Tikbro Micro USB Cable Tested

eug on 07/10/2014 - 01:37
Last edited 07/10/2014 - 01:38

We all know how popular Tikbro micro USB cables are here. They are advertised as 24AWG cables, but those of us who have bought some have noticed that it looks thinner than their old 26AWG cables, and many other USB cables.

I needed a donor cable to build a USB jig to test my Xiaomi 10400mAh power bank so I decided to cut up one of my Tikbros.

I measured the thickness of the internal power wires and am glad to report that they really are 24AWG.

The data wires are 30AWG. I would have preferred slightly thicker data wiring, but it seems to work.

Here's a photo of the internal wires

For those who are interested in how it's measured, you first use a micrometer to measure the diameter of an individual strand, convert it to mils (not mm), square it, and multiply by the number of strands. That is the CMA, or circular mil area. You then look up a table like this to get the AWG number.

In this case it was 0.14mm which is 5.51181102 mils with 17 strands, bringing the CMA to 516.461. That's actually thicker than 24AWG, but taking into account my micrometer's accuracy and the circle packing problem, I would consider it 24AWG.

Hope that helps someone. Hopefully they can fix the weak-plug-head problem now.

Electrical & Electronics

Comments

  • elusive on 07/10/2014 - 06:06

    This is great news, thanks (and it does reflect voltage-drop test results, as expected).

    I suppose the only question left is how good the cable-connector connection is (and how good the connector itself is). That could introduce quite a lot of resistance if done improperly. But that's probably not the case.

  • highon2str on 08/10/2014 - 08:06

    Thanks for doing this, can appreciate what you have done - some useful information there. Be interested to see what you find with the Xiaomi powerbank, I've recently bought one too!

    Just comparing it with a similarly specced Advan powerbank, the outputs are similar however with the same cables, the Xiaomi appears to take a much faster (1.6A) charge as compared to the Advan (0.6A). As a result, the Advan takes almost a full day just to charge up, albeit the batteries will probably last longer than the Xiaomi at this slower charge rate.

    • eug on 08/10/2014 - 12:15

      0.6A to charge 10,400mAh? What were they thinking? :)
      The Xiaomi does take in more current. I've noticed it depends on charge voltage too. I'll do up a new post shortly!

    • eug on 12/10/2014 - 22:09

      BTW, I've posted it in the Xiaomi thread. It can take up to 2.1A when charging, if the charge voltage is high enough.
      https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/162476?page=2#comment-2297…

  • jzdhgkd on 09/10/2014 - 21:36

    Great! Thanks for letting us know =)

  • zeckem on 27/11/2014 - 01:19

    Thank you, it's great you did this for all of our benefit as well.

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