What is it?

The A2C caberQU board applies a voltage to all pins of a cable and measures which ones are connected to the other end. It features LEDs for each of the 9 pins and even shield. Additionally it checks for the presence of the necessary resistors for DFP (Power source). So in total 11 LEDs offer all possible combinations for USB-A to USB-C cables usage in different modes:

• USB 2.0/1.1
• USB 3.0/3.1
• USB Power Delivery (DFP)

There is an extensive manual included which explains the connectors, modes and necessary pins.

Why did you make it?

There are a lot of possible USB cable combinations. If you use the wrong cable, data transmission may be slower than possible or certain devices may not work at all. In the USB C standard, the cable plays an important role and has to advertise itself as such. They need to have certain pins connected, some need to have resistors attached to work correctly.

What makes it special?

Unfortunately there is no easy way to extract whether a certain cable can support a certain use case. If a cable has a broken pin, that makes it even worse, due to their unpredictable behavior. The A2C caberQU cable tester solves this once and for all. By flipping the USB connectors, the opposing LEDs for some pins light up due to them not being mirrored. That's on purpose and defined in the USB C standard. The product is sold with one CR2032, the PCB and an extensive manual. The USB-A to USB-C cable is not included. You have to extract the needed pins for your desired usage on your own, unfortunately that can not be done universally for all possible combinations.

No dedicated power supply is needed, all necessary power is supplied via the CR2032 battery. The battery is only discharged when a cable is connected and should last for a while.

Please note that if you have a cheaper shipping option I'm gladly using it and refunding you the difference. The item still is a prototype. It is working as intended, but funny quirks and other things are possible. It is not certified and only suited for prototyping.

If you have any questions, just shoot me a message!