The USB-C port has become a defacto connectivity standard for modern devices, largely supplanting the ugly mess of barrel jacks and micro USB connectors that once cursed us. While their reliability is good, they don’t last forever, and can be a pain to replace in most devices if they do fail. However, a new part from JAE Electronics could change that.
The problem with replacing USB connectors in most hardware is that they’re soldered in place. To swap them out, you have to master both desoldering and soldering leads of a rather fine pitch. It’s all rather messy. In the interest of satisfying the EU’s new Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), JAE Electronics has developed a USB-C connector that’s easier to replace. Rather than being soldered in, the part is simply clamped down on to a printed circuit board with small screws. As the part is torqued down, small gold-plated contacts are compressed into pads on the PCB to make the necessary contact.
The connector is fully compatible with USB 4 version 2.0. (Don’t ask us how they number these things anymore.) It comes in single and dual connector versions, and is capable of USB PD EPR at up to 240 W (5A/48V). The part does have some drawbacks—namely, the footprint of the metal-shelled part is somewhat larger than most soldered USB C connectors. Whether this precludes its use is very much an application-specific matter for product engineers to decide.
In any case, if you find yourself designing hardware with heavily-used USB C ports, you might find this part useful. It’s not widely available yet, but some parts should be landing at Mouser in coming months. We’ve explored some of the ways USB-C connectors can be fouled and damaged before, too. Sound off with your opinions on this new part in the comments.
Thanks to [James] and [Nath] for the tip!
Soldering was invented precisely because old clamp-style connections tended to fail and cause fires. Once again the EU is solving problems that it created, just like USSR did in 1933.
I hope one day people will rise and murder everyone who supported EU. I want to see blood flow, smashed heads on the pavement and children of their supporters executed by crushing them with buldozers or tracked excavators.
Gloria Christi! In damnatio via Europae!
I have not ncountered problems using barrel connectors in 40 years.
The opposite is true for USB connectors since introduction of Micro-USB.
I’ve had plenty of barrel connectors break.
The barrel connectors for ASUS laptops in the late 2010s/early 2000s were notorious for failing.
As in it was virtually guaranteed after 3-4 years.
Agreed as a laptop repair tech the failure rates of barrel jacks is barely less than USBC if at all
All cheap laptops, not just the ASUS branded ones.
Other manufacturers as well.
It’s the nature of a $199-299 laptop/Chromebook.
All corners are cut.
You know it going in.
If it isn’t the power connector, it will be something else.
Battery, SSD, key switches, screen hinge, wiring through hinge (aluminum!), backlight…
Every penny pinched. Crap.
Same as new houses, 50 year life of cables in tension slabs isn’t really an issue…I digress.
What did you expect at that price point?
A laptop that plays with your balls when you’re being productive?
Million dollar idea, being thrown away like nothing…(What could go wrong?)
So have I, and they also go intermittent or higher resistamce.
“They” should just get some brains and design a bigger type c port. The full size usb 2 ports practically never wear out, though I suppose you could still break one by hitting the inserted plug (but they are much stronger). They also don’t jam up with dust as easily (and are easier to clean if necessary).
Both audio and power. Hell, I’ve replaced like 3 of the same power connector on the same Dell XPS laptop years ago.
I routinely have: when plugging in, many create a transient shortcut, so I avoid them whenever possible.
At least USB connect power before connecting data.
I´m also not using textile-isolated cable and Bakelite connectors or wood + ceramic power outlets anymore…
You never encountered one that is so oddly sized that it is impossible to find replacement when the original power brick is lost? Or never destroyed device that can’t handle reversed polarity and doesn’t bother to mark somewhere that it expects center negative connection? Or requires very odd voltage (like 7.2V) and doesn’t work with less and releases smoke with more? Or one that expects AC on the jack (because it creates negative voltage using that internally)?
I remember well mobile phones before mandated micro-usb – each jack was intentionally different size and complete unobtanium. After that it was apple and everybody else, before that it was one phone = one charger.
