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Non-Reversible USB-C

What???

I’m a big proponent of the USB-C Lifestyle™️. All my chargers are USB-C, and so are my electric razor, dremel and screwdrivers. So I, of course, sneer at savages with their USB-A ports, where they have to guess which way is the correct one (and always choose the wrong one first, of course). But this summer, while helping some young family members with their pedalboards, I encountered something that shocked me to the core:

A USB-C usage where you had to put it in the right way for it to work. 🤯

Explained in the caption.
The boys working. I wanted them to make it themselves so that they knew all about it.

A great power supply for the price

If you’re searching for budget options for power supply for guitar pedals, I’d really take a look at what Thomann offers in their Harley Benton line. Some better options, are

  • this one, with an integrated power brick (like all of these options) and 10 isolated ports,
  • this one, with 12 ports and power-thru,
  • and this or this for a some quick expansion, with very flexible voltages.

But the one I went for to the boys, was this neat one: 👇🏻

It has 9 isolated ports (one of them with adjustable voltage), and is battery powered and chargeable via USB-C. Not only can you play without plugging into the wall, you can also use it to charge your phone or whatever. So it’s actually a power bank! Really cool.

The Harley Benton Powerplant MK II. Sleek and black, with a power button and adjustment button on the top.
The backside, showing the ports described above.

Providing access

I prefer building boards from Temple Audio, so that’s what we built. We fastened the power bank under the board, but in a way so that the On button was accessible through one of the larger holes:

The pedalboard from the top. He has a custom AB switch (temporarily there), a Polytune 3 Mini Noir, T-rex overdrive, T-rex Replay Box, Mosky Amp Turbo (overdrive), Steller EQ+Compressor and M-Vave Dig Reverb. You can see the powersupply beneath the board, with the button poking through.
I helped him put together a decent starting board – with some very cheap (and some gifted) pedals.

However, I also wanted the USB-C port to be accessible, so I bought this thing from Redco:

A USB-C passthrough thing for a D plate mount.

The idea was to mount this on the side of the board, so they could just plug into that to charge (with) the power bank. So the chain is like this:

  1. USB-C wall charger
  2. USB-C to USB-C cable 1
  3. Panel mounted passthrough (Redco)
  4. USB-C to USB-C cable 2
  5. Powerbank

However, it first didn’t work (even though we used the original USB-C cable), so I thought maybe the passthrough didn’t pass enough power through. But then I saw this on the Redco website:

Be advised, certain USB-C cables require specific positioning to allow data and/or power to flow through.  If you are not getting the expected connection, rotate cabling on rear or front and check again to correct the issue.

What!?

Since when was that a thing?

And guess what: Flipping either USB-C cable 1 or USB-C cable 2 made it work. So everything kind of works as expected – but only one way! The USB-C cables have to be the same orientation… It’s just like USB-A, but worse because it can actually plug in the wrong way. 🤷🏻‍♂️

How did we let it come to this?

Do I have to re-evaluate my entire lifestyle?