alt Hacker NewsI'm building in robotics. Setting up a new 3d camera today. I found that the 10m active USB C cable that I bought transfers power in both directions, but only transfers data in one direction, it turns out to be some weird video USB variant. Next I needed to plug a gripper into a modbus controller. That uses an M8 8-pole 20cm cable. The controller manufacturer recently decided to switch from male to female connector, so now the cable needs to be male-male. After searching online for hours, I believe that is impossible to find as everyone only sells male-female cables.
I'm continuously surprised by how difficult it is to plug things together and how non-descriptive cable "standards" are about the actual capabilities of cables and connectors.
I've recently been modernizing an old milling machine, and learned that for most types making your own cables is not that hard. The one painful thing is that there are a zillion tools involved for the different types of crimps and terminations.