USB Cable Tester Board USB Cable Checker Data Wire with Acrylic Case Charging Test Data Line Type-C Micro Type A Type B

If you are anything like me, you probably have an entire drawer full of mystery USB cables that you've collected over the years, and have no idea which ones are for power-only, good cables, or bad. (Small digression here- why in the world people who make power-only USB cables don't label them as such is completely beyond me. There ought to be a law) I spent hours trying to figure out why my USBC portable monitor wasn't working the other day, only to find out that not all USBC cables use all of the contacts inside them. This device would have saved me so much time hunting for a "true" cable. Just plug in both ends, turn it on, and see which conductors are present and working. I easily eliminated half of my collection as junk/power-only cables or, cables that have diminished capability. No more wondering why my device isn't connecting properly or charging. If you've got cables- this thing is a must. Build quality is decent for the $17 price tag. While I have seen folks here saying that they recieved dead testers, mine came out of the package ready to go. I purchased the version of this tester with the acrylic cover. My only real complaint is that with the cover, it is a bit of a challenge to reach the power switch. Considering how the tester functions, it might be a good thing to actually change this switch to a momentary contact button so that the user can simply push and hold to test the cable. There would be no risk of leaving the device powered on, and it would have essentially the same functionality. But, all-in-all a handy product and a must have for any techie.

I should have bought one of these years ago. and I will abuse this one until it catches fire and buy two more. No more guessing if a cable is bad, or has a spot that makes it act right when twisted or bent one way and bad when bent another way, no more guessing if this cable is power-only, or does have data lines too, no more trying to figure out what version of USB-C this cable might support and if it's a true two-sided reversible USB-C, or just pretending to be one but really only works if plugged in the "right" way. Now I can identify when a cable will do what I need and if it just needs to be thrown away. Now I can label my rat's nest collection of USB cables with exactly what they are capable of, down to which wires the manufacturer conveniently forgot to include. (and here's a hint, I find very few cables, even the ones from "reputable" companies charging too many $$'s, that actually wired up every pin on a USB-C connector, allowing it to fully implement all features USB3 & 4 is capbable of) Can you really call it a "standard" if the entire market is a free-for-all and the vast majority of cables don't even implement it? Don't even read any more, buy one of these, pick a seller. And take it to the store with you and test the various cables on the rack before you buy one. Then you'll guarantee that not only is it good, but that its pinout is fully populated, or at least as populated as you need it to be.

Once I realized that all three connectors on the *left* were configured as "drives" (i.e, all pins connected to +V), and the cable-under-test (CUT) had to connect from one of those three to any one of the other six ("a" to "f") "test" group, it worked great.As others have pointerd out, this is basically an end-to-end continuity tester, as doesn't pretend to identify shorts or more subtle problems.I knock off one star because it does *not* support garden variety USB A- to- USB A cables! And two of the "drive" connectors are USB A 2.0 and USB A 3.0: the latter is fully compatible with either type, so only the 9-pin USB 3.0 is necessary. The second connector shoud have been made a USB A 3.0 type and placed in the "test" group, allowing much more general utility.In the Amazon product decription you can find a link to a very useful "User Guide" which includes some board design info:m.media-amazon.com/images/I/B1Q6H4djmxL.pdf

Great for sorting through my pile of USB cables.- Throw out ones with flaky or broken connections,- Mark ones that are "power only,"- Mark C-C and A-C cables that are USB 2 only internally- Mark C-C and A-C cables that are USB 3 with only four wires/two differential pairs (5-10 Gbps)- Mark C-C and A-C cables that are USB 3 with all eight wires/four differential pairs (10-20 Gbps, or USB 3 + alt mode)My only complaint is that sometimes very short cables cannot make it all the way across the board. However, I've mitigated this with USB C-C cables and couplers that I separately tested and verified with this tool as having all their wires connected through to extend the length of the short cables I need to test. In practice, this has only been an issue with very short C-C and very short A-C cables; the mini and micro B ports are positioned such that even very short cables are able to easily reach those plugs.There is some slightly more advanced testing that can be done if you use a multimeter in resistance or continuity mode, along with this tester -- the tester has pads for cable shield, cable ground, and the CC1 and CC2 lines and grounds, located conveniently together to test with probes if a cable is wired with shorts or resistors between those paths. Slightly less convenient, but still very nice to have, are probe pads for each of the individual lines for both sides of the connector: this allows (e.g.) probing explicitly on those "data only" leads to see if they're being naughty and shorting D+/D- together, or have resistors between VBUS -> D+ -> GND and VBUS -> D- -> GND to falsely signal to the device that the USB port the cable is plugged into has a capability that it does not.