usb- micro-b and his friends

I don't understand USB-3, I think.

I want a USB 3.0 Cable - A-Male to Micro-B - 3 Feet, but I sure don't
think I can plug this one into my phone or camera?

https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-...+micro+b+cable

Should I be looking at USB2?



Also, what I really wanted it a dual Micro-B cable so I can charge two
things at once, even if sloowly. But I can only find one of them, and
it's power only one lead. I guess one is enough, but how come only one
where there are loads of every other configuration?

https://www.amazon.com/Splitter-Enha...+b+cable++dual

micky wrote:
I don't understand USB-3, I think.

I want a USB 3.0 Cable - A-Male to Micro-B - 3 Feet, but I sure don't
think I can plug this one into my phone or camera?

https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-...+micro+b+cable

Should I be looking at USB2?



Also, what I really wanted it a dual Micro-B cable so I can charge two
things at once, even if sloowly. But I can only find one of them, and
it's power only one lead. I guess one is enough, but how come only one
where there are loads of every other configuration?

https://www.amazon.com/Splitter-Enha...+b+cable++dual

The Splitter-Enhancer powers both cables, doesn't it ?

I read the description, as one of these, but I can't
really be sure, because it describes some "strange"
ideas for configurations.

VCC ------------------+--- VCC Power only connector
GND -----------------+|--- GND
D+ --------------+ || x
D- ------------+ | || x
| | ||
| | |+--- VCC Power+data connector
| | +---- GND
| +------- D+
+--------- D-

Normally, a 2to1 cable like that, takes power from two ports
on the right, to power a "hog" on the left. THe description
of the above Splitter-Enhancer, is it distributes power from
the left, to two devices on the right.

In any case, I don't get the impression the cable has any
intelligence in it. Apparently USB3 cables can have a
chip in them, that has something to do with Plug and Play.

*******

As for your first link, how many phones are USB3 ?

I think I'd want to learn a bit more about the phone,
before I buy something.

USB3 has nine pins. Four are legacy contacts. VCC,GND,D+,D-
The actual USB3 part consists of TX+,TX-,GND,RX+,RX- and
is similar to SATA or PCI Express differential. There are
a lot of similarities in the basic ingredients of modern
high speed interconnect.

So on the phone, is there anything with nine pins ?
A USB-C, I think that has double the pins, and it can
be rotated 180 and joined to the device.

If you're noting that your "micro" connector on the phone
doesn't have the two portions, then it's probably USB2.

And when it comes to phone pinout, some of them cheat and
add an extra pin for audio or for something else. Then,
an adapter comes with the phone, to "select" some of these
other functions.

The Wikipedia USB article can probably tell you more
about that.

Paul

John, I should have read Pual's answer first.

The upshot is, I should forget about USB3 until I have something that
requires it.

I need a couple new cables, to charge my phone and other things, maybe
two things at once, and in order to be ahead of the curve, or at least
on a par with the curve, I thought I should get USB3.

Searching in Amazon on usb a micro b cable
everything at the top of the page is usb3, but eventually there is usb2,
which is what fits the phone, etc.



As to dual cables, I got one at a hamfest that had a micro-B dual with a
mini-B, but I really don't use mini now. So I wanted a spare Y cable
that would have two micro-B's, and I thought there would be an advantage
if both of them did data, unlike Amazon's (my second link) where only
one side does deata.

Monoprice has loads of cables and Y and dual connectors but not dual
micro or iirc dual micro/mini.

My rent-a-car had a USB port with power and connected to the radio,
Plus it had two cigarette ports.**

But Thursday I bought a new used car that has only one cigarette port
and that's it, so that's one reason I need more Y cables.

(They do sell an aftermarket radio with USB input/charging and bluetooth
for answering the phone with the radio. And you can even get a kit
that lets the steering wheel controls control it. But it doesn't have
a CD changer, and from the picture, this car does. The ad doesn't
mention it, so if it's broken, I should buy the other radio. OTOH, the
ad mentions every little thing, but not the radio itself either. I'll
see Tuesday when I pick it up. )

Paul, I don't know what the second link means by "Power Enhancer Hub
Adapter" It's just a dual USB cable, one side with data and one side
without. How enhanced is that?

