I like carrying around one USBC to C cable for my devices, but I don’t want to carry around a USBC to A cable for other ports. Is there a dongle that takes a USBC cable and converts one end into USBA? I need it to support at least 15W.
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First thing’s first: all such adapters should be considered evil by default. The only way to make a compliant adapter is with active circuitry in the adapter essentially providing an entirely standalone USB controller interface.
With that being said, here’s an adapter which does exactly that. Back when I researched this topic in October I found that the linked adapter is essentially the only one of its kind on the market right now.
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Male A to Male C is abolutely possible. It’s the Male A to Female C adapters which are evil. There is no pinout mapping that will turn an A host into a “real” C host and that’s exactly what a Male A to Female C adapter purports to do.
In any case, if you know what you’re doing then all bets are off the table. Hack away freely because at the end of the day it’s all just copper and bits anyway. With that being said, anyone who knows what they’re doing does not require my permission to… vague gesture know what they’re doing.
Yeah, those are CONSIDERABLY bigger than USB A to USB C dongles
Like I said: in order to do it the non-evil way you need to cram in an onboard USB chip. Female USB-C from a Male USB-A plug-in is explicitly not possible to implement in a spec-compliant manner because of the pinouts.
You can brute-force a smaller passive adapter like those online but it’s a devil’s bargain. Nobody targets these janky adapters when designing products. USB-C things will just break without any rhyme or reason because you’re fundamentally breaking the hardware contract and “lying” about the capabilities of your port.
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No, it’s because I read an expert opinion on the subject: https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/m7rcu5/any_reliable_usbc_female_to_usba_male_adapters_yet/grducjr/
If you hate Amazon you can buy it on the CableCreation website instead.
EDIT: that monoprice adapter isn’t even active lol!
FYI essentially all adapters with a usb-c female connector are non-compliant.
When people talk about USB-C potentially damaging devices, it is because of non-compliant adapters, chargers, cables, etc.
So just keep in mind that while the risk may be minimal depending on your use-case, these adapters can be dangerous and risk damaging your devices.
FYI essentially all adapters with a usb-c female connector are non-compliant.
Can we take the word of a random internet stranger without even SOME context or explanation?
Here’s an article that mentions it
As a rule of thumb, most adapters with a female USB-C socket on them are non-compliant.
You can also look at the USB spec yourself
USB Type-C receptacle to USB legacy adapters are explicitly not defined or allowed. Such adapters would allow many invalid and potentially unsafe cable connections to be constructed by users.
USB A doesn’t have Power Delivery, the highest it can do is 15W for USB 3.2 and 4.5W for USB 3.1 and older.
But these dongles exist, I bought some and they work for charging (I haven’t tried to use them for data)
Ugreen do this type of adapter
You can’t really get 15 watts from a USBA port, but this may be the adapter you want: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4175
Seems there only in rose gold at the moment, I got a pair of silvers last year and they work exactly as you’d want them to work.
Syntech USB C Female to USB Male Adapter https://amzn.eu/d/gD9GVsX