The problem was not the reliability of barrel connectors, it was that everyone had their own size. And in at least two occasions, I’ve had versions with the outside sleeve being positive, which was just swell when one was for a vehicle application (public safety)
my buddy has an adapter pack for barrel jacks, about a dozen diff jacks. It was handy since most laptops were/are all 19V. His family was not allowed to touch those adapters for fear of frying something.
Makes you wonder why Apple doesn’t use a USB-C connector with the data and power lines reversed eh.
Think of the fun and smoke.
Yes, the micro usb jack was designed by demons. While rated for 10x the contact life of the usb mini, the usb micro would generally break off the pcb long before the contacts wore out .
Yeah what’s with that anyway, why does that connector seem so hell-bent on detaching?
Holding prongs on the cable and surface mount connector (no through-hole pins to hold it)?
I made a good few quid out of replacing the barrel jacks on older Porsche designed laptops about 20 years ago. The slightest knock or yank ripped them out of the PCB really easily and they weren’t fixed to the case either like most laptop ones were at the time. I’ve also replaced others there the centre pin broke and where the side springs wore out.
Granted I’ve had more trouble replacing usb ports, but only because their traces were so much smaller and they’re less anchored to the PCB and the case in general due to their size so it does happen more often but still not all barrel jack connectors are created equally, the same as usb connectors.
As for anecdotally, I’d say Ive seen it happen to usb more over the years, but maybe that’s because the usb devices are so much cheaper, and they’re not usually anchored to the PCB as well as barrel jacks are and usually they’re not mounted to the case as well (most older barrell jacks were strain relieved by a mounting point on the electronics case) and less care is taken in tripping up over cables or of the device itself.
A list of people that would buy a Porsche branded laptop is valuable (suckers with money).
Find a marketer that specialized in rich idiots and sell that list for a few more quid.
The biggest problem with barrel connectors is sorting through your box of 40 slightly different ones trying to find the one that fits.
This. Thank you.
I’ve had a ton of barrel connectors fail, largely from a force (often gravity) operating on the end of their little lever arm. I’ve had the cable, the plug, and the jack each fail in their own ways. Always because they were abused by like hanging off the end of a table with 3ft of cable length hanging on them, or occasionally from interference with something else (a wall, a pocket, etc). And the same problem with 1/8″ headphone connectors, too.
And i haven’t had any microusb or usb-c connectors fail in years. And why not? Because i learned my lesson from destroying barrel connectors and i employ just enough care when setting up my charging station to make sure there’s hardly any weight hanging on the lever arm.
Basically all connectors these days have a long lifetime if you treat them well, and they all fail if you treat them poorly. And well vs poorly is the same for just about all connectors.
I’d suggest you are little too optimistic there – the old barrel jacks in most devices are even to pretty significant abuse and high cycle count durable and reliable – as a rule they are tied to the casing of the device mechanically, through hole to be really well anchored to the PCB and have a comparatively huge area of contact to transfer just the power and ground.
Where the USB connectors, especially with the crazy power limits and pin count USB-C and USB-PD has worked up to now is trying to send massively more power than you tended to see on barrel jacks down a few really really tiny pins stuffed into no space right next to all the data pins, and the USB connectors are almost never tied to the casing, and often not even through hole just SMD…
So learned your lesson or not on weight against the lever arm they are more vulnerable to minor loading and have way more potential sources of failure. Plus being that single cable solution you are cycling it more often! So while USB-C tends to be rated for a good sounding cycle count (and it is genuinely impressive on that score) I’d argue it should be only counted as 1/2 to maybe 1/4 of that count in comparison – so many times you’ll be cycling the connector to attach that USB flash drive, card reader, display etc not charge/power the device and as the modern devices have largely removed all the ports in favour of a tiny count of USB-C you can’t even share that wear around very much!
