Getting the inside look at consumer electronics

November 14, 2023 12:45 PM

I think he's only done two of these so far, but they're fascinating. Adam Savage has friends who have a CT scanner, and they're looking inside USB cables and EarPods to see what's going on in there. Also, looking at cheaper versions or even true fakes to see how they are different. Why Is Apple's USB-C Cable $130? [22m] and Fake Apple AirPod Pros Exposed! [31m] are a celebration of micro-electronics engineering AND an interesting glimpse into why you might want to pay more for what seems so inconsequential.
posted by hippybear (49 comments total)

I'm not sure how much Vimes Boots Theory math I would need to do before it's more economical to switch to a $100+ cable, but I'm glad someone is testing. I'm disappointed but not especially surprised to see the connector pins in cheaper cables just straight up not attached to anything in the cord.
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 12:58 PM on November 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

I wish they'd done some analysis of the actual performance of the $130 cable, instead of only looking at the physical construction. Yes, it's expensive because they did a really good job making it, but so what? They do touch on factors like durability, and I don't expect them to measure that, because it's really difficult, but they say stuff like "theoretically you should see less voltage drop". Well, you can measure that without a lot of difficulty.
posted by aubilenon at 1:10 PM on November 14, 2023 [12 favorites]

I carry a usb cable around on purpose that only has charging pins hooked up 'cause I can plug it into anything to charge my phone and not have to worry about potential data exposure either way.

before it's more economical to switch to a $100+ cable,

Last usb-c cable I bought were six foot cables with right angle connectors. I got 3 for C$9 and I'm still using two of them (left the third in temporary housing) over a year later. At $3 a year the payback would be over 50 years.
posted by Mitheral at 1:19 PM on November 14, 2023 [11 favorites]

Apart from having given up on Apple gadgets years ago, my main reason for buying $5 instead of $130 cables is that if there is any possible way of damaging, breaking or otherwise impeding the function of said $130 cable, I _will_ find it by accident.
posted by delfin at 1:20 PM on November 14, 2023 [13 favorites]

The images remind me a lot of Open Circuits, which is one of my favorite coffee table books. It's a different technique and mostly simpler components though.
posted by davidest at 1:32 PM on November 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

I'm not sure how much Vimes Boots Theory math I would need to do before it's more economical to switch to a $100+ cable, but I'm glad someone is testing.

USB cables are power cables now, and you should not cheap out on aftermarket power cables to save money. Household wall voltage fluctuates more than anyone realizes, and the thermal stress of that is what eventually kills most household devices. Whatever you can do to run your devices on clean electricity will extend their lives far more than most people realize.
posted by mhoye at 1:40 PM on November 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

please don't send household wall voltage through USB cables
posted by ryanrs at 1:45 PM on November 14, 2023 [29 favorites]

The apple cable is capable of quite a lot more than a standard USB-C cable in that it's actually a Thunderbolt 3 cable that just happens to also be able to do USB-C things. It's capable of 40Gb/sec vs. a standard USB-C cable topping out at 10Gb/sec. If you need it, you will know and you'll (gladly??) pay for it. If you don't need it, get an Amazon Basics cable and be happy.
posted by tmt at 1:47 PM on November 14, 2023 [13 favorites]

I wish they'd done some analysis of the actual performance of the $130 cable,

eye diagrams don't make as exciting a youtube video as CT scans do
posted by Dr. Twist at 1:51 PM on November 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

The $130 cable is Thunderbolt 4 which is different protocol that shares a connector with USB C but it does nothing for you if you're just connecting a USB device and does not transmit power any better. They're not substitute products.

The images are pretty but the explanations are cringeworthy speculation. The section about what the Thunderbolt chips are doing is so garbled it's barely worth picking apart.

IANAEE, but AIUI the chips are in the cable so that the longest part of the data path happens between two identical chips with fixed, soldered, known pieces of copper between them, which allows a faster data rate than transceivers inside the computer and peripheral trying to communicate over an unknown cable and two plug/socket interfaces, all else being equal.

(also, all versions of USB use differential signalling for data)
posted by grahamparks at 2:01 PM on November 14, 2023 [9 favorites]

>> The images remind me a lot of Open Circuits, which is one of my favorite coffee table books.

Strongly seconded davidest. Very cool book.

