跳至主要内容
How to choose a good USB data and charging cable for your mobile phone
Like Us on Facebook
Most of us will have a few USB data and charging cables for our mobile phone, i.e. one at home, one in office, one carrying together with our laptop, etc.

Do you encounter the problem of slow charging, or worst still, unable to charge with the additional USB cable that you bought? Perhaps you can find the solution after reading this.

First of all, although most of the USB cables look alike from their external appearance, they might be different inside the cable, and probably that is the ready why certain USB cable unable to charge your mobile phone, certain can charge but at a very slow rate, certain just work as fine as the original USB cable that come with your phone, and certain even can charge faster than the original cable.

There are 5 wires inside the USB 1 and USB 2 cables, and there are more inside USB 3.0 cable. Since most of the mobile phones nowadays are using USB 2.0 connector, so USB 3.0 is out of our topic here.

The 5 wires are:


2x 28 AWG data lines
2x 20-28 AWG power conductors
1x drain wire
and those 5 wires are connected to the 5 pins in your micro-USB connector.

In fact, there are two kinds of USB cable: fully-rated and sub-channel. The main difference between them is that fully-rated cable can be used for typical peripherals operating at the rate of 480 Mbps (high speed) signalling, while the sub-channel one at the rate of 1.5 Mbps (standard speed) signalling. The construction inside the cable fully-rated and sub-channel cable is different.


As you can see from the diagram above, the fully-rated USB cable is shielded by braid and aluminium foil.


You can probably see some printed codes on the good quality USB cable, including something like this: "28AWG/2C and 24AWG/2C" or "28AWG/1P + 24AWG/2C".

The first code is normally the specification of the data signal pair, which is normally 28AWG. "2C" means 2 conductors, and "1P" or "1Pr" means 1 pair. "2C" and "1P" are basically the same.

The important part is the second code, which is the specification of the power distribution pair. The minimum requirement is 28AWG, and the lower the AWG number the better. This is because lower AWG wire is thinker, and therefore the electrical resistant is lower.

Therefore, charging with a "28AWG/1P + 28AWG/2C" USB cable is normally slower than a "28AWG/1P + 24AWG/2C" cable.

Certain USB cable comes with a ferrite bead at one end, which function is to filter high frequency noise to improve signal transfer.

As a conclusion, when you buy additional USB cable to charge your mobile phone, you should look for:

USB 2.0 support
High speed 480 Mbps data transfer rate
The packaging mentions it is a "charging" cable and not only a "data" cable
Power conductors of 24AWG/2C or better (for faster charging speed)
(optionally) the ferrite bead
Remember not to only look for the information on the packaging of the cable. Sometimes you will find the specification printed on the cable is different from that mentioned on the packaging.
Like Us on Facebook

评论

发表评论

此博客中的热门博文

10 common misconceptions about mobile device batteries Like Us on Facebook Have you run into a few old-school users with antiquated ideas about how to treat smartphone batteries? Here are several myths worth debunking. Ah, the mobile battery ─ a thing of myth, of legend... of frustration. So much sway does battery life hold over us that we buy specific phones that guarantee us a couple of days' usage. And all of this when other devices can eke out a week's worth of usage (think Amazon Kindle). Users go to some strange measures to keep their batteries going and going and going. Yet much of what we hear about mobile batteries is simply not true. Let's examine some of these misconceptions about the batteries that power the devices we depend upon day in and day out. 1: Batteries have "memory" Nope. Not at all. People used to think that you had to "train" your battery to make sure it would take the most charge. To do that, people w...
发表评论
阅读全文
How to make your phone's battery last longer Fed up with charging your phone every night? We offer some simple tips and tricks you can use to make your phone's battery last longer, plus point out the battery saving myths that won't help you at all. Even in 2017, it's tough to go much longer than 24 hours without charging your smartphone. Better battery technology simply hasn't arrived yet, which means it's down to software and settings to eke out the limited power for as long as possible. Unfortunately, you're never going to get a week's use out of a smartphone because of those big, bright screens along with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and 4G. However, by following our advice and making a few changes to your phone's settings (and maybe even changing the way you use your phone) you should be able to extend its battery life by a good chunk. What we're not going to suggest here is to use your phone less. Our aim is to show you how to ...
发表评论
阅读全文
Don’t Buy Power Bank Before You Read This 1) What’s power bank? Power bank serve as an ‘extra battery’ or external charger for your phone or other electronic devices. 2) Where is power bank made from? Majority of the power banks in the market are actually made in China. 3) How long do I need to charge the power bank? It’s depending on the REAL CAPACITY of the power bank. The larger REAL CAPACITY, the longer charging time may required. Different charging methods may result different charging time as well. Charging with the original charger will be faster than charging with computer usb port. 4) Why sometime I need longer time to charge the same power bank? Even though using the same charging method, the charging time may be differ due to environment,temperature, power flow and etc. 5) What’s conversation rate? Conversation rate is the remaining percentage of the battery after the battery lost in heat or PCB operation. 6) What’s phone battery health? ...
发表评论
阅读全文