You’re talking about optimism and hypotheticals. I’m not. I’m just saying, i stopped breaking all cables when i learned good habits. And i was breaking them left and right when i had bad habits. And the technology ultimately made no difference, the determinative factor empirically is habits. (sample size = me times all my devices)
I use the ones that screw together with a captive threaded ring on the plug and threads on the jack. They can take plugs with or without the ring/nut.
Your barrel connector also has at most 3 pins or so.
And like the other comments I’ve also had numerous issues with barrel connectors over the years. I still remember early 90s devices that decides center-negative was a good idea…
9 out of 10 times, it’s the cable that fails and is usually easily replaced. It’s when the connector that breaks inside that irks me. In all my life, I’ve never had the original A or B go bad but I’ve had many worn out mini, micro, and C. Also I’ve replaced a few HDMI ports. It seems the smaller the pins, the more easily they wear out and fail.
The most obvious motivation for Apple switching to the “magsafe” connector on their laptops is overreaction to the notoriously high failure rate of the previous generation of Apple barrel connectors.
Not USB-C but Mini-HDMI, wasted a portable display that way. Such a shitty connector for the way too stiff cable, to be widely used in that product category.
I’d argue USB-C is actually on that score equally bad, at least for the cables actually able to do the full fat USB specs, heck even just faster than USB2 spec speeds with higher end current capacity tend to end up rather too stiff for a connector so small and with such poor retention to be reliable in use…
Mini-HDMI is perhaps more likely to break, but it is in my experience at least also vastly more likely to just work properly when it isn’t actually broken. USB-C as a rule tends to be annoying and inconsistent in use, but probably not actually broken broken…
So, lets talk about why I think this will not be implemented in common consumer electronics.
The assembly process is a pain in the ass, you can hardly fully automate this. Compared to the regular USB C connector that can be slapped onto the PCB with a PnP this is way more complex.
The bottom part has to be placed and somehow secured in place, while the top part is placed (both sides of the PCB has to be worked somewhat simultaneously) then you need to screw them instead of soldering. Way more technicality is required for a higher price and an arguable gain.
I am all for right to repair, but whats next, a screw mounted resistor?
I was getting a glued in laptop battery replaced (didn’t trust myself to do it anymore) and I noticed the shopowner had about 10 xboxes and playstations in for repair. He told me that 95% were HDMI or USB failures.
I think it is nice that a manufacturer has made an effort to design something with the intention of easy replacement.
The hobby / less skilled manufacturers can adopt USB-C more easily this way so maybe the hobby market can happily adopt this aproice and make it standard, just like they did with the ESP’s.
Connectors wear by usage, resistors(if properly designed) don’t.
It’s also more expensive to make, needs tight tolerances for the screw hole and screw to align properly, and the PCB needs to be drilled with tight tolerances (expensive) and the space under the USB port can’t be used so phones with space constraints will be difficult. It’s also much wider.
Maybe a USB port could be placed inside a socket (daisy chain connectors) so that you can lift out a damaged usb port from the outside without having to replace then socket. That way you don’t compromise the phones IP rating either and you don’t need to unglue the layers that usually make up a phone.
True it will cost more to make, but the “tight tolerances” that you mention are trivial and have been for the last 30 years. To be fair, you’ll never see this in a phone, due to the size. You’d see this in larger products that use USB-C for power or charging and the screws will likely be part of what holds the PCB in place, so no real impact to manufacturing.
Replaceable wear surfaces does make sense… But I think I agree that a plugged in USB passthrough, designed to be contained within the device so it doesn’t need much of a protective case beyond that needed to allowance searching and removal, and support the exposed female connector, might be a simpler solution. The square of a disappointing lifespan should be a more than adequate lifespan…
(Aka, why replace the sports bottle when you just need a new sippy cap?)
Commercial phone PCBs are already drilled with hilariously tight tolerances, plenty accurate for this application. If they weren’t the thousands of microvias and via-in-pad wouldn’t be possible.
