Hello,
This does not directly relate to android or android devices but as this seems to be one of the more active communities, I thought I should give it a shot here.
I’m Wondering why the USB C socket and plug have the geometry they have. To me, it seems like the more complex hardware is located in the socket which is located on the more expensive device compared to the cable. Firebolt (is that the apple standard’s name?) seem to handle it the opposite by having the flat plug with bare contacts.
Background is that I have frequently had issues with charging my phone due to dust or other dirt getting suck in the socket. Lacking adequate household items, I had to use a small screw driver to get the dirt out, which I think in general a bad idea.
Are there any technical reasons to have the flat contact in the center of the usb socket rather than the plug?
One benefit (that I have no sources for, but have seen it mentioned before), is that the USB C socket/cable setup is designed such that the cables wear out instead of the socket. The moving parts (the bendable contacts) are in the cable, so if/when they break. You throw out the cable instead of the phone.
I don’t really know how it works for Lightning (Apple) cables, but presumably they have also considered this when they designed their connector. I haven’t personally heard of iPhone sockets dying early, so maybe it doesn’t really matter?
I have used sewing needles to get stuff out of my phone’s socket, and that has been fine, but it’s probably unwise. Thinning out a toothpick with a knife is probably safer, and has also worked for me.
I never thought about this, but this makes sense.
You are exactly right, and to add on to this, usually, the pin contacts on the plug and sockets are made from different copper alloys, with the plug side optimized for repeated mechanical stress and the socket side optimized for high conductivity.
The problem is that the socket will always have the mechanical retainers for all sorts of plugs. This was a problem for example in the shitty Nokia (HMD Global) phones that used the literal cheapest half-sockets it could find. The retaining tabs wore out and the entire phone socket had to be replaced.
But yes, the smaller retaining pins on USB C will wear out the plug first. Apple Lightning cables will wear out at the phone side instead of the plug side. The difference is that Apple requires Lightning certification on all of their cables meaning that shitty out of spec Chinese crap can’t ruin your port as easily. They worked around bad design with legal restrictions. This was also a play by Apple to restrict charging to whatever they want with proprietary protocol.
USB-C is also grounded from the shielding around the connector, that is huge for pushing higher speeds also. Lighting is limited to 2010 speeds, but generally on phones that doesn’t matter.
For your dirt problem, a smaller toothpick works fine and I have used that method many times to get fuzz and dirt out of my port. Don’t use metal. Generally you will be fine with metal because GND and high voltage are both right next to high speed data lines so it will simply pull the data line high or low, pull data lines to each other, or temporarily toggle CC/SBU pins. Not a big deal, but if you go diagonally you can short something that would burn out supporting components, so I would recommend wood or plastic.
I so very much doubt the lightning cables at the gas station have been certified by anyone with more authority than an elementary school hall monitor.
Great response, thanks!
I know it’s not your main point, but speed does matter, at least for some users.
It’s not often, but I regularly have to move relatively large amounts of data (20-40GB) between my phone and pc, sometimes (but not always ) in small batches (~4GB) with a ~10min breaks between to check stuff.
With this process already annoying because of MTP and the way windows file transfers work (no resume/retry over MTP, linux handles it way better) having a high speed connection make it a bit more manageable.
It’s a niche use-case, not very important, but it’s something I wanted to share.
Fair point, I have had to do that while transferring music files but most if not almost all Apple users have thouroughly drank the kool-aid of owning nothing and streaming everything from the cloud.
Linux has its own file transfer issues. For example both Thunar and Nautilus had issues around 2014 era where transferring a lot of small files instead of few large ones would completely hang the file browser and transfer. 2 different systems with different distros. I tried every fix in the book, but I had to use rsync for a long while just to transfer small files like music.
Nowadays it seems like that isn’t a problem. Certainly not with dolphin but windows still has that same MTP problem.
as someone from the apple world, our lightning standard isn’t that much better. Not only is it slower, but the plug also gets full of dust. I usually clean it out with a toothpick every couple months.
It’s just one of those things that are quite annoying but won’t be changed until we have portless (and always overheating lol) phones.
The springs are on the cable side for USB-C, which is good because those are always the thing that breaks first.
