The Final Revision
- Thread starter EvilDragon
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spud42
Very Active Member
the problem is that the goalposts are always moving. how can you design THE connector when the technology it connects gets faster, requires more wires due to extra signals etc. but the most impossible part of the equation is that the companies developing and using these connectors dont stick to the "standard" i have only one device that has USB type C connector. its a HP elite X2 . the USB type C port is the charging port as well as thunderbolt etc.. no charger other than the HP one will work. why? because HP didnt follow the standard. they designed it so that only their charger works. customers complained so much about this that in the X3 version they did follow the std.
Beard Lost in the Woods
Still Fresh
yeah, although moments when people misbehave like earlier happens from time to time.
levi
Still fresh, damnit!
It's not about chargers really; all of my chargers and batteries currently output via a USB-A port, and even an old USB2.0 USB-A port is capable of the more modern charge methods such as higher voltages and current supplies if the charger supports new enough USB power delivery. USB-C does permit faster data transfer because it has extra wires, but doesn't change the power delivery characteristics, so are unlikely to appear on chargers any time soon, especially in isolation without being an adjunct to USB-A ports. Also, I've already seen plenty of USB cables with very little copper in that are overly resistive and also fail over a few months as the resistivity and thinness of the copper basically makes them slow release fuses.Should we start a survey, "count your usb chargers/devices"(seeing the adoption rate of usb-c by "geeks", would be interesting).
But USB-C devices might be an interesting question. Or perhaps how many USB-C cables you own, either end or both.
Zwerg01
board's own troll
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Completly useless discussion here again. I was on a trip in April with four other guys. I had a old tablet with me and my mobile. I forgot my micro-usb cable for the tablet. Non of the guys had a micro-usb cable with them. All had usb-c. So what does personal experience count if you hit the market with something new? Nothing. Since more than two years, every new device has usb-c. The approx. lifespan of gadgets are about two to four years. So in two years from now on 95% of all techstuff will have usb-c.
Caine
Hardcore Member
Yes let's slam the brakes and revise the main board and casing to support usb-c. What could possibly go wrong?
Caine
Hardcore Member
I never said that you were, nor are you wrong. It would be useful. But right now nothing is more useful and important than hardware in the field.
[edit]small typo[/edit]
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Umm, there are a lot, and I mean a lot, of current devices on the market with a full sized USB B connector. There is even a full sized USB 3 B connector to accommodate faster data transfer rates. Still the regular old connector that is only compatible with up to USB 2 devices is commonplace on current printers, scanners, and external sound cards (none of which really need faster than USB 2 speeds). I have mostly seen the full sized USB 3 B connectors on drive enclosures/caddies, some of which use a micro USB 3 connector instead. I've also seen this connector on a touchscreen.
If you want to point out a truly obscure USB port, it would be mini USB A, which I've never seen in real life other than the combination mini USB A/B port on the Pandora (that is, it would support either connector).
Oddly, the newest devices I've seen with mini USB B connectors are portable external DVD ROM drives, some of which are still sold new with this port. Mini USB B is much closer to extinction than full sized USB B.
I have one peripheral device that uses USB C (and its full sized USB A to USB C wire is the only USB C wire I have; the only other USB C cable I've actually seen in real life was a USB C to full sized USB 3 B connector for an external drive caddy, which came with a full sized USB A to full sized USB 3 B cable as well). Other than that, I've seen a USB C port on a couple of new ultra-thin laptops and on the current model of micro desktops which we deploy at work, which also have several full sized USB A connectors.
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Letalis Sonus
Advanced Member
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Actually, aside from some Cortex-M devboards all of my devices still use Mini-USB, including my latest acquisition half a year ago. I still do not own even a single device using USB-C.
If you want to see a really obscure port variant, look at HDMI-B.
It's way more reliable and sturdy than the Standard-A plug as well, it's seriously fucked up that they ended up using the fragile end of the device cables for the PC. I'd seriously like to know what they were thinking. But who am I talking about... "Hey look, we made the next generation of jacks way more reliable!" - "Wait, are these SMD only...?"
Mini-USB A has a very dedicated purpose: It is designed to be used for OTG devices. The whole OTG thing reverses the server-client role and this plug was supposed to prevent that you end up trying to connect a client-client combination. You can commonly find it on the OTG adapters that allow you to connect a device with a Standard-A plug to the Mini-USB jack of the Pandora.
If you want to see a really obscure port variant, look at HDMI-B.
Grench
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Of course nothing about the title of, "Universal Serial Bus," is going to prevent manufacturers from co-opting the, "standard".
https://www.androidauthority.com/state-of-usb-type-c-870996/
https://www.androidauthority.com/state-of-usb-type-c-870996/
The advantage of older standards (e.g. miniUSB) is that it saves me buying new adaptors. I've currently got an even mix of mini and micro, but no USB-C.