And for those who prefer their expensive Apple cable info to be non video, Ars did a article with the same CT vendor on the internals of the cable about a month ago.
posted by ensign_ricky at 2:14 PM on November 14, 2023

The video comparing charger and AirPods vs. fakes was pretty cool. Seeing the outside it can fool you, but the overengineered inside? No faking that.
posted by caution live frogs at 2:17 PM on November 14, 2023

Seeing the outside it can fool you, but the overengineered inside? No faking that.

Sadly, most of these electronics are of the sort that tearing them apart to see if they're fakes or not would render them useless even if they are genuine articles. That's why this CT examination felt so interesting for me.
posted by hippybear at 2:27 PM on November 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

I did Vimes Boot math on Xbox 360 controllers years back and it was cheaper to buy sub 20 dollar knockoffs and use em until they start to drift or have stick issues. By my count they tended to get bad same length of time the real deal did, but real ones were 70+. A year or two ago I finally upgraded to a newer official model of the xbox controller and... it had stick drift within months. Should've stuck with knockoffs!

I like Adam's content generally but if you told me this was an apple sponsored video I wouldn't be surprised. It was neat peeking into these things but seems like some cheap strips of metal and overengineered overpriced crap do roughly the equivalent job at the task of charging device.
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:27 PM on November 14, 2023 [3 favorites]

The videos are sponsored by Lumafield, the CT scanning company. That's why they're focussing on the images and not doing actual product testing. It's an interesting use of the technology, but it's really an ad for "you can look inside things with our tech", and not for how Apple is a great company.

I guess in the notes for each episode there are links to the scans so you can download them and play with them yourself. I don't know if you need the Lumafield program to look at them, and if you do if that's free. Seems like they could give away the software and the scans if they're selling CT hardware, but what do I know about business?
posted by hippybear at 2:34 PM on November 14, 2023 [3 favorites]

The cable comparison was bullshit. The earphones one was pretty cool tho.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:47 PM on November 14, 2023

The apple cable is capable of quite a lot more than a standard USB-C cable in that it's actually a Thunderbolt 3 cable that just happens to also be able to do USB-C things.

Apple had/has a certification for Lightning cables, and it was well worth looking for certified third-party cables. They were more expensive than non-cert Lightning cables, but still more affordable than cables from the mothership. Any idea if Apple will be doing the same thing for USB-C cables?
posted by Thorzdad at 2:50 PM on November 14, 2023

The company that did the imaging has 3D scans that you can twirl around (note: they take a long time to load). AirPods, Cables. They've got lots more. Hit the "Voyager" link and you can slice and dice the images in different ways. It's pretty cool.
posted by adamrice at 3:30 PM on November 14, 2023

ever since working in a big corpo tech setting, I'm like 99% sure these cables are for 1) rich people and 2) people with a kind of free wheeling home office subsidy from their work. there's a reason why the Xbox One X is the top purchased item in the Amazon Business storefront and it has to do with the fact that big companies generally don't give a hoot about purchase orders of $500 and less for individual workers (provided you do it only on a monthly basis or so)

I've purchased uselessly prosumer products with my monopoly money like Sony Linkbuds and Arctic Nova Pros and I'm so gd happy I did bc the $30 no-name option really is just as good if not sometimes better and way less irritating in a whole lot of ways

I expect some tech worker who very rarely uses 10% of the capacity of a USB 3.2 c cable will absolutely go ham grabbing one or two of these because it's 2023 and we still are oblivious about how gross it is to flaunt your class status
posted by paimapi at 3:52 PM on November 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

As others have mentioned, Apple's cable is not a USB-C cable. It is a thunderbolt 4 cable, and a 2 meter thunderbolt 4 cable at that.

Above about 1.5 meters signal attenuation is such that these cables need active signal amplification, so this is less of cable and more of a point to point transmitter and power delivery system.

What this cable will do that even a nice USB-C cable won't is allow you to run high resolution video and a complete suite of USB peripherals through a docking station 2 meters away.

That said, there are cheaper 2 meter thunderbolt 4 cables. Many even have a full set of certs. The question isn't so much, "what makes a 120 dollar apple cable better than a 12 dollar usb-C cable" but, "What makes a 120 dollar apple 2 meter TB4 better than a 60 dollar cable matters TB4 with the same set of certifications?" and a part of it is the Apple tax.
posted by Tsifus at 4:08 PM on November 14, 2023 [11 favorites]

The main reason I was happy about USB-C for iPhones is that I have a small museum of frayed, yellowed, and miserable iPod and Lightning cables made by Apple.
posted by credulous at 4:10 PM on November 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

I'm still using 30-pin iPods and so many USB devices that are the "try it one way - fail, try it the there way - fail, try it the first way again - success" kind of plugs... My iMac has inputs on the back of it that are a standard that is no longer made. It's all exhausting.