And thousands of phones would have off-centered LCD, causing a few rows or a few columns to go missing under the bezels
BS. it´s already a while that many electronic products are fully assembled by machine. Take a phone for example. And phone are full of spring-loaded contacts. For speakers, antenna ….
This part can without doubt be mounted by a machine. No sane connector company in 2026 would design a connector for high-density electronic that wouldn’t. And i doubt this part would be significantly more expensive than similar parts.
Not really – the bottom part is not needed and a correctly machined part of the metal case can serve the same purpose. The connectors already in most cases tend to be screwed in for rigidity or the pcb has to bs screwed in anyway, so from manufacrurability point of view, this adds exactly one extra step – placing the top part – when assembling the product.
The resistor in theory should last longer than any other component in your electronics, and in regular use it is not being worn down, so a screw in resistor is just stupid. But the USB/HDMI/DP connectors that are likely to be cycled multiple times, have a big heavy and often very stiff to actually manage the data rates cable hanging off them…
Also in most cases even the tiny annoying SMD resistor can be soldered with just a soldering iron and steady hand – the USB-C connectors on the other hand are frequently hot air rework only, a trickery process with greater equipment demands, so even most HAD readers probably can’t replace a USB-C connector, but a resistor probably don’t need anything other than perhaps to order in the right size and resistiance value…
I suspect actually this connector will be barely if any extra cost in mass production assembly – the same screw that holds the PCB into the device can also hold the easier to replace connector onto the PCB once you design your product to use it. Meaning added complexity and steps to use it are basically nill as the case everything must be screwed into anyway can be designed to be the other side of those connectors and it all be done exactly the same as they are now in the final assembly stages. The only question is how expensive is one of these connectors should it be really mass produced to become the default – if you can make a single device for a similar cost with or without and know for sure that the connector part will be the correct footprint for everything else you are making for years to come you can order bigger cheaper lots with much less shipping and handling costs etc.
pcb’s in laptops are always mounted with screws anyway, often close to were the connectors are, so embedding the lower parts in the case body is trivial. and making a double usb c connector with a screw in the middle is also easy. I don’t see a problem.
and phones? phones should be thicker, not thinner. moar battery space, better to hold on to and general better ergonomics.
Good for hobbyists, USB-C connectors are difficult to solder by hand, especially the full-featured ones.
Agreed, though there is a through hole version that is slightly easier. i wouldn’t attempt it myself though as the pitch is too fine. I have noticed that there’s at least two different through hole usb c ports with different pcb pinouts and no visible way to identify them.
Therefore practicality demands a standard.
I have seen a lot of mechanical keyboard pcbs scrapped because of a failed usb c port. the better designs use a breakout pcb, so that can be replaced instead of everything.
Not that I’m looking for any HaD-related fame but I wonder how the tips line works if multiple people submit the same tip (I submitted that one maybe 10 days ago). In any case this connector is not for every use case but is a step in the right direction ; I’m hoping for its price to goes down to hobbyist price and that big companies like laptop manufacturer will adopt it and buy it in volume.
You may not be looking for it, but you’ll get it anyway!
If we get multiple tips on the same topic, it’s often hard for the writer to find them all, and usually they’ll just thank the tipster they saw. So in those cases, people can go un-thanked, and that sucks.
So, fixed. :)
Hehe thanks Elliot, I’m glad I haven’t pute my website here otherwise it would have crashed under the sudden load of the HaD induced fame aka the HaD effect ; )
It costs an order of magnitude more than a solder-on connector does.
should’nt that be USB 27b-6?
“couldn’t even turn on the kitchen tap without filling out a 27b/6. Bloody paperwork. Huh!”
Very solid entry into “the right to repair”.
I´m awaiting one with a “no glue” policy for “change battery” process. Customers don´t care if the product is .1″ thicker.
Dell uses something similar on the USB C cable in some of their docking stations. Very easy cable replacement.
