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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 10 2019, @04:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the so-much-for-port-a-bility dept.

Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4

The Raspberry Pi 4 was announced two weeks ago as a major new upgrade to the line of cheap single-board hobbyist computers. The Pi 4 featured a faster CPU, options for up to 4GB of RAM, and a new, modern USB-C port for power delivery. The Pi 4 was the Raspberry Pi Foundation's first ever USB-C device, and, well, they screwed it up.

As detailed by Tyler Ward, the Raspberry Pi 4 has a non-compliant USB-C charging port and doesn't work with as many chargers as it should. Thanks to the open nature of Raspberry Pi (even the schematics are online!), Ward was able to discover that Raspberry Pi just didn't design its USB-C port correctly. Two "CC" pins on a USB-C port are supposed to each get their own 5.1K ohms resistor, but Raspberry Pi came up with its own circuit design that allows them to share a single resistor. This is not a compliant design and breaks compatibility with some of the more powerful USB-C chargers out there.

[...] The Pi 4 is not the first high-profile device to get the USB-C spec wrong. The Nintendo Switch also has a non-compliant USB-C port and has issues with certain USB-C cables as a result.

After reports started popping up on the Internet, Raspberry Pi cofounder Eben Upton admitted to TechRepublic that "A smart charger with an e-marked cable will incorrectly identify the Raspberry Pi 4 as an audio adapter accessory and refuse to provide power." Upton went on to say, "I expect this will be fixed in a future board revision, but for now users will need to apply one of the suggested workarounds. It's surprising this didn't show up in our (quite extensive) field testing program."

Probably not a dealbreaker (the cables that do work are cheaper), but could be annoying.

Previously: Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Launched


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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:52PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:52PM (#865374) Journal

    the Pi's have been full of hardware design flaws since the very first one (no real power protection circuitry, no proper USB protection circuitry, backpowering the Pi by plugging in a USB device, ethernet-over-USB, the list goes on and on

    Because they are designed for children to use.

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