Wasn't the point of USB that it was that one plug to rule them all, one plug to bind them?

But now, apparently... not.
posted by hippybear at 4:14 PM on November 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm still using 30-pin iPods and so many USB devices that are the "try it one way - fail, try it the there way - fail, try it the first way again - success" kind of plugs...

I still have that happen with USB-C plugs…
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:11 PM on November 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

Wasn't the point of USB SCSI that it was that one plug to rule them all, one plug to bind them?
FTFY
posted by dg at 5:39 PM on November 14, 2023 [5 favorites]

Wasn't it just at the introduction of the iMac that it began to be standard that computers didn't have 4 or 5 or more different port types on the back?
posted by hippybear at 5:42 PM on November 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

please don't send household wall voltage through USB cables

Where can one go for this kind of basic, helpful information about standard technical devices that most people already know?
posted by Glinn at 5:48 PM on November 14, 2023

(Or is a power strip perfectly fine?)
posted by Glinn at 5:49 PM on November 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

please don't send household wall voltage through USB cables

I think this is a joke about needing the AC adapter cube and not just sticking a USB cable directly into the electrical socket. I hope so, because otherwise all my devices are fucked
posted by Jon_Evil at 7:33 PM on November 14, 2023 [8 favorites]

please don't send household wall voltage through USB cables

I don’t understand this. If I have a device with a USB C charging port, how am I supposed to charge it?
posted by Caxton1476 at 7:34 PM on November 14, 2023

you wedge the handle end of a fork into the end of the USB C cable, and then you work the tines of the fork into the wall socket.

DO NOT DO THIS
posted by hippybear at 7:52 PM on November 14, 2023 [6 favorites]

Correct. I was making fun of a previous poster's non-sequitur. Sorry for any confusion.
posted by ryanrs at 7:53 PM on November 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

AskMe:
How do I remove a fork from a USB-C cable? Asking for a friend.
posted by dg at 8:39 PM on November 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

please don't send household wall voltage through USB cables

This is 1000% truth. I had my dining room catch fire in the middle of the night due to a roommate's cheap USB charger running direct off a fairly suspect wall outlet. (and then the phone that was connected was sat atop a pile of comics that just served as kindling, but that's more of a force multiplier than anything else... I will never forget waking to the smell of burning poly sleeved Image issues)
posted by FatherDagon at 8:52 PM on November 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

That's just cheap electronics being cheap and unreliable. If charging from a computer USB port is safer, it's because your computer is better engineered than the $2 charger you bought on Amazon. Which is probably true!

But you could also get a $10-15 wall charger of better quality. Anker stuff is pretty well designed, for example. And if there is a widespread fault, they will do an actual recall.
posted by ryanrs at 9:21 PM on November 14, 2023

I have been looking at this on the same day as viewing Joe Scott's video on the language of Quipis - the meaningfully knotted ropes which were used by the Inca. There were people called "Quipucumayoc" who specialized in being able to read every nuance of these things, and it strikes me that those who truly understand the difference between one nominally similar USB cable and another, occupy similar priest class in today' society. Just as the Inca were able to work out that Cuxi Uarcay was a rich lady of nobly descent with 38 llamas so these people can now know Joe Bloggs was a thrifty shopper who spent time on Ebay and spent a life of cursing while plagued by chronic connectivity issues with monitors.
posted by rongorongo at 1:52 AM on November 15, 2023

I don’t understand this. If I have a device with a USB C charging port, how am I supposed to charge it?

The power that runs through a USB-C cable is different than "household wall voltage". The stuff in your walls is either 120v or 240v (depending on where you live) alternating current, whereas USB-C is anywhere between 5 and 20v direct current. The little box that's a part of all USB chargers contains a transformer which converts wall power into usb power.

The joke--as already explained--relied on a deliberate misunderstanding of what it means to put "household wall voltage" through a USB cable which which isn't ever done.

That said....

Household wall voltage fluctuates more than anyone realizes, and the thermal stress of that is what eventually kills most household devices. Whatever you can do to run your devices on clean electricity will extend their lives far more than most people realize.

