I wanted to share this opinion on Hackaday about a topic that is the usefulness of a something that has become ubiquitous relatively fast.
This techonolgyy has a lot of potential, what do you think?
I wanted to share this opinion on Hackaday about a topic that is the usefulness of a something that has become ubiquitous relatively fast.
This techonolgyy has a lot of potential, what do you think?
For mobile phones it’s a good standard, but mfgs are putting them on desktop computers and laptop power plugs as primary power. That’s just dumb, these things are all going to fail in 10 years of regular use where USB-A could easily hold up mechanically for 50. But it’s suppose to be a data connector only. Combining things only makes devices less repairable. Broken USB-C jack? Well, better toss the laptop.
USB-A is only rated for 1,500 mating cycles, whereas USB-C is supposed to last for 10,000… Though in reality the ports on my phones seem to start getting too loose to hold the jack in at around 1,000 cycles. Still, it’s not a totally unreasonable standard, and any device that hasn’t been designed to be thrown away should have ports broken out onto replaceable subassemblies – as is the case with many business-class laptops, for instance – so replacing a failed USB-PD port shouldn’t be too much trouble.
For phones I’ve found the issue is lint/dust getting in the port and clearing that out makes the port work like new again.
I’ve never seen a spare barrel jack on a laptop but a lot of laptops allow charging on multiple USBc ports. For full fat desktops though it’s basically a non starter. I think it’ll really shine when it comes to small electronics like moderns/routers, clock radios, electric toothbrushes, children’s toys, and other little things that come with barrel jacks.