Hello all, Im gonna get right to the point. If anyone knows how to tell the difference between 2 wire USB cable and a 4 wire USB cable could you please let me know? I have the “Bontrager Ion Pro 1300 RT” that came with a pretty short “4 wire” USB cable.
I would like to get a longer “4 wire” cable for easier/more convenient charging (stopping at my families homes, restaurants, the bar when i take my biking breaks).
I tried asking this on a mountain bike forum and they refuse to tell me (just a bunch of PMs badmouthing me and my family). So I figured the BLF has loads of USB rechargeable flashlights……
Maybe someone on here could be kind enough to help me out?
If all you care about is charging (no data) just get a GOOD USB cable. Lots of them are poor, some are downright rotten.
These are the best I’ve found: Products no longer Available
Thin but low resistance. I’ve tested EVERY USB cable I have and these have the lowest resistance for their length of any of them. I’ve been using a short one for daily charging phones, earphones, power banks, etc. for a couple years and the connector is still good. I have Anker and Aukey with fatter cable, but they simply aren’t better, though they are fine also.
Don’t worry about that. These are ‘technical details’ that are supposed to mean something, but these are all made in China so they don’t actually mean squat. You want low resistance in the length you require. I got one of those little plug-in USB testers and tested everything I have. I threw a bunch out, mostly stuff that came with cheap flashlights, power banks, and chargers. That monoprice came out tops in all lengths tested up to 6’. I was surprised as I thought some of the beefier looking cables would do better.
You can get them from 6” (my favorite) on up and in a bunch of colors if you want.
They simply work, charging and data.
I just bookmarked them! Good prices. I use HDMI cables a lot. Might try them with HDMI soon with all these cheap ones i got here. Rocketfish from Best Buy is pricey and not long enough :-\
The only non-destructive way i know how to tell the difference between a 2 (power only) and 4 (power and data) USB cable is to use it to connect a data device (phone, camera etc) to my PC and see if it shows up as a device (4 cable) or just powers on but doesn’t talk to the PC (2 cable).
Although if you’ve got small enough multimeter probes you could test for continuity at each end of the cable, i don’t have small enough probes though.
If you’re talking about knowing the difference when you’re buying then you need to choose a data cable. But if you’re going to use it for charging only then it doesn’t matter whether it has 2 or 4 wires, those extra 2 wires are not used for power transfer and as mentioned by Flydiver it’s the quality of the cable that matters so go with his/her recommendation, testing is the only way to know for sure and he/she has already done that for you
HDMI is another matter though, it’s used for communication only, not to power a device, and as a standard it has built in error detection so the cable either works or it doesn’t (except for a very fine margin of error where it’s obvious you’re dropping blocks). If an HDMI cable is working there’s no way for another one to work better.
It’s the same with a USB cable, it either communicates or it doesn’t, a better USB cable won’t transfer data any differently (unless there is an obvious problem), it will only affect the power being delivered to a powered device which is a separate thing.
To summarise, for data a cable either works or it doesn’t, there’s no such thing as a ‘better’ cable. That applies to both HDMI and USB.
For USB charging, or USB power, you’re looking for the lowest resistance in the cables that transfer the power.
I went with flydrivers mono cables. Hdmi i know the cheap ones work. Dad got me$60 hdmi cable for my Roku ultra and it didn’t work. $10 from CVS works perfect lol.
I just need the charging. Thank you. i don’t have one of them testers and dont feel like buying one lol.
Idk what comes with these thrunite flashlights like the Cat V6 USB wise, but if the mono cables are the least resistance then good purchase
I’m going to try that PC thing right now actually. I just have cables that came with phones and them tiny cables that Sofirn sends with those cheap chargers
If you wanna go crazy, get some zipwire and a set of usb sockets in the right size, and solder ‘em up. You could use 100’ of 16ga wire if you want just power.
