From: Manuel Dejonghe <manuel_at_dejonghe.de>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 22:12:47 +0100

On 1/26/06, Holden Bonwit <hbonwit04_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> I, also am looking to charge this way. I realize that I may hve to make my own cord, and am happy to do that. I have plenty of USB ends (hacked off other devices for various reasons) but am curious if there's a name or a standard for the plug (positive or negative tip, inside and outside diameter, etc.).

Hi, the different kinds of USB-plugs are
- the type: A or B,
- the size: mini or normal
- the direction: male or female.

The normal USB-cables are USB-A-Male with USB-B-Male, wheter it can be
mini (ondio, iriver, usb-hubs) or normal (printer for example,
usb-hubs as well, ...).

Normal usb-extension cords are of course USB-A-Male on USB-A-Female.

The A-type plugs are reserved for the host side where B should be the
device-side.

What archos did on the hard-disk-players (some cheap digital cameras
do it as well) is forbidden following the standard: They put a
female-A into the device. This plug should be reserved for hosts and
extension cables to it.
If you interconnect two pc's with the cable that archos delivered, at
least one of the pc's will freeze/crash/reboot. It's NOT recommendet
to try it out.

One very special plug is the female mini-A iriver build into their
h300 for the external memory support. But it's completely compliant to
the standard.

hope that explains it a bit,
lImbus
Received on 2006-01-26