Your USB-C Cable probably SUCKS! Sooo is that Bad?

You can get the shown parts here: (affiliate links)

In this video we will be having a closer look at USB-C cables and find out why most of them are actually not that great. We will be focusing on 100W power transfer so very fast charging. I will show you how much power loss 13 different USB-C cables produce and why most of them do not meet the standard specs. Let's get started!

Websites which were shown/used during the video:

Thanks to Keysight for sponsoring this video.

0:00 The Problem with USB-C Cables
1:49 Intro
2:26 60W/100W cables?
3:14 E-Marker Chip?
5:04 Test Setup
6:42 The Worst Performing Cable
7:43 Test Results
9:50 Verdict

[JanCiger]

Lot of the bad (not necessarily cheap!) cables use either completely inadequate wire gauges, with only a few strands of copper - or don't use copper wire at all but copper coated aluminium (CCA) wire instead. Which is a lot cheaper compared to copper - and also much worse conductor.

My bet is that the "seat heater" cable is actually CCA and not copper at all.

[rpavlik]

Wow, 11W dissipation from a USB cable is crazy. Most of the lightbulbs in my house use/dissipate less.

[Chimel]

It's quite common these days to find out that almost nothing you want to purchase, from a kitchen appliance to a car to a USB cable is perfect or even close. Now that customer comments or comparative videos such as yours are everywhere, you can easily find out that most commercial products have known issues that are never really fixed, or new issues arise after fixing some old ones.

[sloanyounglove]

Great idea to do the testing and use actual data. However, I was disappointed to not see a clear recommendation, since, most people are watching hoping to find a good cable after noticing that so many really suck. I find that one cable that charges my phone in an hour and others that take 4. Can you clarify or give a brand recommendation? Thanks for the video - very professionally done :)

[Jack]

I love your presentation method in all your videos. The hand drawing is always extremely clear and pleasantly done.

[dantoes]

Great video! However it would nice to have some sort of list/spreadsheet with the tested cables so we don't need to open every product link to check for the manufacturer.

[renxula]

That cable with the built-in power meter looks handy! Sometimes the devices settle on a tiny current for some reason, and simply disconnecting and reconnecting fixes it, but normally you don't easily notice the issue.

[brianegendorf]

It would have been nice if you at least summed up the five cables that were better than the rest. Even if they were roughly equivalent to each other, I'd like to know what they were, so I can choose those cables.

[brianm.]

I am a cell phone technician, I noticed that problem with the quality of the cables, mainly for fast charges, very generic cables affect the charge, it also happens with micro usb. Another thing is also poorly filtered generic chargers, which put electrical noise in the devices, in the case of cell phones they generate a malfunction of the touch! by static and noise from the power source;

Many times I have cut the cables to expose the copper filaments, and yes, they are bad, some do not even have the mesh to cover the cables, and others have very thin cables that do not support the amperage

[ВіталійГрабчук-ря]

It would be interesting to see you disassemble worst cables and see why they are bad, is it always just because of the thin wire or there can be other reasons

[CrissWalter]

Petition for you to create a course explaining Electricity from the beginning with this detailed and elegant way . Your explanation is so clear you are so much better than my university professor ever was .

[daanb]

I can vouch for the UGREEN cables, I've used them for years and not one has died on me, great quality!

[Petch]

8:07
I think you should have added % or W/100W on the Y axis and not Power loss/W under the x axis.
Minor thing though. But it takes a little longer to understand the graph.

[seanman]

I have the same USB meter (FNB48S). It has a built in PD trigger function. It can also trigger QC Quick Charge and a bunch of other quick charge protocols. You don't have to use a separate PD trigger board.

[GameBacardi]

Not only cables, USB-C charges are complex as hell also. Some charges not work on some devices :/

[brokenbonesmedia]

Amazing video as usual!
I only have one small note: you can't just simply multiply/divide to get a resistance/meter value, because - as you mentioned it - a lot depends on the connectors too. So x length of cable will not necessarily have double resistance compared to x/2 with the same internals and connectors, because depending on the quality, the connectors might give a higher fraction of the resistance. For example if you have a 2x resistance, where 1x is from the 2 connectors, and 1x from the cable, by having double length, you will have just 3x resistance. But that's all theoretical, we could get more accurate results only by fully disassembling them, and measuring separately the connector and the cable.

[martyb]

Very interesting. I had no idea about the E-marker chip. I assumed that the load was negotiated between the usb device and the power supply. Well done!

[foogod]

I believe part of the reason why some of those cables are over the expected voltage drop is because _you are misreading the USB spec._

The spec specifies a maximum of 500mV drop *for the Vbus line, * but it also allows *250mV drop for GND.* Measured together as a round-trip voltage drop (as your approach based on input/output voltage does) that means an allowed maximum of *750mV for the cable as a whole.*

So cables G and L actually do appear to pass as well (and C and J are within the same "extra" range for measurement error which you afforded to cable F in your own analysis).

[miguelagueda]

To be fair to the cable that claims 6A charge in xiaomi, this protocol is not meant to carry them throught a single wire. I haven't looked into it in detailt, but just like my OnePlus phone, they are using one of the usb 3.0 wires to carry 3 amps each. So, unless you are tricking the power supply to work at PD 100W, this cable would not be dissipating such a high power and thus wouldn't heat to badly

[marvinhensbergen]

Remember... voltagedrop is dependent on the amperage.. if you draw 100w the drop is much higher than when you draw 50w. So according to the usb specs, You should test each cable for what they are rated for. But very interresting test!! I was always wondering what the resistances were.