Cryptoucan™: New Cables for Packaging

Written by Dominik Joe Pantůček on January 30, 2020.

If you are developing an electronic device and it misbehaves, it is the cable. If you think you made an error designing your PCB, it is a cable. And if you think that it is not the cable… it is the cable. Read on about how we finally chose cables for Cryptoucan™ packaging.

As we are getting our units packaged for shipping[1] and with our CE certifications[2] finally passed (be sure we will write about this in the future), it turned out that we really need solid USB cables.

If you think that USB cable is just an USB cable you buy for a few bucks anywhere and if you buy enough of them, they are going to be even cheaper – you think wrong. Most retailers and actually even distributors sell cheap Chinese cables with USB connectors. Yes, you read it right. Those are not USB cables – just plain “some” cables with USB connectors soldered to them. No shielding or impedance according to any USB standard[3].

After struggling with getting the right cables and having to return more than 1000 pieces of the cheap Chinese junk, we realized, we must specify very carefully, what do we want from the cables. We want them to be:

  • durable – so they do not break easily if you inadvertently tangle or fold them,
  • properly shielded – and the shielding must be properly connected to the ground,
  • wired according to USB 2.0 “high speed” standard.

In addition to this, we thought that it would be nice if  the cables looked nice and in an ideal world, you could plug them in no matter the connector orientation.

Without further ado, we found such cables. And depicted in Picture 1 you can see our winner!

Picture 1: Our new USB cable for shipping with Cryptoucan™.

But before we decided, we tested everything possible. USB communication, electric current and voltage characteristics and to double-check the shielding we hacked a few cables apart as can be seen in Picture 2. Yes, sometimes you really have to do your due dilligence.

Picture 2:  The new USB cable with connector casing cut off.

And not only it looks really sleek, it also sports the connectors that you can actually plug in regardless of the orientation. You can see that in (really bad) Pictures 3 and 4 below.

Picture 3: The new USB cable computer connector.

Picture 4: The new USB cable Cryptoucan™ connector.

I am pretty sure you cannot wait until you get your hands on your own Cryptoucan™ with the new cool cables. Rest assured, we are working hard to get that to retail distribution while you are reading this!

A note to myself: I should refrain from taking pictures with mobile phone…

 

Hope you liked our cable experience (and we hope you do not have to go through the same). If you wanna see more about our developments, come back next Thursday as usual!

References

1. https://trustica.cz/en/2019/11/07/cryptoucan-packaging/

2. Wikipedia contributors. (2020, January 25). CE marking. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 14:22, January 30, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CE_marking&oldid=937485662

3. Wikipedia contributors. (2020, January 28). USB. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 14:23, January 30, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=USB&oldid=937981104