Remember that the Pyra's battery should be big enough that it never needs charging during the day - so the only requirement is that you keep a micro-USB-B cable sitting around on your desk.
Remember that the Pyra's battery should be big enough that it never needs charging during the day - so the only requirement is that you keep a micro-USB-B cable sitting around on your desk.
second exodous
Advanced Member
Talking about USB cables and new standards, I remember people soldering in a micro-USB into a NDS so you could charge it with non Nintendo chargers. One site that explained it(long gone since youtube because popular) mentioned that mini usb also could be swapped for micro and the author of this tutorial had done that to a lot of his devices just to eliminate the need for mini usb cables. Is this the same for USB C? If there is no C specific circuitry does the the device supplying the power just supply the standard USB micro/mini power? If so are the solder points the same for USB C like they are between mini and micro? It would be could if this was the case, then I could replace all my devices with USB-C
levi
Still fresh, damnit!
USB-C has a hell of a lot more lines, even if you discount those duplicated to enable the rotation symmetry of the port, so I strongly suspect it has a very different pinout to previous ports.
And yes, USB-C does not depend on having any particular version of USB-Power-delivery, so it can be supplied with just 5V at 100mA and be happy with it, provided it does not identify as a high power device. That said, I've no chargers or ports I've yet found that don't just pump out the maximum the client will electrically accept at 5V.
And yes, USB-C does not depend on having any particular version of USB-Power-delivery, so it can be supplied with just 5V at 100mA and be happy with it, provided it does not identify as a high power device. That said, I've no chargers or ports I've yet found that don't just pump out the maximum the client will electrically accept at 5V.
second exodous
Advanced Member
Ah that stinks, I thought it was cool how they made mini and micro interchangeable on the solder points. I guess it wouldn't make sense on USB-C though as mini and micro were the same speed and C is a lot faster. Still going to replace the mini USB on my bike lights with micro. My Zoom H1 uses mini as well but not to recharge just to pull the audio files from which is painfully slow so I just eject the sd card to pull them off of anyway. This will get rid of at least one cord. . .
Swordfish II
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Wow..don't tell my electronics that. The newest computers i have are 10+ years old. My phone is usually at least 4+ years old...
spud42
Very Active Member
the problem i had with USB-c is that depending on the device it can use a 45W+ charger. my HP elite X2 required 15V 3A to charge. qualcom quickcharge specs have 5V 3A , 9V 3A , 12V 3A , 15V 3A. also 20V 3A there are type A and B only type B do the 15 V and 20V.. this changes too fast .. i just read that with USB PD (power distribution) 100W is max over USB type C quick charge cables...
Grench
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That article I noted above has a chart where they charged 3 phones with their own and each other's chargers and/or cables and monitored the current draw. There is no consistency, there are no labels, there are no apparent standards being used beyond the shape of the plug.
Except no one in this current discussion has suggested that the project start over. No one suggested that USB C is so important that everything needs to be scrapped just for its inclusion. The idea is that USB C would be added as part of a future board revision and wouldn't be quite that difficult to do as suggested by Evildragon himself (I'm sure some difficulties will crop up, as they always do, but he could deal with it like he's always done). This would probably just be a side project anyway as a way to give customers more choices.
This has no effect on the project's current progress. This has no effect on you nor the other preorders.
If you haven't preordered, this has no effect on your ability to buy the Pyra in its current form at launch.
If you haven't ordered a Pyra in the time between launch and the supposed release of a theoretical USB C revision, this has no effect on your ability to do so during that period.
If you haven't ordered a Pyra in its current form by the time a theoretical USB C revision is released, I would not doubt that there will likely be some old stock left in the Dragonbox shop and the ithic shop.
If by the time you decided to buy a Pyra and:
1) All old new stock is gone.
2) ED has ceased production of the launch Pyra revision.
3) Used units for sell do not exist at that time.
Then remember that the Pyra has TWO micro USB ports. If ED were to do a USB C revision board, I would think that he would only replace ONE of the TWO micro USB with USB C and thus giving more people more options. If you have a dire need of 2 micro USB ports, I would assume you would have already purchased a Pyra by that time as I would assume a revision would release years later giving you plenty of time to purchase one. If not, I think adapters exist. Or you could continue waiting for pre-owned units to pop up if they haven't already.
And actually, if ED were to release a USB C mainboard revision, I think a trade in program would be a good idea. Pyra owners who want the new board could send their old board back for a discount on the new one. Then he could take the old boards and build some "used" units to sell on his shop. If he did that then I'd be willing to buy one now (now, as in when Link gets them and when I've saved up enough) and change to USB C later.
Edit: Well, either way, what ED decides to work on after the Pyra is up to him after all. Whether it's a USB C mainboard revision, a second gen CPU board (or rather, the search for a suitable SoC for said CPU board), an SBC version of the Pyra, a smartphone version of the Pyra, or something totally different or nothing at all...
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