this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2024
157 points (91.5% liked)

Technology

60062 readers
3347 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I converted my cable park to a USB-C cable (male to male) and lots of adapers (the short sort you can keep in a box) years ago. Yet i have still some devices with a mini-B female port.

Only thing i found online are cables and everything else. Heck, there's even mini-DP > C and ethernet > C in that form factor.

To clarify, i look for something like this but mini-B instead of micro.

edit: Region is Swiss, Europe.

editedit: thanks guys, found one.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 83 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I'm confused, I just did a quick search and found one on Amazon that's listed for about $14. Am I missing something here?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (7 children)

Maybe the region, Swiss, Europe? Google and Duckduckgo found nothing.

But thanks, so they do exist.

Can you give me your search term or the brand?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Ah yes. Good ol JXMOX… a household name in quality electronics.

So glad this is the world we live in where a cat that’s attacking a keyboard can provide company names that fart in and out of existence every month on the monolithic online shopping monopoly site we all basically are forced to use if we need anything since RadioShack, Fry’s, and every single other boutique electronics shop is gone.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

Look, JXMOX is a fabulous company. Nothing like that piece of shit JXMOW that had to shut down due to horrible reviews.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

It's white-labeling with a side of trademark spam for good measure.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

They're basically the brands of the very same Chinese factories that make the big-brand name stuff that's sold to you for 4x the price. (Mind you, some are from little factories that aren't really all that professional. Those are invariably shit and what I say below does not apply to those)

Whilst I can understand your point, you're basically celebrating the modern strategy were Developed World electronics brands are nothing more than one big Marketing operation with the actual manufacturing and often even design of their products subcontracted to some Chinese factory.

Now, the risk with getting the factory brand stuff is that it's not at all uncommon for them to use inferior designs or materials because that brand is so shallow and they don't really care about defending it (that does not apply to established Chinese brands, by the way) and are mainly competing on price, whilst Western brands often enforce that better materials and designs are used and proper Quality Assurence is done to keep failure rates low, though if you're old enough you might have noticed that quality of the brands popular in the West is now way lower that 2 or 3 decades ago and practices such as planned-obscelence have become common.

Tons of little factory brands is a good thing, IMHO. (Just wish the Chinese didn't overdid it in the whole competing on price and hence turning perfectly good designs into devices that quickly break).

All this to say that while brand is this cozy familiar thing, it's often not worth the price and the gains from it are quite limited because there is no inhouse manufacturing behind the brand anymore and the whole thing has been cheapenned at the manufacturing end.

My recommendation is to disregards brand for the stuff that's cheap and not mission critical - such as the kind of USB converted the OP is looking for - since when the big brand name stuff costs you 4x you can risk getting no-name brand stuff that breaks easilly and even if 2 of those devices don't last long it will still be cheaper. Maybe the best example of this are LED Light bulbs - the no-name brand stuff has to obbey the same rules (such as the requirements for getting the CE mark) and even if the make quality ends up being inferior to big brand stuff, the price is so stupendously cheaper (really ridiculously so, like a Philips one will cost you 15x what the same no-name brand stuff costs if you get it via Ali Express) that you can get a few extra and are still way better off, especially because stuff like CE mark enforces low failure rate, low brightness loss over time and a number of other criteria important for these things.

For more expensive stuff, you probably want the well known branded stuff, because there's more money at risk, the non-branded stuff savings aren't all that much, their better QA makes it less likely that it will break easilly, there is proper Warranty support and you can more easilly research it upfront to find out the best device of that kind for you which is actually decent because there are more user-reviews out there for stuff from big brands.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I have a pack of these, although perhaps not this specific brand. I swear by them. Mini and micro usb can die in a fire please.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Same. I have a lot of legacy recording equipment that I won't replace until it stops working and it's all mini USB.

I'm just glad I got what I did instead of FireWire.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

FireWire was ahead of its time. Thunderbolt is USB’s answer to FireWire

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I can't argue with that because honestly I was jealous of the folks running it. But they are buying new equipment today and I'm not.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I don’t know about the audio equipment side - it’s just funny to me from a computer operating system side that FireWire “lost” and now USB is implementing the “bad” things that caused us to pick USB over it

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Dang it, all are unavailable for my region. Ebay too. Legal reasons?

[–] [email protected] 40 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yes, many nations outlawed these during the great USB wars. So many packets lost, so many busses unserialized, and we still feel the consequences today.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

I mean, there are laws for shielding and chemicals and stuff, which are often more stringent in swiss.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Try aliexpress

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Check AliExpress

You might be waiting months to get it, though.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I‘m also from the Swiss and for this stuff i always use aliexpress. Very good price and never had any issues. https://a.aliexpress.com/_mtiKwFE Just search for „usb-c to mini“ and you find lots of options. generally you can say the higher the price the better the quality. also take note of the shipping costs, sometimes costs are „hidden“ in there. PM me if you need help or have questions.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Check the amount of sold items for the listing check the shipping lrice and check the 1 and 2 star reviews. That way you make sure the item is genuine.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

"amazon type c to mini usb adapter" is what I googled to get the same result as them. Maybe try the same query directly on your regional Amazon page if Google isn't helping

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Do a search on aliexpress, you’ll get 10 for the $14 linked above

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

If you need a lot I believe StarTech or CDW can work out a shipment.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Do a search for fire starter… /s

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Vs. the commonly found mini cable? Don't think so.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Nearly every single port adapter exists. People will not upgrade their stuff until absolutely necessary and will get adapters in the meantime.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 74 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The USB-C (female) adapters are hard to find due to technically being non-compliant. If you're interested about the reasons and some further context, I can recommend this article: https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/all-about-usb-c-illegal-adapters/

In your specific case, it's twice as hard to find such an adapter due to MiniUSB being so uncommon these days.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Ah, so that's why the C to micro adapter to charge my old Galaxy S3 only works one side.

[–] happinessattack 3 points 11 months ago

That's a very interesting article, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This thread made me realise how awesome it would be to have a specialized search engine or storefront where you can describe a custom bit of cabling or donglage based on what you need to connect together and search whether anything like that exists.

[–] ReveredOxygen 7 points 11 months ago

Even more awesome if it could find the cheapest adapter chain in the case where it doesn't have it directly

[–] Quacksalber 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Ok, danke, die sind sogar hier verfügbar.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I have some around my house because I switched all of my cables to usb-C. I bought a six pack on Amazon.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Search term "mini usb2 to usbc" on amazon UK came back with a good list... brands easyult and nfhk. No clue how good they are or if they would be available in EU/CH.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Thanks, but amazon can't deliver them to switzerland. None of them, it's crazy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (4 children)

They are not common because it is possible to use them incorrectly and cause a fire.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (4 children)

How? Anything with a mini will be USB 2 at most and USB c defaults to lower power of USB 2 without any handshakes with the device which one with USB mini won't do.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

This will NOT cause a fire.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is it because USB C can be host AND device while Mini USB is only device?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I'm not sure that there'd be enough voltage to cause a fire.

load more comments
view more: next ›