**Even with all those ports in the rentacar, I tried plugging both an
MP3 flashdrive and the phone (for charging) into a little unpowered USB3
hub and that into the dashboard USB jack, but the radio wouldn't play
the flashdrive when I did that. This was a KIA radio. Other radios
might be different, though I doubt it.

I needed one cigarette to power the netbook, the three times I used
it***, plus the other one to charge the camera battery, plus the phnoe
plus the MP3 flashdrive. So I wanted to see if the last two would work
through a hub.

***When I worked at it, I could have two of the 3 camera batteries fully
charged, but I got mixed up one time and none of them were charged.
They took a bit over an hour to charge, from AC or, suprisingly to me,
the same amount of time using the cigarette charger.


Thank you both.


In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 00:36:18
-0400, Paul wrote:

micky wrote:
I don't understand USB-3, I think.

I want a USB 3.0 Cable - A-Male to Micro-B - 3 Feet, but I sure don't
think I can plug this one into my phone or camera?

https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-...+micro+b+cable

Should I be looking at USB2?



Also, what I really wanted it a dual Micro-B cable so I can charge two
things at once, even if sloowly. But I can only find one of them, and
it's power only one lead. I guess one is enough, but how come only one
where there are loads of every other configuration?

https://www.amazon.com/Splitter-Enha...+b+cable++dual

The Splitter-Enhancer powers both cables, doesn't it ?

I read the description, as one of these, but I can't
really be sure, because it describes some "strange"
ideas for configurations.

VCC ------------------+--- VCC Power only connector
GND -----------------+|--- GND
D+ --------------+ || x
D- ------------+ | || x
| | ||
| | |+--- VCC Power+data connector
| | +---- GND
| +------- D+
+--------- D-

Normally, a 2to1 cable like that, takes power from two ports
on the right, to power a "hog" on the left. THe description
of the above Splitter-Enhancer, is it distributes power from
the left, to two devices on the right.

In any case, I don't get the impression the cable has any
intelligence in it. Apparently USB3 cables can have a
chip in them, that has something to do with Plug and Play.

*******

As for your first link, how many phones are USB3 ?

I think I'd want to learn a bit more about the phone,
before I buy something.

USB3 has nine pins. Four are legacy contacts. VCC,GND,D+,D-
The actual USB3 part consists of TX+,TX-,GND,RX+,RX- and
is similar to SATA or PCI Express differential. There are
a lot of similarities in the basic ingredients of modern
high speed interconnect.

So on the phone, is there anything with nine pins ?
A USB-C, I think that has double the pins, and it can
be rotated 180 and joined to the device.

If you're noting that your "micro" connector on the phone
doesn't have the two portions, then it's probably USB2.

And when it comes to phone pinout, some of them cheat and
add an extra pin for audio or for something else. Then,
an adapter comes with the phone, to "select" some of these
other functions.

The Wikipedia USB article can probably tell you more
about that.

Paul

micky wrote:


My rent-a-car had a USB port with power and connected to the radio,
Plus it had two cigarette ports.**

You know you have a serious addiction, if you need to
smoke two cigarettes at the same time. And how many hands
do you have on the wheel, while you're holding a red-hot
cigarette lighter in each hand ? This sounds like
a serious safety issue. I would want to plug my curling
wand into one outlet, electric toothbrush into the
other, and prepare myself for the work day, on
the way to work (Mr. Bean style).

Paul, I don't know what the second link means by "Power Enhancer Hub
Adapter" It's just a dual USB cable, one side with data and one side
without. How enhanced is that?

I don't think you've ever been to marketing school.
Every product is "new and improved", even at the
antiques store.


**Even with all those ports in the rentacar, I tried plugging both an
MP3 flashdrive and the phone (for charging) into a little unpowered USB3
hub and that into the dashboard USB jack, but the radio wouldn't play
the flashdrive when I did that. This was a KIA radio. Other radios
might be different, though I doubt it.

I needed one cigarette to power the netbook, the three times I used
it***, plus the other one to charge the camera battery, plus the phnoe
plus the MP3 flashdrive. So I wanted to see if the last two would work
through a hub.

***When I worked at it, I could have two of the 3 camera batteries fully
charged, but I got mixed up one time and none of them were charged.
They took a bit over an hour to charge, from AC or, suprisingly to me,
the same amount of time using the cigarette charger.