Apple has them on the port, which isn’t ideal because it’s hard to replace that port once it fails.
USB-C ports are very hard to damage. I scratch the dirt out of mine with a needle about once a year and since the springs are in the cable, you don’t need to be careful.
Not an answer because I don’t know, but I recommend using magnetic cables. That way you don’t need to worry about damaging the connector on the phone, and you can use the same cable for USB-C, micro and Lightning.
Also yea don’t use a screwdriver to clean stuff, geez. Just cut a piece of paper or if it’s too stuck, get some isopropyl alcohol and toothpicks.
The magnetic cables can short the pins never meant to be shorted by attracting random metal shavings. For microUSB it was relatively benign with only 4-5 pins (lots of space between them) and low voltage. With USB-C I wouldn’t dare to try it due to it having much more pins and often much higher voltage (Power Delivery). It’s perfectly possible to fry a device with a bad short in such conditions.
Keep in mind that magnetic cables do not conform to USB C standards and specifications and are therefore never recommended for the sake of compatibility and safety. They may work for certain use cases but I wouldn’t use them personally.
I suppose… But considering how many devices I’ve lost due to broken connectors (and I’m pretty careful), and how many times has a magnetic cable saved a device, I feel like this is a smaller risk.
I probably wouldn’t use it for very fast charging, but then I’d try to not use very fast charging at all in the first place.
Well and now I hope I’m not jinxing it and the things won’t burn my place down or something…
For one thing - the last thing I would want under these circumstances is for a $50 chipped cable sold only through Google - how Apple currently does.
There may be legitimate reasons to have the technology side inside the cable, but this isn’t one of them. No thanks.
USB C is an open standard and can be used by anyone.
a $50 chipped cable sold only through Google - how Apple currently does.
I think this may have been true 15 years ago, before there were third party cables, but the usually pay $5-10 for my Lightning cables
Although …. I can sell you some genuine cables brand new, for the low low price of $49.99, for a huge discount over whatever your imaginary source is
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/02/10/apple-planning-to-limit-iphone-15-usb-c-port/
Get up to date chump
Are there any technical reasons to have the flat contact in the center of the usb socket rather than the plug?
I would guest it’s just for having more surface area to have more pins. An USB-C can have up to 24 of them. Where as Apple’s Lightning 2 connectors have 8.
USB-C connectors are much more than chargers. For example, I can connect two 4k Displays, Power, Ethernet as well as all peripherals (including a couple external harddrives) to my laptop with a single Thunderbolt 4 cable with an USB-C connector.
Well, I get that lightning and usb c provide different features, but the dimension of a USB C socket and plug could remain the same if you were to turn plug into the socket and vice versa, wouldn’t it?
I wonder if having a more exposed ‘open’ port without the tongue would lead to more damaging debris getting lodged inside.
I shave a toothpick down to be half the width at the tip and use it to clean out lint etc
I wonder if having a more exposed ‘open’ port without the tongue would lead to more damaging debris getting lodged inside.
Basically USB-A?
For cleaning out the connector, I get a piece of flat clamshell packaging, cut it into a V shape, then use that to carefully scrape out the gunk in the connector. It really helps if you have a stereo microscope or even a loupe, but isn’t required.
Use a wooden toothpick, not a conductive metal screw. Geez!
In terms of WHY? It’s 1/2 dozen of one, 6 or so of another. Yeah, the Apple solution seems more robust, and I have no doubt it is. Apple gets a lot of shit, most of it well deserved, but I also have little doubt that they tested the hell out of their connector to be incredibly robust.
I too think their solution seems better, but if yiu are abusing your device enough to where you are breaking the connector, something is wrong.
Apple was one of the major contributors to the USB-C standard, including the physical connectors.
The tongue design was used because it makes high speed a lot easier. If your traces are in the center of the connector, you can do a cutout of the PCB and mount a “dumb” connector housing for the socket. You can also have a ground plane right in the middle and use both sides for differential pairs, which is exactly what happened. It also means you don’t have to deal with the pain of high frequency signals leaving the board into the air like other connectors.
But yes, don’t shove screwdrivers into your USB sockets either.
They probably did test it… and made it worse for planed obsolescence.
