USB Cable Tester

In this video we check out a USB cable tester. With the advent of USB-C we now have cables that will look alike but have different capabilities and we need a way to determine the suitability of a cable and also test if it may be defective.
Links:
Cable Tester: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B...
USB-C Guide: www.allaboutcircuits.com/tech...
USB PD Voltage Test Board: www.aliexpress.us/item/325680...

[@HughD]

I bought the board and see many of the things you showed, but you helped me understand better what I'm looking at like with the D- D+ flip flop and the CC1 and CC2 issue. There isn't really a comprehensive manual for the board, but heck, it's only $17 so we can't really complain much. The length was fine for me as I was looking at my board while you were and it gave me a chance to play along. Thank you.

[@Tech-Relief]

Glad it was of use, USB cables can be confusing...

[@zeno2712]

This has been very useful. I should get my Treedix board today so will be spending some time going through all the USB cables I've collected over time. I can't help feeling that although USB-C cables are very versatile, the different cables with different capabilities are going to cause headaches for many people!

[@Tech-Relief]

Indeed, USB-C type cables can range from just a two wire charge cable to full fledged multi GBS cables supporting various protocols with chips in them and this is not always obvious so a cable/USB tester of some sort indispensable.

[@cambike]

Great video. Ordered the same board to check all my cables.
Needed a usb c 3.0 capable cable, tried about 10 different ones including original apple cables, none were capable of usb 3.0 speeds for meta quest 3 headset. Interested to see what this device shows for each of the cables. Will label them all so easier to find right cable for the job. Thanks

[@justinspiredfallout]

Thanks for the in-depth look at this board. I think I will get something like this as it could be quite useful in my work. Can you use it as a break-out board so you could check for shorts in the charging cicuit of a device like a Nintendo Switch?

[@Tech-Relief]

The board does have pads where you can connect a multi-meter to each pin, however, there is a warning not to connect the board to a device, only the two ends of a cable. Breakout boards are cheap and I would use one of those.

[@MAX_Brother]

Hi, can you write down resistors value on the board? They all must have the same value.

[@Tech-Relief]

The resistors are all 1K Ohm and are used to drive the LED's

[@MrBobWareham]

As long as the Chinese are making cable with copper coated aluminium wire then yes we do!!

[@DennisMathias]

All this seems a little sucky. There ought to be a code clearly printed that would advise the user as to what kind of cable you have in your hand. Including the connector type. This borders on criminal. What kind of code would you use to differentiate a USB cable?

[@Tech-Relief]

I would agree they have different symbols for the usb c sockets on PCs but many cables are not marked in any way. Many devices come with cheap cables which only have two wires in them, just for charging and they will not pass any data. Hence the need for a cable tester but even then there are different charging protocols and number of different data transmission protocols needing more wires etc. So I started to label my cables to what use they can be put.

[@b99eu]

Nice video but much to long and so many advertisements in…

[@Tech-Relief]

How many adds did youtube add?