First non-intro post here, cool to see attempts at reviving forum culture, specially In India! Because sadly most of the internet penetration happened here after much of the Internet social landscape consolidation had already happened.
I want to rant about a tiny thing that's wrong in something ubiquitous but somehow still quite unnoticed among the hobbyists somehow.
TP4056
This is so ubiquitous that I don't think I need to talk much about this, A cheap and linear li-ion/lipo charger IC with almost everything needed to safely charge such batteries. Have been using this since middle school I believe and broken more than I counted for
. In the beginning used micro-USB ones, worked great more or less, often forgot about it, just stocked a dozen or so with me whenever needed, then type-c ones popped up, they worked great too, then I changed my phone(and therefore the charger/cable) and wait it doesn't work now suddenly? even if both phones/chargers/cables were type-c? this can't be right I thought....USB TYPE C
Although kinda made to make things simpler, type-c, oh boy oh boy has this complicated things.
if you have a usb c to usb c cable, now you don't have that master and slave topology dictated by connector type as it used to, both can be either now.
for example, if you connect that cable between two phones, what should happen? who should supply power, who should accept? are both devices trying to put power on the rails?
forget that, even simpler, you connect the phone and charger with c to c and now your phone gets power (DUH!?)
but again what if if you connect two of those similar chargers with a c to c cable, who supplies the power? do they fight each other? what if there's a potential difference coz of tolerances?
even without Power Delivery (PD) usb C requires the device who wants to accept power to identify itself as such by pulling down it's cc1 and cc2 pins down via 5.1k resistors
which surprise surprise, most if not all of the tp4056 modules with type c don't have one!
and for some reason you can get a tp4056 module with current protection and type c for 14INR (current prices at robu)
but a simple type c breakout board costs more than that everywhere, for example at robu it costs around 49INR
and I've no clue why, even if I could get the c breakouts, I would make the modification for crucial projects myself
sigh!
Indian startups
So recently some products got listed on some Indian hobbyist online marketplaces
among them was a tp4056 module with USB type C
and surprise surprise neither does it have those cc1 and cc2 resistors! SIGH!!
and my question is broader than that, related to the general trend I see everywhere for the past decade,
why do our Indian startups insist on just copying the Chinese with slightly different shape or color when they can be more..... so much more ...... than yet another Indian "startup" who offer no better, no different, no cheaper product/services than what we already had and whole prospect or motto of their existence revolves around "but we are make in India"
anyway that was my rant, decent chunks of it were my opinions not facts and therefore treat it as such and maybe state yours too!
or even better if you find some product on Indian online marketplaces that solves some or all of the issues listed above at a reasonable price, let me and other know as well ; )
