Micro USB cables

[aliceboo]

Dear Harrison,

We’re having a few issues with the black micro USB cables. They are quite hard to insert into the pump boards and we accidentally tore off two micro USB ports that were soldered onto two pump boards. We’ve tried to solder them back and we could get a good contact with one of them. We need to order a replacement micro USB connector for the second one. We found that if we use the blue cables that you brought with the prototype work a lot more smoothly than the black ones. They pop in and out very easily, while the black ones require a lot of pressure. We’re quite afraid that we might be breaking more ports if we continue using the black cables. Do you happen to have the reference of the blue cables you bought? We really haven’t been plugging the cables in and out very many times before the connectors detached from the board, one detached while Guy was trying the plug it in for the first time. I’m wondering if there is anything that could be done to make this a bit more robust.

Thank you so much for your help,

Kind regards,

Alice

[harrison]

This is very troubling, I didn’t realise that the manufacturer had not tested to ensure these work well. I will contact them right away. Is there any obvious difference when looking at the connector at the end of the blue vs black cable?

Here is a link to the blue ones:
https://www.digikey.co.uk/product-detail/en/pimoroni-ltd/CAB0703/1778-1019-ND/6928232

There are also some for sale on eBay in the UK:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Pimoroni-CAB0703-Flotilla-Cable-50cm/142319665819?hash=item2122e9c29b:g:gcsAAOSw4YdYz5Y0

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by harrison.

[aliceboo]

The black and blue connectors look a little different. I tried to take a picture to show the difference: microUSB picture

[harrison]

Thanks. Also, how “well soldered” do the legs of the microUSB receptacle look? Can you see solder on the legs emerging from both sides of board? Any pictures of this would be appreciated.
In devices I have assembled myself, I have found that these connectors are almost invincible when soldered correctly (i.e. lots of solder). I am sure you are correct that the different cables may be more difficult to plug in, but I am surprised that they would be stiff enough to dislodge a properly assembled connector.

[aliceboo]

The legs on the microUSB receptacle look the same as on the old pumping boards. You can’t see the legs emerging from the top side of the board (but the legs are very short). You can only see the solder on the top side of the board. I could’t take any decent picture, here’s one: . We never had any problem with the blue cables, they would “click” very nicely. However with the black cables we can’t hear a “click” and you really have to force them in and there is a lot of resistance to take them out too.

[karim]

Dear ALice,

Here is Karim from Labmaker. We are sorry to hear that you have experienced that. We found the black USB cables to be less user-friendly but didn’t think that this could be that critical to the ports. In any case, I thank you for your valuable feedback and for making us realize that the black USB cables could prove to be problematic and we will, therefore, stop shipping them to customers.

Furthermore, I kindly ask you to share your Labmaker order number with me at karim@labmaker.org. so that we can arrange a replacement for the two broken pump boards you currently have at our cost.

Best,
Karim

[Author]

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