I can’t agree about the USB plugs - I mean, it is definitely a step up from things like old IDE ribbon cables where you could attach it correctly 100% of the time, but only connect it correctly 50% of the time. And you have to reboot to find out whether you had it right.
The complaint about USB is that you have to try plugging it in and sometimes try again turning it over. Thing is, even if you had a sata cable (they look like L shapes), because all the ones I’ve seen are black, and attach to black sockets in a usually dark case, I still have to turn them up and over half the time.
Hermaphroditic connectors - good idea, but couldn’t you then plug a power supply into another power supply?
There’s one widely used genderless power connector-- the Anderson PowerPole. PowerPole connectors are available in a range of sizes from 15A up to hundreds of amps. They’re basically the standard method for connecting batteries to industrial equipment (you’ll see them on virtually every electric forklift, for example). Smaller versions have been adopted by amateur radio organizations worldwide to insure interoperability during emergency operations. Good stuff. They don’t work the way Jef Raskin suggested, probably because his suggestion requires extra contacts, but they do work well, and the contacts are shielded.
BTW, “genderless” is a better term than “hermaphroditic” for the PowerPole. Hermaphroditic connectors have both male and female contacts. All PowerPole contacts are the same.
Oh, one more thing; being able to plug a power supply into a power supply can be good or bad depending on the circumstances. Ham radio operators find it convenient to use PowerPole connectors on battery packs because you can plug a radio into a battery, or plug the battery into the power supply to charge it, or plug the radio in the power supply that charges the battery. You can even plug one battery into another to distribute some charge if you need to get two separate radios working.
But you do need to be careful not to plug a power supply into a power supply. Ah, well.
Weiland have a cool set of plugs / sockets / connectors.
Strictly speaking, the actual metallic connector part determines whether something is a socket (female metal bit) or plug (male metal bit)
Weiland have patents on things that LOOK like plugs - but the sticking-out plastic male parts actually sheathe FEMALE connectors, so they are in fact a socket. This is used widely (especially in lighting) for supplying power to fittings with a flush component which has holes to accept the MALE plastic bits but with pins inside (Male) to insert into the sheathed FEMALE parts on the end of a flying (and electrically live) lead.
As far as I know, all electrical standards demand that live electrical connectors are female. This is why what I describe above has what looks and mechanically functions like a plug on the end of a flying power lead, but is electrically a socket.
I used to deal with a marvellous bit of kit which was a 2-pin connector capable of 16A, and only about 12mm wide and 6mm deep. They were hermaphroditic, meaning you could connect two identical components to each other. The mail (pin) connector was sheathed inside a deep socket, and the female connector was sheathed inside a long plastic, um, male sticky-out-bit.
They were used lots for 12V connections, but I think they were rated to 300V or more. I WISH I could find one on the web to reference… they’re out there somewhere!
(btw - I used to work for Sylvania as a production engineer introducing new products to manufacture. All this is from memory, so it’s probably about true if not perfectly accurate!)
I can tell you that there are MANY good hermaphroditic connectors out there, and that the only reason for using weird fittings is so that the manufacturer can ensure you don’t accidentally charge your mobile 'phone from the 3-phase supply from your solar-powered whatever.
Imagine that corner of your house where you charge your mobile, and plug in your laptop, and charge your electric toothbrush and your 3,000,000 candella flashlight and your Canon EOS… if all the connectors were the same you’d be in seven flavours of **** most times you charged anything at all.
Even when you DO get it right it can go wrong - my MoBo went pfffft at work today when the 12V ATX supply burnt out on the motherboard - due to insufficient contact for the current. Oh joy.
So, what’s the moral of all this? Generally, we have a galaxy of connectors to ensure you use the right cable ( =correct power flavour) into the right device.
OK, there are some crazy things on mains voltage power leads, but this is almost entirely caused by old varying standards across the world. It’s also ever-so-slightly caused by idiot designers, but not by good designers. 'nuff said.
differentiation of connectors among differing voltages and amps is mostly a safety issue. humans are careless by nature, lazy by design, and love to get free shock money by lawsuits at the drop of a hat. all those various adapter plugs i see at Radio Shack and others amused me until one day i tried to put 12 volts into a 5 volt device and smoked the gadget. my lesson learned, i understand why those are made so vastly different. 120vac is a diaster waiting to hapen with hemaphroditic types. standard power cords are best. most power supplies are usable 120 or 220 vac in most new equipment. switching power supplies seem to be very accomodating.
Actually, I’ve seen many of those (connector on the right in the first picture). IBM Compaq/HP especially have used them for their notebook AC adapters for a number of years already. Lately I’ve seen that Wyse thin client devices are also using them. Wyse actually ship a power cable with one standard connector (for the monitor) and one “clover” connector. I’m not sure if the term “clover” is even official, but that’s what I’ve heard people call it.
The Type-C connector standard went from concept in July 2013 to finalized spec on August 12, 2014. While the new connector may bear striking similarities to the size of the USB 2.0 Micro-B connector used on many smartphones today, and the reversibility of Apple’s Lightning connector, USB Type-C was driven by rapidly evolving product industrial design requirements.
“The initial start of this was getting to thinner notebook PCs,” said Saunders. “In fact, this was driven by 2-in-1s and other new platform designs where the product was going to get so thin that the USB Standard-A connector [the one commonly found on systems today] was too big. That’s what drove this, not the phone.”
… which is only now becoming somewhat dominant in the market as a universal connector type and evolution of the USB standard. Here’s that first early image
Only thing to be careful with is that the cable becomes significantly more important:
Are all USB C cables the same? (No). What can USB C do that older USB cable types can’t? (A lot more but it also depends on the cable). Can a USB C cable damage hardware? (Potentially).
I’ve seen sockets on iPads and cellphones nearly destroyed by people trying to push a too small connector into the sock… and bend the pins in the socket. Even those connectors - with an ever-so-slight bevel and one side being slightly shorter the other (think get out the magnifying glass slight) - have to be put in using adequate lighting. Half the time, my first try plugging one of these in, it’s upside down and I have to reverse this. And this was in 2020! (Happy New Year, everyone! (2021)). A few people have asked me to check out why their device wasn’t charging. It turned out as they would wrestle trying to get these dinky plugs into the socket, with all the wiggling trying to “hit the hole” and hopefully have it right side up, they’ve flexed the wires inside the cable at the plug that one or more broke internally. A simple swap with a new cord fixed the problem… until the same thing happens again.
A better design - maybe a curve on one side of the plug and a pointed side on the other would simplify that a lot. (<-|) How could one mess up something like that?
With the USB cables, the best thing they could do to improve it is not to have the entire plug black or whatever color, but have a colored circle, dot, or anything with a different color than the plug. Colored side up. For vertical sockets you would only have to figure out which “side” is “up” and you’re all set - unless you have a short memory.