We have a Lenovo Thinkpad E14 currently waiting in a repair shop for a motherboard replacement after a colleague yanked the power cable and the laptop afterwards refused to charge. Also, he tried other chargers which might have made things worse but – how could it have killed the motherboard? Power connectors are in my experience the most vulnerable part of a laptop, yet they seem to have designed this thing to be so easily destroyable. And we contacted two shops, one of them the official Lenovo service.
I still don’t understand why apple’s magnetic “ripaway safe” connector never got mass adoption. It seems perfect to me. Probably a cost thing, but I’d pay a few more cents to not have to replace boards later on.
I’ll likely use these in my projects since as mentioned above usb-C is almost impossible to put down with a soldering pencil. I’ve been sticking with usb-micro since usb-mini cables are getting harder to find.
I love it too but it’s fundamentally more expensive, and apple’s specific implementation is garbage for all the regular apple reasons.
They patented it and refused to license the patent.
Sony had a magnetic power connector on their phones and told Apple to ‘come at them’.
Obsolete there too.
Phones must be C.
Wouldn’t it be easier to just add a second USB port?
No problem with sustainability as gold is an inexpensive industrial metal with unlimited supply.
You know those contacts on PCBs that look kinda golden? That’s because that is gold. The one use gold has is in electronics. Most quality PCBs have golden contacts. So if you use a different connector, you’ll likely still use gold for the pads.
Have you ever even heard of electronics? Contacts are commonly gold coated but don’t worry the layer is very thin which is why you can buy e.g. inexpensive headphone jacks with gold plating.
I do not think any manufacturer will spent additional money and devote additional space to make a device repairable. As long as the device survives its warranty period, they are done caring about it amd actually hope it fails at that point.
I’m wondering about the market for this. What manufacturer wants to build a repairable product when they can cheapen out and use the typical frail connector? It seems to defeat planned obsolesces and what manufacture wants to be a device that doesn’t need to be replaced because the USB-C connector became “janky”?
Sure, on high end professional equipment like top-of-the-line oscilloscopes that are meant to be maintained.
But a big markets like phones and gadgets are looking for cheap, cheap, cheap. And having a part prone to failure making something nearly disposable seems to be better for the bottom line.
what manufacture wants to be a -> what manufacturer wants a
A better solution is already implemented in many devices – the USB connector is part of a sub assembly board that can be replaced by swapping a FPC/ribbon cable and a couple of screws. Seems to be the common way in many cell phones.
The ad doesn’t mention anything about water resistance of the newfangled USB port. Several USB ports of current smartphones are rated water tight. A feature I’d like not to jeopardize with a new connector design.
Subtle rickroll…
What does this provide that the Framework swappable ports doesn’t?
It will fit in a cellphone. The Framework ports are at best USB C dongles, and the USB C ‘ports’ they provide would just be ~1″/25mm extensions. Which yes, could in theory be replaced. In my opinion users are way too hard on ports and Apple had a more robust port with lightning. Albeit proprietary and initially expensive.
Universal Modular Design for parts that wear out is a consumer centered approach everyone should support. Period.
We all know that for years large corporations have fought right to repair laws because they want you to spend money on a brand new device. Some companies have adopted an ethical approach. Do any of you know the best ones I ought to look into? I know Framework is one.
In practice? Just like with cars get a Toyota Corolla, trucks get an F150. Just choose a laptop manufacturer that has made themselves the de facto standard (because the volume they ship means repair parts are available) and has decent documentation. Lenovo T or X1 lines come to mind. Also consider staying 2-6 years behind new, so you can enjoy the sweet spot between performance and depreciation. I just picked up a T16/P16s with a Ryzen 6850u and 32GB soldered DDR5 6400 for around $300. No SSD and it had a bizarre crashing bug that seems to be fixed with a BIOS update thumb drive easily downloaded from their support website (which doesn’t mysteriously delete itself . . . like HP’s website.)
Am I crazy for thinking the connector should be threaded? Or will we be getting soldered in threads?
Interesting idea, I guess I need to know what USB 4 2.0 is (Honestly 10GBps and DP 4k60 would work for me)