Important safety message: Stop using the stock micro-usb cable!

As Seen on my Blog at DoesitPew.Blogspot.com


The case today is an HTC Evo MicroUSB Cable.
This is the same cable that came with your HTC Evo and it may be the one that you still use.


STOP USING THIS CABLE ASAP - IT WAS POORLY ENGINEERED AND MIGHT BREAK YOUR PSU OR COMPUTER!!!!



I can say this because this is NOT the first time I have seen this same thing happen. You see, this is my Boyfriend's HTC Evo MicroUSB cable and not mine. Mine had the same issue, except I caught it right when it happened as it burned my hand when I was getting ready to plug in my phone at work 3 weeks ago!


This Cable was not engineered properly because of the MicroUSB Connector Chosen. Instead of using a proper MicroUSB Cable Mount style Connector as seen in the picture below, they went with a panel mount/board mount hybrid connector (cheapest as it uses board mount parts) as seen above.


What happens is that since the connector shield/metal outside part is not secured beyond two small points, any movement of this shield can cause a temporary dislodging and have the GROUNDED shield touch the 5V power line on the USB cable. Most Modern laptops and desktop computers put out between 500-1000ma of current at 4.5-5.5V which means that you could be having as much as 5.5Watts burning through those cable lines and melting the crap out of some rubber as in this case. This would not have happened is HTC had decided to go with the larger isolated and secured connector or if they simply had chosen to use a Hard ABS plastic instead of flexible rubber to secure a metal part (ga-'duh?!).


What this can Harm:
- Burn out the Power Diode for your USB on your Laptop/Desktop making that port useless (did not burn out my BF's Thinkpad as it is fuse controlled)
- Burn your fingers/hands as it did to me causing a blister.
- Burn out your USB Receiving Chip on your laptop/desktop
- Burn stuff ( a lot of us have a bunch of papers right next to your computer).

Why this matters:
No way in H3LL is HTC going to pay to fix your laptop or build you a house or pay medical bills. They will likely redirect you to the company that designed and manufactured the cable which is likely very hard to sue in the US.

Spend some money on a nice BlackBerry or Motorola or basically any proper cable. $5 for peace of mind is worth it.

I am not a MatSci or Mechincal Engineer (only a Computer Engineer), but dear Lord tell me that at least an Industrial or Manufacturing Engineer looked over this before they sent it out the Door! *Likely Not based on Information Shown*

This issue seems to just be happening now. 9-10months into ownership. I am not saying it will happen to everyone, I am just alerting you to the definite possibility. I mean just look at the rest of that cable, it looks like the day you got it!

I don't think that this would have anything to do with Evo microusb ports going bad at all, that might just be a contact wear/ air moisture / board flexing problem. I know that my Evo sometimes can be a bit sensitive to getting it right, but my BF's Evo port is like new and locks like a beaut.

The reason why this is happening is the shield gets in contact with the power pin which cannot happen while your phone is connected.

The other construction on the cable is well done, but the steel shield on the MicroUSB end just isn't well designed for that rubber casing (which is was probably not designed for in the first place). It really does not take much flex on the micro-usb connection to make this happen. I have offered to buy all of the HTC cables like this from people I know at work to get a good test set of these. it was pretty easy to make it happen to a Co-workers cable by flexing the micro-usb area (rubber) till it let a little spark and started to heat up. However, he could plug it in again and have no problems. Its just that the rubber flexes too much and simply leaving it plugged in at your desk it could flex from gravity.

Talked to a Sprint store rep yesterday and a lot of people bring back that cable for being faulty, but he did not know the reason. Apparently people just say "it's broke" and then the rep gives them a new one.