Thank you both.

When my camera battery is flat, now I know which door to
knock on, to find a fully charged one. Hey, neighbor... :-)

Batteries are restricted to "C rate". A conventional battery
cannot go faster than C/1. Many batteries, with cheesy chargers,
would charge at C/10 rate (take ten hours) forever, ruining the
battery. That's how Black and Decker, ruined the two batteries
for my screwdriver. The "charging circuit" was just a resistor
or something equally dumb. No matter how carefully you time
it, the battery on a dumb charger is likely to vent a little
bit each time.

Lithium cannot be abused in that way. It's possible to charge
them pretty fast, but about half the time is spent in the
"topping phase", pushing the last little bit of charge into
them. The first half of the charging interval, gives the
most percentage gain in capacity. I expect my camera
battery charger, would not light the green light, until
the topping phase is complete.

Lithium camera batteries are nice, because there is just
the one cell, and you can "flatten" those without harm.
I only learned this, on my point and shoot camera. The
battery was flat - I expected the little wall charger
to refuse it, but it charged it right back up. So that's
how I learned you can drain a single cell to nothing.
You cannot do the same thing with multi-cell packs,
like in a laptop, and if the charger refuses it, that's
for safety reasons. Those little camera batteries, just
have the one cell, so they don't have the same
(reverse-bias) safety issue. There's nothing to reverse
bias the single cell, and plate out any metals.

Paul

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 19:40:03
-0400, Paul wrote:

micky wrote:


My rent-a-car had a USB port with power and connected to the radio,
Plus it had two cigarette ports.**

You know you have a serious addiction, if you need to

Yes, I do. Please help me.

smoke two cigarettes at the same time. And how many hands
do you have on the wheel, while you're holding a red-hot
cigarette lighter in each hand ? This sounds like
a serious safety issue. I would want to plug my curling
wand into one outlet, electric toothbrush into the
other, and prepare myself for the work day, on
the way to work (Mr. Bean style).

I may have help for you. The new used car has only one cigarette
ligher and no USB ports. I could buy a replacement radio but then the
CD-cheanger, if it has one and it works, won't work, I'm sure.

I figured they must sell at least one cigarrette port add-on, but as
usual, I'm living behind the curve. They have loads of them, like this
one.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06VTQDDQW...g=UTF8&ps c=1
Tesla's 3-Socket Cigarette Lighter Splitter 12V/24V 120W Car Power
Adapter DC Outlet Splitter with 6.5A 4-Port USB Car Charger for iPhone
iPad Samsung Galaxy GPS Dashcam Radar Detector and More

3 cigarettes, 4 usb, LED oltage readout ( when the voltage is under 12V,
warning with flashing number on the display ), surge protection, auto
disconnect/reconnect above some amperge, and a fuse if it goes above 8
amps. I'll check all the amperages of my stuff, but I'm sure I wonn't
go over 8.

Plus an on/off switch, though some models have a switch for every
cigarette.

Plus others like this, maybe one I can mount prettily and permanently.

Or this one which is just a spare cigarette port (It's where cigarettes
come from."
https://www.amazon.com/VORCOOL-Cigar...lighter+socket

The area below the radio is wide enough for at least 3 lighters but it
only has one. There may be other stuff hiding back there, of course



They have these things for motorcyles too, cigarette on the left and USB
on the right.

Paul, I don't know what the second link means by "Power Enhancer Hub
Adapter" It's just a dual USB cable, one side with data and one side
without. How enhanced is that?

I don't think you've ever been to marketing school.
Every product is "new and improved", even at the
antiques store.

Hmmm.

**Even with all those ports in the rentacar, I tried plugging both an
MP3 flashdrive and the phone (for charging) into a little unpowered USB3
hub and that into the dashboard USB jack, but the radio wouldn't play
the flashdrive when I did that. This was a KIA radio. Other radios
might be different, though I doubt it.

I needed one cigarette to power the netbook, the three times I used
it***, plus the other one to charge the camera battery, plus the phnoe
plus the MP3 flashdrive. So I wanted to see if the last two would work
through a hub.

