?
Replies
Waterluvian • yesterday at 5:21 AM
I think a more distressing thought is that it’s quite possible that your cable won’t charge your phone if it’s plugged in forwards.
numpad0 • yesterday at 7:32 AM
It's CC2/VCONN used for eMarker. That pin may be terminated inside the cable and used to power eMarker chip. It can also be used for orientation sensing. I think.
My guess would be they used a one-sided pcb to connect the cable to and used half the wires. Some sockets internally link the power and ground pins, so it works both ways, but you get no resistor network and thus only standard 5v which gives you 500ma max (at best). With the resistors connected by the cable it's about 900ma to 3a which is probably what happens plugged in "correctly". Or some other magic happens on one side of the PCB to fool the charger into pushing the full 3A.