What does HackerNews think of usb_c_cable_tester?

Have a look at this tool to help find out what 'capabilities' your cables have:

https://github.com/alvarop/usb_c_cable_tester

It has a number of connectors, the cable gets plugged into the board with both ends and labelled LEDs will light up for wires that are connected. It runs off a coin cell, no microcontroller, no single-board computer, no nothing. Just a power source, LEDs and connectors.

From what I remember, the creator said that the repo should contain everything required to have some manufactured by JLCPCB (that's a large Chinese PCB prototyping service that also populates boards with components if you like).

I had a recent brush with the chaos of USB-C. A device I built was using what I assumed was a "standard" 6-pin usb port (https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/USB-Connectors_Korean-Hr...) - but it wouldn't work with the cheap usb-c cables I had bought for it. After a bunch of time with a continuity tester and ultimately ripping one of the cables apart, it turns out the it was a 6pin cable, but it had a different 6 pins connected. One of them was "left handed" while the other was "right handed". Maddening.

To help with this in the future, I recently ordered a run of these usb cable testers from jlcpcb with some friends - https://github.com/alvarop/usb_c_cable_tester - totally worth it to never have to guess about a cable again.

(for the curious, a technical description of what was happening: the cable had pins A1, A4, A5, B1, B4, and B5 all connected. The port had pins A12, A9, A8, B12, B9, and B8 connected - If you look at this in a pin diagram like the one on this page https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/usb-3-1-and-type-c-t... you can see that no matter which way around you put it in the port you'll never get contact)