***When I worked at it, I could have two of the 3 camera batteries fully

By worked at it, I mean I paid attention and when one died, I was sure
to take it upstairs at the end of the day and charge it, then bring it
back to the car.

I got a very good buy on the camera, but it didn't include the battery
or a wrist strap. I took the wrist strap from a simple digital
camera*** I bought at a hamfest for a dollar. It takes good pictures but
has almost no options. And after a year or two, one or two plastic tabs
that accepted screw, all of it holding the front to the back broke. At
first I thought the non-removeable battery swelled and broke it open,
but it's the clips. I'm trying to figure out how to hold it together


And when I went to buy a battery, it must be an unsual size because
several stores were out of htem. A couple months later, I realized I'd
better buy a second or the camera would be worthless when the first one
feiled, but by this time, almost everyone was out of them, and I had to
buy a charging kit with two batteries. I was so stupid I had planned
to charge the battery IN the camera witha USB cable. And you can do
that, but then the camera is no good for an hour, and that's if you can
start charging immediately. .

So I'm very lucky I ended up with 3 batteries. I don't know if they are
lithium but I think so.

charged, but I got mixed up one time and none of them were charged.
They took a bit over an hour to charge, from AC or, suprisingly to me,
the same amount of time using the cigarette charger.


Thank you both.

When my camera battery is flat, now I know which door to
knock on, to find a fully charged one. Hey, neighbor... :-)

It won't fit your camera, I'm almost sure.

Batteries are restricted to "C rate". A conventional battery
cannot go faster than C/1. Many batteries, with cheesy chargers,
would charge at C/10 rate (take ten hours) forever, ruining the
battery. That's how Black and Decker, ruined the two batteries
for my screwdriver. The "charging circuit" was just a resistor
or something equally dumb. No matter how carefully you time
it, the battery on a dumb charger is likely to vent a little
bit each time.

Lithium cannot be abused in that way. It's possible to charge
them pretty fast, but about half the time is spent in the
"topping phase", pushing the last little bit of charge into
them. The first half of the charging interval, gives the
most percentage gain in capacity. I expect my camera
battery charger, would not light the green light, until
the topping phase is complete.

Lithium camera batteries are nice, because there is just

Well, I tried to find what I ordered, and I know it was via Amazon and
in the last 11 months, but it's not listed with my other orders. Very
strange. Anyhow, when you deduct the estimated value of the two
batteries, the charger that I had to buy was iirc ony about $3 and I
thought it would be a piece of junk, but the rectangular battery fit in
it perfectly and stayed put, and it had an AC plug that folded out, or a
cigarette cord that plugged into it. It turned out that charging it in
the car was as good as charging it upstairs, but it used a whole
cigarette port for over an hour, and that only counts when the car was
running.


the one cell, and you can "flatten" those without harm.
I only learned this, on my point and shoot camera. The
battery was flat - I expected the little wall charger
to refuse it, but it charged it right back up. So that's
how I learned you can drain a single cell to nothing.
You cannot do the same thing with multi-cell packs,
like in a laptop, and if the charger refuses it, that's
for safety reasons. Those little camera batteries, just
have the one cell, so they don't have the same
(reverse-bias) safety issue. There's nothing to reverse
bias the single cell, and plate out any metals.

Good to know.

Paul

micky wrote:

And when I went to buy a battery, it must be an unsual size because
several stores were out of htem. A couple months later, I realized I'd
better buy a second or the camera would be worthless when the first one
feiled, but by this time, almost everyone was out of them, and I had to
buy a charging kit with two batteries.

I got my Point and Shoot camera at Staples.

Then I drove down the street to find a Best Buy, and
looked at batteries there. There was a whole display
full of different types, and I knew right away all this
"customization" was to lock you into the manufacturer
battery. Or at least, that was their intention. The
battery I got, was an off-brand, and it's worked just
as good as the battery that came with the camera.

There were so many batteries on the wall display,
I can see how they'd have to chuck the old ones
to make room for new ones.

Paul

On 6/24/2017 7:40 PM, Paul wrote:
Lithium camera batteries are nice, because there is just
the one cell, and you can "flatten" those without harm.