This doesn't seem right? I want to say that if your household mains voltage is fluctuating that much, you have way bigger problems than consumer devices breaking at an accelerated rate. Yes the voltage varies but everyone knows that and most USB power supplies except for the cheapest junk from Temu or Wish should be engineered to the appropriate tolerances.

There's no need to allege that there's some sort of "dirty" power epidemic that's silently harming everything--except for some very specific (and mostly scientific/industrial applications, or places where the power grid is severely compromised) you shouldn't need to "clean" the power that's coming into your home.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:32 AM on November 15, 2023

Just don't ever buy anything you plug into the wall from Wayfair, Wish, Temu, Alibaba, eBay, or Amazon fullfillers and you should be fine.

It's amazing how much cheap, dangerous crap is out there, and it's criminal that so many sellers are turning a blind eye to it.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:45 AM on November 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

The power that runs through a USB-C cable is different than "household wall voltage". The stuff in your walls is either 120v or 240v (depending on where you live) alternating current, whereas USB-C is anywhere between 5 and 20v direct current. The little box that's a part of all USB chargers contains a transformer which converts wall power into usb power.

Generally the wire that runs in a US home is 12/2 romex - or 12 gauge wire, which generally means it's thicker individual strands of copper. There are two of them (well 3 one is a ground) that form a loop.

A USB cable is like 22 or higher gauge (because you know the gauge increases as the size gets smaller - makes sense), which is much smaller in diameter. So I guess the advice involves removing a electrical socket from the wall, using a wire cap to attach the 28 gauge to the 12 gauge romex, and then trying to power your device? Do people do that?

Or is it more generically not to plug things in via USB - well that's bad advice, because they make outlets with USB transformers built into them, and they work perfectly fine and people use them to charge phones every day.

Also, electrical voltage is variable for many reasons - like for example when your lights dim because some heavy load kicks on - electrical engineers are aware of this and design most products to account for it.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:24 AM on November 15, 2023

It's amazing how much cheap, dangerous crap is out there

Big Clive is a YouTube channel that tears down and analyzes this garbage.
posted by CynicalKnight at 8:39 AM on November 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

I say 'no one' but charging a phone via a direct connection was a plot point in the horror movie Fall, but I can't say if what they did would actually work or not.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:50 AM on November 15, 2023

As others have mentioned, Apple's cable is not a USB-C cable. It is a thunderbolt 4 cable, and a 2 meter thunderbolt 4 cable at that.

there hasn't, in my memory, been a single incident where a USB-c thunderbolt cable that I've used needed to be six feet long given that almost all newish monitors sport usb-c hubs. our flex desks at work all have cables and ports pre-installed that you just plug into and all of them have been sufficient (they're 2-3 feet long each)

unless you just really need two monitor setup where your laptop monitor is 6+ feet away from the bigger monitor for... some reason... (I guess if you don't want to get up and move the hub in a meeting?) I'm sure the Apple cord is great
posted by paimapi at 1:20 PM on November 15, 2023

RonButNotStupid: “It's amazing how much cheap, dangerous crap is out there, and it's criminal that so many sellers are turning a blind eye to it.”

Speaking of which, if you never want to be tempted to buy cheap electronics again, let me recommend the YouTube channel Diode Gone Wild. Coincidentally….

“Dangerous USB chargers 17 (QC 3.0 with schematic)”—Diode Gone Wild, 03 November 2023
posted by ob1quixote at 2:08 PM on November 15, 2023

I've used a 100 foot optical thunderbolt cable before. It was for a proof of concept demo we setup in a pair of adjacent hotel rooms.
posted by ryanrs at 2:55 PM on November 15, 2023

Cursed Connectors #187: Dual USB-C
posted by aubilenon at 5:01 PM on November 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Male USB-C won't actually fit in the slots of a nema 5-15 receptacle unlike a male micro-USB. Now I'm wondering if that was a specific design constraint.
posted by Mitheral at 9:21 AM on November 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh it'll fit. You just need to tap it in with a hammer or mallet.
posted by aubilenon at 3:10 PM on November 16, 2023

When your only tool is a hammer, everything in the world is a USB-C connector.
posted by hippybear at 4:27 PM on November 16, 2023

This also works for getting USB-A in on the first try.
posted by aubilenon at 4:42 PM on November 16, 2023

Honestly the amount of success you can achieve with getting ports to merge when you have a nice little hammer on hang is much higher than you expect.
posted by hippybear at 4:51 PM on November 16, 2023