High wattage USB-C cable for Android, iPhone, iPad, Mac, Dell, Thinkpad & Nintendo

Both the power source and the power sink must be able to communicate with each other to change and send/rcv the increased voltage. This is a somewhat old but still valid explanation of USB C power:

I would hope that some aspect of the cable, reflects those details.

I wanted a USB PD article, but this is all I found so far.

Standard Power Range (SPR) Extended Power Range (EPR)

Power Delivery 3.0 SPR 3 A 5 V 15 W \ Power Delivery 3.0 SPR 3 A 9 V 27 W \___ Cable protocol and details Power Delivery 3.0 SPR 3 A 15 V 45 W / cover these four cases. Power Delivery 3.0 SPR 3 A 20 V 60 W / 5V @ 3A would be quite a common case. Power Delivery 3.0 SPR Type-C 5 A[d] 20 V 100 W Power Delivery 3.1 EPR Type-C 5 A[d] 28 V[e] 140 W Power Delivery 3.1 EPR Type-C 5 A[d] 36 V[e] 180 W Power Delivery 3.1 EPR Type-C 5 A[d] 48 V[e] 240 W <=== Delusional option (may not have been used yet)

[d] >3 A ( >60 W) operation requires an electronically marked cable rated at 5 A. [e] >20 V (>100 W) operation requires an electronically marked Extended Power Range (EPR) cable. *******

Example of a cable with a chip, being checked out via a readout.

Measuring a cable with in-line DMM while a device is being charged (100W charging session).

Inside the metal shell of this cable, is a marker chip [Infineon, model CYPD2103A] It's a processor. The size, and functional level of cables like this, is also why they are treated with suspicion. Just about any chip could be put in there, for any purpose you can imagine.

And not only are these cables potentially sophisticated, they can also be mis-wired :-)

"Google engineer finds USB Type-C cable that’s so bad it fried his Chromebook Pixel"

These ideas are wonderful... once everyone gets their s*it together.

An example of an early issue, was when I bought an Antec computer case with USB ports on the front, and they weren't compatible with USB2. I made it a practice of always ripping the PCB and connectors out of Antec cases, so I would not be caught checking the wiring with a multimeter before use. Easier to just remove the assembly and forget-about-it.

Every generation has had some surprises. The variation in USB header designs being one. Today, they're consistent and you are highly likely to find the same design on each motherboard. But each time a "new thing" is introduced, there are a pile of variations (look at all the TPM pinouts as an example -- some companies have three different models, and now they cost $70 and nobody wants them).

Paul