Maybe some are single cells but some others, Canon for example, have 7.4V
battery packs with two cells in series. The Canon I use most has a 7.4V
1050mAh interchangeable pack as have the previous two versions. So far as I
can tell the charger has the proper balancing circuitry and the packs have
a thermal sensor so I don't worry about the charging going pear-shaped. The
packs seem to last forever and over the years I've never experienced one
going 'bad' in any way. The only PITA is that it rules out USB charging so
when I travel abroad I need to pack Canon's proprietary charger and plug
adapter.

John McGaw wrote:
On 6/24/2017 7:40 PM, Paul wrote:
Lithium camera batteries are nice, because there is just
the one cell, and you can "flatten" those without harm.

Maybe some are single cells but some others, Canon for example, have
7.4V battery packs with two cells in series. The Canon I use most has a
7.4V 1050mAh interchangeable pack as have the previous two versions. So
far as I can tell the charger has the proper balancing circuitry and the
packs have a thermal sensor so I don't worry about the charging going
pear-shaped. The packs seem to last forever and over the years I've
never experienced one going 'bad' in any way. The only PITA is that it
rules out USB charging so when I travel abroad I need to pack Canon's
proprietary charger and plug adapter.

Was this a camcorder perhaps ? I could understand some
of those needing a bit more juice.

The Point and Shoot camera I bought, they seemed to be
able to get by with just one cell for voltage. They would
still need to run the retract motor for the lens
off that.

Switching power circuits, come in "buck" and "boost"
flavors. If all you have is 5V, you can make higher
voltages from that, but the current flow rating is
reduced. A 5V @ 500mA power source, could be converted
to a 10V @ 250mA source, but it would take quite a while to charge
your battery from that. So that would be a boost circuit.

But these just don't seem to be commodity items, much as
I'd like to have a collection of stuff like that here.

Paul

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sun, 25 Jun 2017 11:30:34
-0400, John McGaw wrote:

On 6/24/2017 7:40 PM, Paul wrote:
Lithium camera batteries are nice, because there is just
the one cell, and you can "flatten" those without harm.

Maybe some are single cells but some others, Canon for example, have 7.4V
battery packs with two cells in series. The Canon I use most has a 7.4V
1050mAh interchangeable pack as have the previous two versions. So far as I
can tell the charger has the proper balancing circuitry and the packs have
a thermal sensor so I don't worry about the charging going pear-shaped. The
packs seem to last forever and over the years I've never experienced one
going 'bad' in any way. The only PITA is that it rules out USB charging so
when I travel abroad I need to pack Canon's proprietary charger and plug
adapter.

You already have your charger, but you still might be interested in what
I ended up with, for the Samsung:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...NWBAWAH YG3PL

The charger came in 3 pieces, the cigarette cord; the charger; and the
frame that holds the battery. The last two clipped together
permanently, os it was clear they made the same charger for everything,
and then different plastic frames for the many shapes of batteries.

Now it's selling for $20, but I thought it was less a year ago. Maybe
not, but if you figure the batteries cost 7 to 10 dollars and it
included two of them (mine included Samsung brand) that only leaves a
couple dollars for the charger.

So I figured it wouold be junk, especially when I got it and saw how
light it was. But it worked just fine. It has a red led that lights
when charging and changes to green, which I assume means the battery's
charged (little or no instructions). I could leave the charger in the
car's console and when the light turned green, remove the battery to the
plastic bag I carried it in.

I must thinkl I was doing a PBS documentary because I took pictures of
everything. I took 1400 pictures in 80 days. Not only don't my friends
have time to look at them all, I don't have time.

On 6/23/2017 11:01 PM, micky wrote:
I don't understand USB-3, I think.

I want a USB 3.0 Cable - A-Male to Micro-B - 3 Feet, but I sure don't
think I can plug this one into my phone or camera?

https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-...+micro+b+cable

Should I be looking at USB2?



Also, what I really wanted it a dual Micro-B cable so I can charge two
things at once, even if sloowly. But I can only find one of them, and
it's power only one lead. I guess one is enough, but how come only one
where there are loads of every other configuration?

https://www.amazon.com/Splitter-Enha...+b+cable++dual


Your Amazon link shows what I know of as _the_ standard USB3 setup. It is
what I use on things like tiny external HD and SSD drives while their
larger versions use the regular chunky full-size type B. I've never seen
the micro B configuration on any phones. What sort of device are you
thinking to plug in?