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ahh, one of those famous three-wire USB cables.
GND, VBUS, and D+ are connected, D- isn't. I'm sure that'll work fine
@foone@digipres.clubalso this tester can tell if a USB-C cable is inserted upside down or not.
I kinda hate having this ability
also I'm using this device in the CR2032-powered 3v configuration, right?
I own at least one cable that works at 5v but doesn't at 3.3v... because it has some smarts in it, and they don't run at 3.3v
joke. do not answer seriously or I will block you
Huh. Does anyone know what kind of USB connector this is? I'll need an adapter I guess...
Fun fact: Power-only USB cables are like bees, they leave their stinger behind when they sting you
ooh, nasty: I found a USB-C cable that consistently has a disconnected D+ in one orientation, and intermittently in the other orientation.
So it only works <50% of the time. Nasty.
I decided to cut out the middleman and test all my USB extender cables at once.
Good news: all eight of them work.
okay all "normal" cables tested. I'm now into the realm of tricky ones this can't test directly.
things like male-to-male micro-usb.
why?
and the frankly surprising number of cables I own which have more than 2 ends.
usually they're like usb 3.0 micro B to usb A and an additional power-only usb A, but sometimes they're like USB A to usb mini to usb A female
that one has all the data pins connected, so unlike the usual kind of 3-end connectors which are just there to get some extra power for external devices, this one will break a lot if you connect all three ends
I still need to do that for an AC power cable.
like, people are always saying you should never make a male-to-male power cable... but no one ever said I shouldn't make a male-to-male-to-male cable!
how do I test a male micro to male micro cable?
yeah I don't think I have any way to test this.
wait! I got it.
I have a micro-usb to usb-c adapter. slip that on the end, and now it's a USB-c to micro-usb cable.
okay so it seems that the way this device works means that it's always going to run something like 0.5v across the cables. So no matter how I power it, cr2032 or VIN, it can't test my couple of cables that need +5v
Or these USB A to micro connectors, which are supposed to be switchable between power-only and data+power.
ONE of them works, the other doesn't. It only does power, and windows throws up a "USB device malfunctioned" error when you try to switch it to data mode
(unfortunately when I connected them both for the picture, I forgot which was which)
okay all done. Let's see the count:
1 power-only mini-usb cable
1 power-only USB-C cable
4 bad cables
3 magneticly attached cables I'm throwing away because I have lost the other half
TWENTY FUCKING SEVEN power-only micro-USB cables.
All have been beheaded and can now be thrown away.
and one cable has defeated me:
lightning to micro-USB.
Normally I could do the same trick I did with the micro-micro cable, but in this case, the cable is too short for that. Since I don't have any USB-C or micro extension cables, I can't make it reach
my wife randomly found a cable in the bedroom, and I ran off with it to stick on the tester. Guess what? It's a USB-C charge only cable!
We must stay ever vigilant, the threat never ends.
@foone Whoa thats even worse than the one I made where it works in exactly in one direction. (Love that, on a conceptual level)
@foone That's a cursed combination.
@foone oof, not even CC pins
@foone Why does the cable checker need a battery? In case both sides are dead?
@foone how does one obtain such a useful testing device? 
@foone cool usb tester btw
@foone WHY ARE THEY ALWAYS POWER ONLY
@foone How did you possibly come into that many power-only cables?! I've only ever run into... I think maybe five in my life, and they were all like... a foot at most and had come with some cheap chargeable device.
@lothus I don't know, but I hate them
This reminds me of my box of cables.
Last time I did anything with that box, it was in our storage shed, back in Metro Atlanta heat, in the summer.
Related.
Did you know that game cube controllers can MELT in the heat?
@foone nearly all micro USB cables I have are power only, it's maddening. I've put shrink tube on them to know which is which. Green = has data. Red = power only.
@foone across which pins? D+/D- ? V+/gnd?
@erikarn it needs 5v over V+/gnd to run.
I think it runs 0.5v across all pins: that's how the tester works
@eris Many things that shouldn't exist. Welcome to USB
@foone I'm somehow glad to have never seen this nor the use case for it. Somewhere I might still have some devices that required a cursed A to A type cable which actually came with a warning label on it not to lunch the interfaces on two PCs by attempting to connect them together, but that's about as close as I've gotten
@foone
With two Samsung Galaxy S IIIs you have lying around, of course.
@foone the third gender
@foone I remember early USB drives that needed special cables with two USB-A connectors to supply enough power
@foone Is that for OTG? E.g. connect two phones together to do…something?
@schrockwell nope! I think it's some bad external harddrive that used the wrong connector for some reason
MAGFest 
@foone Hell yea gay cables
@foone Ti-84 Plus has one to be able to communicate with each other. Better than the older 2.5mm phone connector.
@foone let me guess: was for connecting OTG? E.g.: android tablet with micro to portable keyboard with micro?
@foone the USB IF has dispatched special agents to your location
@cinebox THEY'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE
@foone isn't that... *all* middlemen, then?
@foone While highly unlikely, there is a non-zero chance that two of them are incorrectly wired, but cancel each other out. 
@foone Bad news: They have gained sentience and named themselves USBkynet
@foone or they have transposed connections which happen to all cancel out.
@foone I was really happy to find USB cable testers. I bought the one you have after buying two separate kinds from an Austrian maker. They're all great!
@foone Ouroborusb
@foone (two of them have crossed pairs)
@ellie hmm, actually this tester can't detect crossed pairs, so if any of my cables are fuckt in that way, I'll never know!