Plastic Thingy On The Gp32 Usb Cable

[kotd]

Anyone know what its for? I've been trying to figure it out for a while. My other USB cables don't have any plastic thing like the gp32_console cable.
Cheers

 

[Hooka]

Usually things like that are to reduce interference

 

[Iorgy77]

break it open and find out :lol:

 

[$Elementchen$]

thats a sick picture of murrrayyyy

 

[Blaine0002]

all thats in there is a stick of metal. i opened it up.

 

[Robster]

It's a ferrite core. Ferrite is small iron particles formed in a resin mould, and it is used to make high-frequency transformers and such.

Winding the USB lead through the core like that is to stop radio-frequency interference. Not sure whether they're trying to stop interference getting out of the lead and affecting your radio/tv or whatever, or whether they're trying to stop interference getting into the lead and affecting your data transfer between GP32 and computer. Possibly both, because the core will help both cases.

 

[ColinR]

My other USB cables don't have any plastic thing like the cable.

My Xbox arcade sticks (modded to work on PC) have them, as do Playstation controller. They soak up RF interference like a sponge making the signal cleaner. You also put a metal ring on the LED leads inside a PC case, so I assume it stops RF interference from leaking out (protecting an LED from RF interference would seem pretty pointless).

 

[diablo2]

what plastic thing is he talking about?

 

[Squidge]

If you look at the USB spec, it states that you should never use a ferrite core on a usb cable, as it can affect the transfer. So I took mine off after receiving it.

 

[dr.no]

If you look at the USB spec, it states that you should never use a ferrite core on a usb cable, as it can affect the transfer. So I took mine off after receiving it.

:lol:
Why did they spend the extra money for adding one then? And BTW, I never had any problems with it. - and I don't know any others who did.

But anyways. Who cares.

 

[lurch]

That's something that has always puzzled me.If the plastic bit is to supress interferance how come it only covers a small part of the cable? Would't it need to cover the WHOLE cable to be effective?Maybe It's there because of some countrys laws covering electrical interference.I remember my amiga having a big internal metal shield when I took it apart and when I removed it it didn't affect the workings of the computer at all.

 

[Robster]

Squidge: It's a common-mode choke, not a differential-mode one, so it won't affect the usb signals at all. Still, I'm going to try to find the reference in the spec that you're talking about...

 

[lek]

I've have one of these built into my SMC card reader cable and I've seen them on other USB cables before as well.

They probably wouldn't put it on if it caused problems.

 

[divadsci]

And here I was thinking that all it was was a weight to stop the cable dissapearing.

You learn something new every day.

 

[Steve-O]

yup.. my USB Optical mouse has one as well..

 

[EdZ]

RF signals from various sources inside the case of your computer can be picked up by the wires leading out and be emitted causing interferance. The RF chokes on wires stop them from acting like antennae and transmitting RF interferance.